Did Someone Say Fake School?

T.M. Landry, a school in small-town Louisiana, has reached national attention for propelling its underprivileged black students to elite colleges. The exciting part is, however, that the school cut corners and doctored college applications.A video of 16-year-old student opening his Harvard acceptance letter went viral. It had over eight million views. Soon, other students from T.M. Landry had viral acceptance videos from Yale, Brown, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell and Wesleyan. The success stories from the school were showered all over the internet, including prominence on the “Today” show, “Ellen” and the “CBS This Morning.” Everybody around the world looked at this school as the “perfect Cinderella story.”

In turned out to be that in reality, the falsified school transcripts, made up student accomplishments and mined the worst stereotypes of black America to manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity. As students and teachers from New York times were interviewed, they claimed that the Landry’s also fostered a culture of fear with physical and emotional abuse. Students were forced to kneel on rice, rocks and hot pavement, and were choked, yelled at and berated. Everybody who associated with the school was brainwashed, including parents, students, teachers, and even college admission officers.

This portrait was finally revealed after journalists dug deep and uncovered the truth from the 46 interviews they gathered. They interviewed parents of former Landry students, current and former students, former teachers, and law enforcement agents. The New York Times also examined student records and court documents showing that Mr. Landry and another teacher at the school had pleaded guilty to crimes related to violence against students. There were supposedly multiple witness statements claiming that Mr. Landry, the owner and founder of the school, hit and threatened children. The case, however, was closed, as The Breaux Bridge Police Department decided it was outside of its jurisdiction. When reporters continued investigating, the Landrys denied falsifying transcripts and college applications, but Mr. Landry admitted that he hit students and could be rough. “Oh, I yell a lot,” he said. He highlights to his black and white students that they need to compete against one another because that is how the real world work, he said, according to New York Times.

I interviewed some students from Wheeler High School to see what their opinion was on it. “If you think about it, the school had somewhat good intentions. They wanted students to succeed and attend prestigious universities with the best education possible. But then when you look at it from the other side, they were cheating,” said Khai Ray, a sophomore. “This is so unfair. My whole life has been working towards getting into the best college possible, and I still won’t get into any of the schools those kids got into. I understand that they were threatened and that they didn’t even know about it, but still, that stuff makes me so mad. It’s such a dirty world out there. It’s like cheating is the only way to succeed. I don’t know, Nah, I couldn’t do that,” said Stanley, a senior from Mt. Bethel.

The dream that was portrayed all over social media and television was a nightmare in reality. After being successful for years, the T.M Landry has finally been caught and shut down.