Butt Plugs, Nazi Marching Songs, and Oyster Farmers: A Unified Theory of Chicago’s Elite Private Schools

What Maine's prep-school-expelled former Senate nominee can teach Gold Coast parents about who gets a hall pass (and who gets excommunicated) 

I went on Wikipedia yesterday morning and read up on the (now former) Democratic Senate candidate from Maine: "Graham Cunningham Platner is an American political candidate, oyster farmer, and Marine Corps veteran." Oyster farmer. Marine. You have to scroll to find the ex-girlfriend who says he raped her, the other ex who told the Washington Post he repeatedly removed condoms mid-act without asking, the SS death's head tattoo he affectionately nicknamed "my Totenkopf" (most of us reserve pet names for actual pets), or the $75,000-a-year Connecticut boarding school lurking behind all that flannel. Wikipedia files this under "controversies," the way the Titanic's log filed "moisture."

Platner’s flannel shirts, it turns out, were always a costume. The New Yorker swooned over the "working-class" oysterman until the Free Beacon forced a correction revealing his house was purchased not with a VA loan, as he'd claimed, but with $200,000 from his Ivy-educated attorney father. He told a podcast his parents only sent him to Hotchkiss because the local public high school was unaccredited; the Maine Monitor checked, and it had been accredited since 1987. His campaign says he "misspoke,” which at progressive prep schools is flannel these days for "misinformation." 

But this is not really an essay about Platner. It's about the scoring system his defenders used — one where allegations get weighed not on evidence but on the politics and identity of the accuser — and about where that system gets taught. Which brings us, as most bad ideas in elite education do, to the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the accreditation, recruiting and progressive manners politburo (operating through regional "affiliates" and “firms”) that governs Hotchkiss, the school that expelled young Graham after a single semester of skipping class, along with 1,700 others, including Chicago's own Latin S, Francis W. Parker, and Bernard Zell. I once called NAIS "a kind of private-school Vatican." Fast forward, and I would now argue this statement is unfair to the Vatican, which at least publishes its catechism. NAIS put its Principles of Good Practice behind a password wall.

A tale of two accusers

Before we get to the progressive educational dogma plaguing Chicago’s elite private schools, it’s important to understand the Platner story in full (since they are tightly interlinked). The story starts with Lyndsey Fifield, a conservative who once worked at the Heritage Foundation, telling The New York Times that Platner, while they dated in Washington a decade ago, grabbed her hard enough to leave bruises, pulled her from a cab by the wrist, and once twisted her arm behind her back while blocking her in a room. 

A longtime friend told CNN Fifield had confided years before any Senate campaign existed that Platner removed condoms during sex without her consent. She handed the Times five corroborating friends. The paper called two, spent eleven paragraphs cataloging her Republican résumé, and announced it "could not corroborate" her story. (Rigor is expensive these days.) The campaign branded her "a lifelong G.O.P. operative." Bernie stood by his man. Ro Khanna flew to Maine to campaign with him days later. Fifield, watching her own abuse get repackaged as opposition research, wrote that she'd "resisted my conservative bias" to trust the Times and realized too late "this really was a setup all along."

Then Jenny Racicot went to Politico. Her account: Platner entered her home uninvited in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly said no — she told CNN she didn't fight back for fear a former Marine would become more violent, and that she'd stayed silent for years partly because she supported his politics and didn't want to be known as a rape victim. 

Within hours of publication, Schumer, Warren, Gillibrand, Sanders, and the Maine Democratic Party all demanded his exit, and the DSCC announced it wouldn't spend a dime on the race, checkbooks snapping shut in unison. Same man, same behavior, per two women who never met each other. But the first accuser held the wrong party card, so her story was a smear; the second held the right one, so hers was a crisis. If you wanted to design a laboratory experiment to prove that our institutions weigh the accuser's ideology before the accusation, you couldn't do better than Maine's last five weeks.

And where does one learn that accountability is a seating chart? In school. Specifically, in NAIS schools — where Chicago has been running the same experiment for years, with the same results.

The dean-o-phile precedent

Start with Francis Parker and the infamous butt plug incident, which I've had occasion to write about before and which, remarkably, has only improved with age. In December 2022, dean of students Joseph Bruno sat down for coffee with a man he believed was a fellow educator — at the NAIS People of Color Conference, of all places, where the faithful gather annually to be told which of them are the problem -- and cheerfully described Pride Week programming at his school: "They were passing around butt-plugs and dildos to my students — talking about queer sex, using lube versus using spit." 

The kids, he added, were "just playing with 'em, looking at 'em," asking how the devices worked, which Bruno called "a really cool part of my job." There was also a drag queen who passed out cookies and did photos.

If a teacher outside the NAIS ecosystem had been caught on tape saying any of this, he would have been escorted out before the coffee cooled (and likely been arrested). Parker's head of school instead instructed families not to "interact with" the video (the pedagogical equivalent of don't look directly at the eclipse), denounced the "deceptively edited" recording, and announced that the Board of Trustees fully supported "Parker's programming, the strength and inclusivity of our curriculum, and the dedicated and talented faculty and staff that teach it." 

The result? Bruno was recast as the victim of a right-wing sting. Right politics, right cause, hall pass issued. And a job retained (lube included). 

Promotion by portfolio

Or take Bernard Zell, the Jewish day school on the North Side, which reviewed sixth-grade teacher Johanna Thompson's public social media record — "Dear white men, please get your white man"; the declaration that white people's "equity talk is bullshit" unless they're willing to give up their "spot"; a retweet blaming America's problems on "Whiteness over democracy. Whiteness over safety. Whiteness over justice"

Plus a former student's account, reported by the Chicago Contrarian and the Daily Wire, of boys assigned extra cleanup duty as penance for historical sexism — and concluded the obvious: Promote her to run the DEI office. The way you'd make an arsonist fire marshal, given his demonstrated interest in the field. 

When the Daily Wire asked head of school Gary Weisserman whether any of this was appropriate, he served up a paragraph of mission-statement oatmeal about engaging students in "a program of rigorous studies" while "holding ourselves to the highest standards."

Which standards, he didn't say. 

Latin: where nobody gets fired (except the whistleblower)

Then there's Latin, which clocks in at over $50K per year for high school, where the March 2026 Boies Schiller Flexner letter to the trustees reads like an indictment with nicer letterhead. The bill of particulars starts with a child chased down and assaulted on the playground, with the school neither informing the child's parents nor disciplining anyone.

The list goes on. Bridget Hennessy, a teacher who rose to Dean of Students, engaged in crude sexual conversations with minors on a field trip and dared kids to lick Nutella off one another — no discipline; she was quietly "reassigned. And the board's own investigators at Quinn Emanuel somehow never got around to interviewing her, despite being reminded she existed. 

The festivities continue: male coaches in the athletic department texting students in violation of policy and bullying female athletes; one coach, per reports to administrators, putting his hands around girls' waists and demanding to review a female student's private photos on her iPad — he stayed on payroll. The female coach who reported the misconduct to leadership, including the school head? Rebuffed, her contract was non-renewed, after which she wrote directly to the Board detailing both the misconduct and the retaliation. So the trustees can't say they weren't told; they can only say they didn't care. 

And there’s more … a student shouting "run Jew run, there's money at the end" at a Jewish runner during a cross-country event: reported to the school, no consequences. A bullied boy who had a cafeteria knife tucked into his binder by his tormentors: Latin expelled the victim. And middle schoolers took up "Erika," the Wehrmacht's favorite marching song, twice in 14 months — Latin now has a Nazi-music recidivism rate, a statistic the admissions office omits while the school finds room for an infographic tallying which 46 percent of students count as "of color" per NAIS guidelines (even the census is outsourced). And for the completists: at last year's "Latin Around the World" parent association event, a display of Middle East countries somehow omitted Israel, prompting one of those we-are-deeply-disappointed letters that reads like it was assembled from a kit.

All of this sits atop the case at Latin's center: the 2022 suicide of 15-year-old Nate Bronstein, relentlessly cyberbullied — including a Snapchat telling him to kill himself -- while, per his family's $100 million wrongful-death suit, the school neither told his parents nor disciplined anyone. Two weeks after the Post reported Erika's encore this January, Head of School Thomas Hagerman resigned his $647,000 post for "health reasons," which is what we call it when the symptoms show up in a court filing. His predecessor, Randall Dunn, who presided over the Bronstein era, was recycled by an NAIS-affiliated search firm into a $960,000 job at Rye Country Day — from which he has since also resigned. In this ecosystem, failing upward is a service schools purchase, like Pollyanna's racial literacy training, at $1,750 an hour.

But at least Latin still upholds DEI standards from the NAIS textbook, affinity groups, social justice, preferential recruiting/hiring for minorities, restorative justice (i.e., different discipline standards based on race) and pin the horns on the Jew included. 

Viewpoint diversity be darned, ‘guvnor. 

Everyone keeps their job until they can't

Add it up. Bruno kept his job. Thompson got promoted. Hennessy got reassigned. The iPad coach stayed. The woman who reported him got fired. And Platner kept every endorsement — through the tattoo, the Reddit archaeology, the sexting, the conservative accuser — until a progressive woman said the same things and holding on became unbearable, at which point his party discovered principles the way a drunk discovers religion: Suddenly, loudly, and only after the crash. 

None of this is hypocrisy, exactly. It's the curriculum. NAIS's own parent-relations manual advises schools to categorize dissenting parents as "anxious," "incompetent," or "intimidators," and, should they persist, to "excommunicate" them. 

I take back the Vatican crack. It's growing on me.

NAIS, for its part, has responded to years of scandal decisively: It retired the People of Color Conference and relaunched it as "Gather,” rebranding its flagship progressive event with all the moral seriousness of Blackwater becoming Xe. Same speakers, same victim/oppressor ideology, same antisemitism. Just a new tote bag (handy for storing keffiyehs and stones to attack the Zionist imperialists in between struggle sessions).

So, parents, I have one question for the next admissions open house, right after the land acknowledgment and just before the wire instructions: what, exactly, would somebody here have to do to get fired if they have the right politics or tick the right demographic box at one of the schools? 

Take your time to answer. Graham Platner's endorsers needed until July to arrive at their conclusion. 

And a final hint, if you haven't figured it out, printed in letters big enough to read from the back of a middle school band room: The progressive DSA wing of the Democratic Party and Chicago NAIS schools run precisely the same playbook, and the playbook contains exactly one play: Treat people unequally, by design, and call it justice. In this elite world that Gal Saad describes as “suicidal empathy,” the accusers get sorted before the accusations get read, just as the Platners get endorsements right up until the wrong sort of victim becomes the right sort. 

In Maine, they call this a campaign. In Chicago, for $50,000 a year at Latin, they call it an education. After all, who needs a mass in a dead language (let alone a butt plug and lube from the rival school) when the congregation already knows how the indulgences work, and keeps writing the checks anyway?

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J.D. Busch attended a fine prep school on scholarship, which explains both this essay and his continuing refusal to fund a new athletic wing. His forthcoming book, Who Killed the Preppy, is a non-fiction investigation into the institutions that were handed everything and spent it on butt plugs, equity consultants and white woman struggle sessions.

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Notes

1. Wikipedia, "Graham Platner," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Platner (lede as of July 8, 2026).
2. Rape allegation (Jenny Racicot): first reported by Politico (July 6, 2026); see also "Jenny Racicot alleges in Post interviews that Graham Platner sexually assaulted her," The Washington Post, July 6, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/07/06/woman-alleges-graham-platner-democratic-candidate-us-senate-sexually-assaulted-her/; "Graham Platner faces growing calls to withdraw following allegation of sexual assault," NPR, July 6, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/07/06/nx-s1-5875431/platner-sexual-assault-allegation-maine-senate. Platner denies the allegation as "troubling, serious, and false."
3. Racicot's account of the uninvited entry, repeated refusals, fear of resisting a former Marine, and her stated reluctance to come forward because she supported Platner's politics: CNN interview as reported in "Woman accuses Senate candidate Graham Platner of sexual assault, he denies claim," WGME, July 6, 2026, https://wgme.com/news/local/report-woman-accuses-graham-platner-of-sexual-assault-platner-denies-claim-maine-politics-susan-collins; "Jenny Racicot claims Graham Platner assault was 'by definition' rape," The Hill, July 7, 2026, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5956288-graham-platner-sexual-assault-accusation/.
4. Nonconsensual condom removal (Lyndsey Fifield): "Ex-girlfriend of Graham Platner says he removed condoms without consent," The Washington Post, July 7, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/07/ex-girlfriend-graham-platner-says-he-removed-condoms-without-consent/; corroborating friend Emily Zanotti's account of contemporaneous confidences in "Former Graham Platner girlfriend describes alleged violence, which he denies," CNN, July 7, 2026, https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/graham-platner-lyndsey-fifield-allegations-invs. Platner's campaign calls the allegation "categorically false and politically motivated."
5. "My Totenkopf": Fifield to The New York Times, as reported in "Graham Platner denies an ex-girlfriend's report that he once twisted her arm, held her in a room," WBUR/AP, June 5, 2026, https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/06/05/graham-platner-ex-girlfriend-allegations-senate-campaign-maine. Platner denies knowing the tattoo's meaning and has since had it covered.
6. Hotchkiss enrollment, expulsion after one semester, and tuition: "'Working Class' Graham Platner Attended Elite $75K a Year Prep School Known for Famous Government Alumni," Washington Free Beacon, Oct. 23, 2025, https://freebeacon.com/democrats/working-class-graham-platner-attended-elite-75k-a-year-prep-school-known-for-famous-government-alumni/; The New York Times (Platner "stopped going to class and was expelled").
7. New Yorker correction on the VA-loan claim and the $200,000 loan from Platner's Ivy-educated attorney father: "Free Beacon Forces Correction From New Yorker's 'Vaunted Fact-Checking Department' on Graham Platner's Mortgage," Washington Free Beacon, https://freebeacon.substack.com/p/free-beacon-forces-correction-from.
8. Unaccredited-high-school claim debunked: "Claim that shaped Platner's private schooling explanation isn't true," The Maine Monitor, June 4, 2026, https://themainemonitor.org/graham-platner-private-schooling-claim-not-true/ (Sumner Memorial High School accredited since 1987; campaign says Platner "misspoke").
9. Fifield's allegations (bruising grabs, pulled from a cab by the wrist, arm twisted while blocked in a room), the Times' eleven paragraphs on her work history, "could not corroborate," and the two-of-five corroborating friends contacted: "Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall 'Unsettling' Behavior," The New York Times, June 5, 2026, as reported by WBUR/AP, supra note 5; "Woman who accused Platner of abuse blames NYT for claims being dismissed," WGME, July 7, 2026, https://wgme.com/news/local/woman-who-accused-platner-of-abuse-blames-nyt-for-claims-being-dismissed-maine-fundraising-sexually-explicit-messages-democrats-senate-race-republicans-susan-collins-tattoo; "Graham Platner ex-girlfriend: NYT twisted story on Maine Senate candidate," The Hill, June 5, 2026, https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5911722-platner-ex-girlfriend-new-york-times/.
10. "Lifelong G.O.P. operative" (Platner campaign on Fifield); Fifield's "resisted my conservative bias" and "set up all along" statements: "Ex-girlfriend at the center of Graham Platner's latest scandal says she was set up; he says she's a political operative," Portland Press Herald, June 5, 2026, https://www.pressherald.com/2026/06/05/ex-girlfriend-at-the-center-of-graham-platners-latest-scandal-says-she-was-set-up-he-says-shes-a-political-operative/.
11. Sanders standing by Platner after the Times report; Ro Khanna campaigning with him days later; and the post-Racicot collapse (Schumer, Warren, Gillibrand, Sanders, the Maine Democratic Party, and the DSCC's funding pull within hours): WBUR/AP, supra note 5; NPR, supra note 2; "Warren calls for Graham Platner to drop out over rape allegations," Fox News, July 7, 2026, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/progressive-dems-full-throated-platner-endorsements-haunt-rape-allegations.
12. NAIS as "a kind of private-school Vatican"; Principles of Good Practice moved behind a password-protected login; People of Color Conference retirement and "Gather" relaunch: North American Values Institute, Behind Closed Doors: How NAIS Quietly Controls Private Schools (backgrounder, Apr. 2026); see also M/R/Parker Consulting, JewsInSchool & Rose Bronstein, Holding the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Accountable for Antisemitism and Racial Discrimination in NAIS Independent Schools, memorandum to Rep. Tim Walberg, Chairman, House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Jan. 12, 2026, at nn.17, 65-66, https://bucketsoverbullying.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/NAIS-Accountability-for-Antisemitism-and-Discrimination-in-NAIS-Independent-Schools.pdf.
13. Bruno recording captured at the NAIS People of Color Conference; "passing around butt-plugs and dildos... using lube versus using spit"; "a really cool part of my job"; drag queen with cookies and photos: "Francis W. Parker School private Chicago school defends LGBTQ sex ed, tightens security after right-wing viral video," Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 9, 2022, https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2022/12/8/23500799/project-veritas-chicago-school-sex-ed-lgbtq-francis-parker; "Francis W. Parker school defends LGBTQ event after viral video," WBEZ Chicago, https://www.wbez.org/stories/a-chicago-private-school-defends-lgbtq-sex-ed-after-right-wing-viral-video/6436d6b5-3f20-4074-9482-5e48ebadb1a8.
14. Parker head of school Dan Frank's request that the community avoid "interacting with" the video; Board of Trustees statement supporting "Parker's programming, the strength and inclusivity of our curriculum, and the dedicated and talented faculty and staff that teach it": school statements as reported by Fox 32 Chicago, Dec. 8, 2022, https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/chicago-private-school-defends-dean-who-allegedly-passed-out-adult-toys-for-sex-education, and FISM TV, Dec. 12, 2022.
15. Johanna Thompson's promotion to lead Bernard Zell's DEI office; "Dear white men, please get your white man"; "equity talk is bullshit" unless whites give up their "spot"; "Whiteness over democracy. Whiteness over safety. Whiteness over justice" repost; extra cleanup duty for boys; head of school Gary Weisserman's response: "Tony Chicago School Promotes Teacher With History Of Outrageous Comments To Lead Diversity And Inclusion Efforts," The Daily Wire, June 2021, https://www.dailywire.com/news/tony-chicago-school-promotes-teacher-with-history-of-outrageous-comments-to-lead-diversity-and-inclusion-efforts, citing reporting by Chicago Contrarian.
16. Latin tuition ($47,000 annually): J.D. Busch, "Latin School of Chicago Head of School Exit Raises Questions About DEI-First Governance Models," Chicago Contrarian, Jan. 19, 2026, https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/latin-school-of-chicago-head-of-school-exit-raises-questions-about-dei-first-governance-models.
17. Playground assault with no parental notification or discipline; Bridget Hennessy's field-trip conduct (crude sexual conversations with minors; Nutella dare), "She faced no discipline," her reassignment, and Quinn Emanuel's failure to interview her despite repeated reminders; athletic-department coaches texting students in violation of policy and bullying female athletes; the coach who put his hands around female students' waists and demanded to review a student's private iPad photos and who "remained employed at Latin"; the female coach rebuffed by leadership including Hagerman, non-renewed, and her letter to the Board detailing the misconduct and retaliation; "run Jew run, there's money at the end" at a cross-country event, reported to the school with no disciplinary consequences; the cafeteria-knife incident and Latin's expulsion of the bullied student: Letter from Matthew L. Schwartz & Jacqueline C. Kelly, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, to the Board of Trustees of the Latin School of Chicago, Mar. 25, 2026, at 2-4, 6-7, available via https://latinschoolchicagoinvestigation.com/, https://www.scribd.com/document/1059858012/Latin-Letter-2 and https://www.scribd.com/document/1059859124/Schwieger-Complaint
18. "Erika" incidents: "Elite Chicago middle school embroiled in Nazi-music controversy for second time," New York Post, Jan. 3, 2026, https://nypost.com/2026/01/03/us-news/elite-chicago-middle-school-embroiled-in-nazi-music-controversy-for-second-time/; "Antisemitism festers at famed Chicago school -- including incident where some band members allegedly played Nazi Party anthem: parents," New York Post, Nov. 2, 2024, https://nypost.com/2024/11/02/us-news/antisemitism-festers-at-famed-chicago-school-including-incident-where-some-band-members-allegedly-played-nazi-party-anthem-parents/; BSF letter, supra note 17, at 6 & nn.1-2.
19. 46% "students of color" infographic and the NAIS-supplied definition of "people of color": Latin School of Chicago DEI materials, www.latinschool.org/dei (screenshot on file with author).
20. "Latin Around the World" parent association event and the display of Middle East countries that "failed to include Israel"; the school's "deeply disappointed" community letter: Letter from Thomas Hagerman (Head of School), Dara Milner (Board Chair) & Michele Khim (President, Parent Association) to the Latin community, 2025 (on file with author); see also BSF letter, supra note 17, at 6 ("the exclusion of Israel from international fairs and events").
21. Nate Bronstein's suicide; cyberbullying including a Snapchat message directing him to kill himself; the school's failure to notify his parents or discipline the students involved: BSF letter, supra note 17, at 2; Bronstein v. Latin School of Chicago ($100 million wrongful-death and anti-bullying suit); Buckets Over Bullying case summary, https://bucketsoverbullying.org/100-million-wrongful-death-anti-bullying-lawsuit-against-latin-names-a-whos-who-of-chicago-business/, https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/chicago-latin-school-suicide-lawsuit-nate-bronstein
22. Hagerman's $647K compensation and resignation citing "health reasons" within two weeks of the second "Erika" report: Busch, Chicago Contrarian, supra note 16; BSF letter, supra note 17, at 6 ("Within weeks of the public reporting of this second incident, Thomas Hagerman announced that he was stepping down... purportedly for health reasons").
23. Randall Dunn's placement at Rye Country Day ($960,000) via NAIS-affiliated executive search channels and his subsequent resignation there: Walberg memorandum, supra note 12, at n.37 (documenting NAIS-affiliated search-firm placements of administrators who left prior schools "under a cloud of controversy," including "Randall Dunn (Latin School of Chicago to Rye Country Day School)"); New York Post reporting on Dunn's resignation "from his $960,000 post," as compiled at https://latinschoolchicagoinvestigation.com/news/.
24. Pollyanna Inc. pricing (Racial Literacy Integration at $1,750 per hour) and Latin's equity-audit engagement: Busch, Chicago Contrarian, supra note 16.
25. NAIS Hopes and Fears guidance to categorize dissenting parents as "anxious or incompetent," "unresponsive," or "intimidator[s]," and to "excommunicate" persistent dissenters: Hopes and Fears: Strengthening the Relationship with Today's Independent School Parents, 1st ed. (NAIS 2021), at 101-111, as documented in the Walberg latmemorandum, supra note 12, at n.41.
26. Quinn Emanuel investigation deficiencies (approximately 30 interviews, almost entirely school insiders; one current or former family; no current or former students; Hennessy never interviewed): BSF letter, supra note 17, at 2-4.