In a Chicago school this past April, one kindergartener fretted to a friend that he wouldn’t be able to get to his spare underpants if he had an accident. Why? Staff at the prestigious, private Catherine Cook School had opted to deny five- and six-year-olds access to their cubbies in order to school them on discrimination.

If one student did this to another, we would rightly call it bullying. But what do we call it when educators do it? If there were a Hippocratic Oath for kindergarten teachers, it would doubtless stipulate that educators not frighten or browbeat children in service …