Moving Beyond Rachael Sacks

Over the past few weeks, the Free Press has closely followed the frenzy surrounding Rachael Sacks, the 20-year-old Lang student whose blog post on Thought Catalog caused a tabloid field day last month. Her article, “I’m Not Going To Pretend That I’m Poor To Be Accepted By You,” garnered international attention from tabloids that wanted to portray her as a snobby and over-privileged girl.

The fiasco sparked some legitimate conversation about privilege and class, but it caused mostly offense and anger among New School students, who held her up as an example of something wrong in our society. In the comments section of our own website, students left nasty remarks, and on our Facebook, students mocked her dress and writing style. One student wrote that she reflects the “rotting core” of our society, and others joked about eating her heart out. And instead of recognizing it for what it was—immature bullying—professors referenced Sacks in faculty meetings and invoked her in classroom discussions.

We on the Free Press believe that it is dangerous and inappropriate for the faculty and students to single out a particular student in this manner, for behaviors, which are symptomatic of broader cultural problems.

Many have been influenced by the rumors of the usual rabble-rousers—the New York Post and the Daily Mail—which put words in Sacks’ mouth and have blown her opinions and views out of proportion. Instead of addressing the larger issues involved, many at The New School have resorted to conversations that dissolve into gossip and fail to connect our general anger to simmering frustration over our increasingly inequitable society.

While discussions about power, privilege and class are of critical importance at The New School, we do not have the need, nor the right, to isolate a specific student to address these issues. We, of course, have every right to disagree and discuss the issues brought up in her article. But within an official school-sanctioned forum, it is the faculty’s obligation to keep the discussions focused on education and to avoid pointing fingers at students for expressing their views.

We at the Free Press believe it’s time to move beyond Rachael Sacks. Many already have, but in so doing, some have also lost sight of the real systemic problems of our society, in which our anger was initially rooted.