RICH LOWRY: The strange racial solidarity of Nikole Hannah-Jones

By Rich Lowry King Features Syndicate September 26, 2026 - 9:00 pm Nikole Hannah-Jones, a writer for The New York Times, believed she was advancing the interests of Black students when she chose to enroll her daughter in struggling New York City public schools for ideological reasons. In a lengthy piece for The New York Times Magazine, the prominent African American journalist described how that decision ended in disappointment. Hannah-Jones, known for leading the newspaper’s 1619 Project, argued that placing her child in underperforming elementary and middle schools would advance racial equity. She contended that it is unjust for so many White students to remain trapped in failing city schools, and that by sending her own daughter there—supported by her family’s financial resources—she could help improve the system for everyone. What began as a motivation rooted in a sense of responsibility devolved into what she later characterized as an instance of educational Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Her bright daughter fell far short of the academic potential she might have achieved elsewhere. Most parents who monitor their children’s progress and have the means would promptly withdraw a child from a school where lunchtime fights occur, homework is absent, administrators and teachers are frequently missing, and classwork goes ungraded. Hannah-Jones, however, persisted. By the time her daughter was old enough to comprehend the situation and urge her mother to transfer her to better schools, the girl still lacked proficiency in algebra despite receiving excellent math grades at the subpar institutions. Hannah-Jones ought to be angry at the adults who failed her daughter so severely, yet she remains aligned with them by depicting school choice as a racist hoax and lamenting a lack of resources. New York City officials, administrators, principals, and teachers who undermine the futures of young people are not White supremacists; many share Hannah-Jones’s political views, and a significant number are African American. One can either side with them and their narrow interest in shielding the school system from meaningful challenge, or side with the students. Hannah-Jones finds herself in a predicament similar to that of Black Lives Matter activists who once claimed it was “anti-racist” to protest the police. When those demands were met and law enforcement retreated, more White individuals died. In her view, it is supposedly “anti-racist” to keep everyone in chaotic, ineffective public schools—the victims being Black children who remain unaware of how little they have learned until it is too late. This represents an unusual form of racial solidarity. There is no doubt that schools face greater challenges when they serve a high concentration of disadvantaged students. However, the problem is not funding, as Hannah-Jones suggests. Research from the centrist Brookings Institution shows that high‑poverty, non‑white districts spend more per pupil than lower‑poverty districts, and that increased spending does not guarantee better outcomes. The Success Academy charter schools in New York City have demonstrated that disadvantaged children can thrive when there is a traditional combination of high expectations, strict discipline, and rigorous instruction—elements that the conventional public schools, hindered by a self‑interested, unaccountable bureaucracy, cannot provide. When she sent her daughter to failing schools, Hannah-Jones imagined herself emulating the pioneering parents of the civil‑rights era who escorted their children through hostile crowds to integrate whites‑only institutions. Those parents genuinely sought a better education for their offspring, whereas Hannah-Jones placed her daughter in dreadful public schools in the faint hope that she might be alright. If not, at least she had steered her clear of competitive schools populated by many White and Asian students. That, of course, was a misplaced priority. The well‑known observation holds that a neoconservative is simply a liberal mugged by reality. New York City’s public schools mugged Nikole Hannah-Jones, yet she still shows no inclination to press charges.