Last week, I published an article about Trinity-Pawling School. The piece touched upon a collection of problematic issues facing my Alma Mater, namely how the school's all-boys system contributes to homophobia and sexism. I would classify the response as mixed. Many people disagreed with aspects of the article and became active in the ensuing discourse. Many people agreed with the article and did the same. These individuals showed a capacity to debate and discuss intelligently and constructively, and the school is better off for it.

But, of course, there were many who responded the way I expected. They brought forth no legitimate criticisms or points, simply reducing their voices to childish insults, laughable platitudes, and, at times, homophobic slurs. I read these internet tirades between yawns and sips of tea. They were not the people I intended to reach with the piece nor are they people whom I believe are capable of reaching. I have never seen use in debating intellectual topics in the company of those with natural aversions to reading. I do not intend to do so now.

Instead, the purpose of this "follow-up" article, if you want to call it that, is to respond to one very specific rebuttal of my original writing. The rebuttal, published in Trinity-Pawling School's student newspaper, The Phoenix, and penned by its current Head Editor, is a well-meaning addition to the discussion. As a former editor of the same paper, I have great respect for the staff, both student and faculty, who take the time (so much fucking time) out of their Thursday nights to make their voices heard. I love you and what you do.

That being said, the rebuttal piece is a factually inaccurate work that mischaracterizes not only the intentions of my original article but many of the things actually said in it. I have taken the time to address many of the issues and inaccuracies created by this rebuttal. While this piece serves mainly as a response to this rebuttal, it can also be seen as a clarification of my original piece's intentions.

Much of the Editor's response is intended to defend the validity of single-sex education, which I question, or more accurately attack, in my first piece. The author correctly points out that I fail to cite any studies when I make the claim that single-sex education, and particularly all-boys education, is not scientifically proven to improve the learning experiences of students. This is a point I will cede the Editor: by not including any studies, I weaken the argument and allow for an undermining of the piece as a whole.

However, the Editor's assertation that "there are multiple studies that have proven that single-sex education has increased scores for both male and female students" is both inaccurate and misleading to his readers.

Melinda D. Anderson, a journalist for The Atlantic, explains that the evidence used to defend the effectiveness of single-sex education is "sparse and insufficient." Additionally, Juliet A. Williams, a professor of gender studies at UCLA and author of The Separation Solution? states that, while studies do indeed exist that show single-sex institutions have higher test scores than others, no studies actually show a direct cause between gender segregation and improved learning.

The studies cited by the Editor do show an increase in test scores, but there are other factors at play in educational institutions that could also lead to these increases. For instance, schools that are single-sex tend to have smaller, more manageable class sizes, in addition to greater relationships between faculty and student. These factors are scientifically proven to improve learning, so when institutions that engage in these practices are compared to larger public schools that seldom do, then it goes without saying that you'll see an increase in test scores. This would mean that schools who do the same without the addition of gender segregation would similarly show improved test scores, and they have. The author claims to possess the scientific high ground in his defense of segregation, but he does so in ignorance of the differences between causation and correlation.

To put it in more concrete terms, a grueling study conducted in 2011 by the journal Science concluded the following: "Sex-segregated education is deeply misguided, and often justified by weak, cherry-picked, or misconstrued scientific claims rather than by valid scientific evidence. There is no well-designed research showing that single-sex education improves the students' academic performance, but there is evidence that sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimizes institutional sexism."

I am more than willing to debate the contents of my original article but if the Editor wants to argue about the science behind single-sex education, then he has no ground to stand on.

Evidence aside, if all-boys education is such a model as he claims, then why, of the top twenty rated boarding school in America, are only two of them all-boys? Then, of the top 152 colleges in America, why are zero of them all-boys? These numbers would suggest that all-boys schools aren't exactly leading the pack. Or the pride, for that matter.

The Editor continues to mischaracterize various statements of the original piece. He defends Trinity-Pawling by saying that at no point did the school "state that the female student is a 'hindrance' or 'detriment' to the male student." He similarly states, “It would be a fallacy to claim that modern day single-sex education has failed to be proven, or backed, as well as to claim that single-sex education is based upon hopes of disenfranchising or discriminating against the opposite sex."

To the first statement, never did I suggest the school "stated" that they viewed female students as hindrances. Such an accusation is absurd, and the fact that the Editor's reading interpreted the writing as so is equally absurd. What I originally stated is that by calling female students a "distraction" to the male (which they have done, quite literally, countless times) you effectively characterize females as hindrances and detriments. Instead of attempting to refute the actual point of the piece, the author strawmans the entire argument and instead refutes a claim that was never made.

Remember that term, "strawman," as it will come up again in the further discussion of the Editor's rebuttal.

In the second statement, the author claims it would be a fallacy to say modern day single-sex education has failed to be proven or backed. While his deployment of terms learned in AP Language & Composition (also a lasting theme) shows his confidence on this topic, the Editor should study the science he uses to back his own argument before making such erroneous claims. The author himself is making a fallacious statement if he suggests that single-sex education is backed, let alone proven, by actual science. Studies have shown that the addition of cited scientific materials to arguments makes them appear more valid, even if the studies cited do not even exist. The Editor essentially attempts to accomplish this illusion of validity, but anybody who takes the time to look at the actual science will quickly notice the man behind the curtain.

In the last part of this statement, the Editor also suggests that I said Trinity-Pawling, or any single-sex institution for that matter, is based upon the "hopes" of disenfranchising or discriminating against the opposite sex. This is another example of misunderstanding evolving into the strawman argument: I never said the school intentionally supports misogyny, homophobia, or anything else of that nature. I do not believe or claim that the headmaster of T-P sits in his office, twirling his mustache, and drafting plans on how to perpetuate institutionalized sexism.

Rather, the original piece was arguing that homophobia and misogyny are the consequences of the school's policies, not the intentions of them. In the same way one might fight against gay marriage because they believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage, Trinity-Pawling uses single-sex education because they truly believe that it improves the learning of their students.

While single-sex education originally became popular in America during the 1950s as a result of anti-integrationist backlash and "racist panic" after Brown v. Board of Education, I do not suggest that these are the lasting intentions of modern single-sex education. While T-P may not have any actual hopes of disenfranchising anybody, the suggestion that the school can, therefore, do no harm is borderline comedic. Trinity-Pawling doesn't need to draft a statement that officially declares their support for institutional sexism in order to play a role in it. You don't need to be a member of the Klan in order to be racist. Words and actions have consequences outside of their specific intentions. You could call it "reading between the lines," which I would've thought the author had learned during AP Language & Composition.

In his continued defense of gender segregation, the Editor states that Trinity-Pawling and other schools like it "based their institutions upon knowledge that both boys and girls have been proven to learn and develop in different neurological ways." It is a little ironic that the author, after his criticism of my piece, fails to cite any studies to back up this rather audacious and broad claim. This may be, perhaps, that the author would have trouble actually finding any studies that say this.

As explained quite plainly by Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist with the Chicago Medical School, comprehensive studies have unanimously concluded that no scientifically significant differences in regard to learning exist between girls and boys (though I reinforce that binary through grating teeth). Studies the author could cite, had he given the time, that might suggest otherwise are instead conducted on adults instead of adolescents. Studies actually conducted on adolescents clearly show that the gender of children does not result in differences in how they learn. This means that there is no actual neurological backing to support teaching boys and girls differently, let alone teaching them in entirely separated and isolated institutions.

Eliot continues in her study to conclude, "beyond the issue of scientific misrepresentation, the very logic of segregating children based on inherent anatomical or physiological traits runs counter to the purpose and principles of education. Instead of separating children in the name of 'hardwired' abilities and learning styles, schools should be doing the opposite: instilling in children the faith in their own malleability and promoting their self-efficacy as learners, regardless of gender, race, or other demographic characteristics."

As Lise Eliot states perfectly, the idea that segregation would be the solution even if there was neurological evidence saying girls and boys learn differently doesn't follow. Scientific rebuttal aside, the supposed solution through the separation of people based on their differences is one that's antithetical to learning and knowledge as philosophical concepts.

One issue I brought up about all-boys education that the Editor completely neglects to even mention is my point about trans students. Even if the argument for single-sex education is completely backed both scientifically and logically (which it certainly is not), the exclusion of trans and gender neutral students, or, to put it more broadly, the school's enforcement of traditional gender norms, is not justified by any means. Perhaps the author neglects to address this issue because he hasn't given much thought to the feelings of these individuals. I can't blame him: I didn't either while at T-P. But after working alongside trans and genderqueer students at Wesleyan, I have come to understand that the feelings and experiences of these people, just like my own, are incredibly important. There is room to make these students comfortable within coeducated systems, but there is simply nothing that can be done within single-sex, and more explicitly all-boys institutions.

On the recent events that propelled my writing of the original article, namely the suicides of people within Trinity-Pawling student body, the Editor says that "to claim that the institution was the reason behind our brother's suicide is a broad and nonfactual claim." I would agree with the author, but there's one major issue: I never made this claim.

In the editor's defense, many readers made this misinterpretation. The quote referenced is: "If we were the brotherhood we said we were, would this kid still be alive?" Nowhere in this quote or the discussion of this event do I blame the institution for any student's death. As someone who suffered from depression while attending T-P, I would never be so reductionist as to point fingers at administrators and blame them for a person's death. To do such a thing would be a morbid exploitation of tragedy, and the suggestion that I made such a claim is its own morbid exploitation. The Editor should no better than to make such uninformed accusations.

Furthermore, if I am assigning blame to anyone, it isn't the school, but myself, as a member of the "brotherhood." As a support system, it is not absurd or out of line to question our legitimacy when one of us commits suicide. In fact, it is the exact reaction we should have had: what could we have done better to stop this? If we refuse to ask these questions then we become complicit in the mental suffering of others.

Next, the Editor defends those who came to Pawling so they could attend a football game but neglected to attend the service by stating "not everyone grieves the same."

But this isn’t about "how we grieve," it’s about paying our respects. There is a difference between Facebook posts and taking the time to show your face at a service. As students, as members of a “brotherhood,” we should take action to show at passed student’s funerals, especially if we had already made the effort of coming to town for a game. He is not explaining how people grieve here, he is freeing them of their culpability in that grief.

As one of this student's former classmates, as somebody who stayed up at night wondering if there was something else we could have done to stop what had occurred, I too feel this grief he describes. But to excuse the absence of students, and his own absence, using this claim is not only an upsetting perversion of what grief is, but it is, in its own, the complete gutless leadership that has led the "brotherhood" to become the fallacy it is today, to co-opt one of the author’s favorite words.

When the Editor asserts that this example is a "fallacy of composition," he fails to address the size of the school and the class at hand. When the school is only 300 boys in total, and about ten of them show to the funeral, and several more than that instead make the effort to watch a game across town, those numbers aren’t lost in the “composition” he talks about. During my freshman year, a student of color was savagely attacked by a group of masked students who were later apprehended and expelled. The students who took part in the beating were only a small group, so theoretically one could make the same argument that this event has no bearing on the state of the school. I would argue, the same as I do with respect to the funeral, that the actions of a small group of students within a small school do, in fact, relate to larger issues at hand.

When you attend a school of such a small nature that praises the connections between its students, one would think that these connections are strong enough that a funeral would take a precedence over a game, but maybe that’s personal opinion. Maybe I “grieve differently,” and I took the lack of attendance at the service too seriously.

While I disagreed with the majority of the Phoenix Editor's points of rebuttal, it was the closing of the article that I found the most egregious.

In its closing, he writes: “We must work together to identify and solve the issues at hand. One of our brothers was deeply hurt, and Trinity-Pawling School can only survive if its community is able and willing to work together to face, and destroy, the issues that came to attack him."

It would appear that the author completely misunderstands the point of the original piece. He knows that I argued the systems and institutions of the school have resulted in my own experiences and the experiences of many others. After all, it's why he spent the majority of his rebuttal attempting to refute my claims about all-boys education and "the brotherhood."

But then in his attempt to play the role of the politician, he appeals to those who may feel excluded or targeted by the institution, the very one he defends. Simultaneously in this appeal, he describes these experiences only in the frames of my accounts, which suggests that these are the experiences of a single individual, which they are not. The author cannot call for unity in the school, defending the systems that perpetuate and create the sexism and homophobic tensions we see and then also call for solutions to those tensions. It is inherently contradictory.

He asks the student body rhetorically to "destroy" the issues that came to harm minorities on campus, but if he were true in his call for destruction then he would be united in the cause to coeducate the school and tear down the pillars of hypermasculinity, heterosexism, and misogyny that the institution is built upon.

The purpose in this rebuttal is nothing more than to preserve the status quo of Trinity-Pawling. I am criticized in my article for failing to present enough direct solutions, but the author of the rebuttal suggests nothing; he doesn't even indicate where to start. He defends the core systems of the school that cause the harm so many students feel, and tries to simultaneously call for an end to that harm. This rhetoric is pathetically paper-thin and easy to see through. The student writes the article in the name of "intellectual dialogue" and effectively suppresses any that could've existed. The article is a call for blind subservience to the institutions that have troubled so many for so long. In Renouncing the Brotherhood, I write on the dangers of complacency in the regard of the oppression of others, and this article and the Editor's response are an attempt to preserve that same complacency.

I do not pretend to have all the answers. I am not an administrator at T-P, so I can't get down into the numbers and put forth a definite plan on how the school can fix itself. As many have unnecessarily reminded me in the wake of the first piece, "social change doesn't happen overnight." But I, or any other students who feel a similar way, aren't asking for radical change to take place overnight. We ask that the school actually put words to action. Stop talking about why we need to "destroy" the issues that attack minority students and instead create actual plans to change the systems that allow such issues to survive in the first place. Trinity-Pawling has always liked drafting ambitious plans with deadlines. The mission of coeducation is no different: T-P needs to take a hard look at itself and, after extensive planning and deliberation, pick a concrete deadline to transition into coeducation by.

The author of the rebuttal makes the enlightened statement that Trinity-Pawling is not a "utopia." But nobody is demanding utopia. We don't expect the school to be able of completely removing homophobic, sexist, racist, or classist narratives from its student body. What the school is capable of changing are practices that endorse and perpetuate these narratives.

We do not demand paradise, just a school that accepts all people into its educational environment, despite race, gender, sexuality, or class. To some, this is too much to ask. Fine, but in that refusal, you lose your right to act surprised or offended when students refuse to donate money or even associate themselves with the school.

The final line of the author's rebuttal is "we can only survive if we are able to defend every one of our brothers." Here, the Editor is spot on. But if the school, in its attempts at survival, refuses to change, then the issue is not only that the school won't survive.

The issue is that the school shouldn't survive.

"For once in your life take a stand with pride. I don't understand how you stand to the side." - Lin-Manual Miranda

Works Cited

"The 50 Best Boarding Schools in the U.S." The Best Schools. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

"America's Top Colleges." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Anderson, Melinda D. "The Benefits and Limitations of Single-Sex Education." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 22 Dec. 2015. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Eliot, Lise. "Gender Segregation and Civil Rights." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Eliot, Lise. "Parents Misled by Advocates of Single-Sex Education." Springer.com. N.p., 18 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Halperin, Diane F., Lise Eliot, Rebecca S. Bigler, Richard A. Fabes, Laura D. Hanish, Janet Hyde, Lynn S. Liben, and Carol Lynn Martin. "The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling." Science. Science Magazine, 23 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Kimmel, Michael. "Opinion: Don't Segregate Boys and Girls in Classrooms." CNN. Cable News Network, 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.

Williams, Juliet A. The Separation Solution?: Single-Sex Education and the New Politics of Gender Equality. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.