A popular teacher at Gwyneth Paltrow’s former private school says she has been left destitute and unemployed after being assaulted by the principal of the school’s woke daughter.
Anne Protopappas, 62, taught girls’ language arts for decades at the $62,000-a-year Spence School on New York’s Upper East Side. She was fired in February by the school’s principal, Felicia Wilks.
Protopappas claims she was fired after Wilks’ daughter, Sarai, asked her to explain “why the French banned the hijab,” sparking a debate over the country’s ban on headscarves in public schools.
The teacher says her comments during the conversation were considered “inappropriate.”Islamophobic.
“The implication was that I wasn’t DEI enough,” Protopappas, the multilingual child of Vietnamese parents, said in a piece her former student wrote for The free press.
‘Ironically, since I was fired, it seems like a white privilege to teach French at Spence.’
Anne Protopappas, 62, claims she has been left destitute and unemployed after being fired from Spence School following a hijab row with the headmaster’s daughter.
Principal Felicia Wilks was appointed in July 2022 with a salary of $381,500 and told students to “love learning so much that you should seek it everywhere, even among those who irritate you and disagree with you,” during their graduation ceremony last year.
The prestigious school next to Central Park counts Oscar winner Paltrow and Emmy Award winner Kerry Washington among its alumni.
It is considered one of the inspirations for the successful series Gossip Girl, which revolves around the adventures of wealthy students in Manhattan. Some of the filming for the series took place outside the building on East 91st Street.
Spence states on her website that “the academic journey is an adventure of enthusiasm, rooted in inquiry and the desire to dig deeper and pursue challenge and complexity.”
That idea proved too much for the headmaster’s daughter in her French class, according to a lawsuit filed by Protopappas.
She claims she gave a clear answer to a question about hijabs last May, pointing out that the ban only applies to public schools in France and is in line with the country’s strict separation of church and state.
When the principal’s daughter invited her students to discuss the pros and cons of the ban, “she unexpectedly exploded in anger and responded in an unusually emotional and intensely personal manner,” the lawsuit said.
Wilks criticized how “unfair the French law was to her friend from her old school on the West Coast who wore a hijab.”
The next day, Sarai “displayed even more anger, as if she was irritated,” the complaint states.
Kerry Washington and Gwyneth Paltrow are among the former students of the posh private school on New York’s Upper East Side
Actress Emmy Rossum and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s daughter Georgina are also among the Spence School’s notable alumni
“Her classmates were embarrassed and confused by what seemed completely unusual and out of proportion,” the article adds.
The concerned teacher faced resistance from her colleagues when she sought help for the girl, eventually being dragged into a meeting with the school principal, who told her that “some students” found her comments “Islamophobic.”
Board member Gabriela Baron accused the school of amplifying “hate speech against white women”
“Overnight I felt demonized, discredited, disqualified and delegitimized,” Protopappas told The Free Press.
“It was Orwellian.”
In February, she was fired after being told her teaching style was “unfair, confused students and discouraged them from speaking up in class” and that her teaching style “did not meet Spence’s standards and expectations.”
The elite school has repeatedly angered parents over the progressive stances taken under former headmaster Brodie Brizendine.
In 2020, billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson threatened to cut off donations to the school over “anti-white indoctrination” in the curriculum taught to his two daughters.
The following year, board member Gabriela Baron wrote a scathing open letter after her daughter was among the eighth-graders forced to watch an episode of Ziwe Fumudoh’s Showtime comedy Ziwe, calling the episode “an example of hate speech against white women.”
“If a similar video had been shown mocking ANY OTHER racial group, Spence, the faculty, the administration, and the entire community would have been in an uproar,” she wrote. “Racism is racism.”
Tuition is $62,000 a year at the elite 130-year-old all-girls school next to Central Park
And broadcaster Megyn Kelly was among the parents who pulled their daughters out of church because of “growing far-left indoctrination.”
“This is a place we love. It breaks my heart that they would do this,” she posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Wilks succeeded Brizendine in July 2022 and earned a salary of $381,500. He was present at the meeting in which Protopappas was fired.
The former director of diversity at the Friends School of Baltimore told her incoming students to “love learning so much that they should seek it out everywhere, even from people who irritate you and disagree with you,” at their graduation ceremony last year.
Protopappas’ resignation has shocked former students of their beloved “Madame Proto,” who thanked her for organizing school trips to China and Japan, coaching the debate team and setting up a language and culture institute.
“I can’t remember another teacher I ever had in high school who wanted me to be so aware and versatile about topics,” Madeleine Singer told The Free Press. “He didn’t just explain the facts, he asked us why.”
“Her resignation is not only the loss of an outstanding teacher, but also a setback for the values of critical thinking and respectful dialogue that she so passionately promoted,” added Sarah Rose Shannon.
Now the beloved teacher fears she has been blacklisted by the liberal academic elite after applying to 15 “sister schools” without a single interview.
“I was just trying to find another job and didn’t want to cause any controversy or start a lawsuit. But strangely enough, all the doors suddenly closed, so I had no choice but to start this procedure,” she said.
‘My financial situation is absolutely disastrous. I have nothing at all, and I have started to draw on my pension, which is of course also a disaster, because I can no longer contribute to it, and it is not much.
“I honestly have to worry about food and paying my credit card debt, which is only increasing. I may have to file for bankruptcy.”
Announcer Megyn Kelly is among the parents who pulled their children out of school
Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson and his wife Jenny (pictured in 2017) have accused elite Manhattan girls’ school Spence School of “anti-white indoctrination”
But she said she is not the only one betrayed by the school she loves.
“I have done nothing but serve this school,” she said.
‘I never imagined that I would pay such a high price for practicing and teaching the skill of free and responsible expression and independence of mind at a school that I had chosen 25 years ago for its open-mindedness.
“It’s about the students. Spence does not honor the voices of the students,” she added.
‘The teaching profession is under attack. Independence of mind seems less and less safe.
“How can we have a democracy if we don’t learn that skill?”