
CV NEWS FEED // Key policymakers and other prominent opponents of school reopenings are regularly facing criticism for living a double life — privately breaking lockdown rules and even arranging in-person learning for their own children.
“Eric Feigl-Ding … quietly moved his family to Austria in the Fall so that his kid could attend school in person,” tweeted journalist Jordan Schachtel this week. “Yet Feigl-Ding has been a relentless proponent for school closures here in the United States.”
“Feigl-Ding reportedly played a role in convincing schools to stay shut down in the DC metro. He then left w his wife & kid for Austria,” Schachtel continued. “He’s apparently regulary back & forth for biz and the like, but his tweeting deliberately misleads audience to believe he lives in USA.”
To show “how publicly opposed Ding is to school reopenings,” Schachtel cited a tweet from this week, in which the celebrity health expert dramatically decried school reopenings as “dangerous” to children’s health.
Not An Exception
Ding is only the latest example of many prominent people with direct ties to school lockdown advocacy (and even policymaking) who, in their private lives, live more freely than they would prescribe for others.
After leading efforts to close down area schools, Berkeley teachers union President Matt Meyer was sighted last month dropping his own child off for in-person preschool learning.
In December, 2020, Chicago teachers union executive Sarah Chambers was criticized for photographing herself in a Puerto Rico vacation spot within hours of publicly advocating school lockdowns.
As CatholicVote recently reported, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has sharply criticized the authors of America’s school stoppages:
“The blunt fact is that it is Democrats … who have presided over one of the worst blows to the education of disadvantaged Americans in history,” Kristof [wrote]. “The result: more dropouts, less literacy and numeracy, widening race gaps, and long-term harm to some of our most marginalized youth.”
Kristof also argued: “Rich kids going to private schools glide on through life mostly unaffected….”