Like all speakers of truth, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson has, at times, faced ridicule. Mostly the derision has been hurled by his enemies, but a little more than 10 days ago he had to take a hit from an institution near and dear to him—and it’s clear that it hurt.
St. George’s School sits on an idyllic peninsula directly across from Newport in Rhode Island. The campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted—the creator of New York’s Central Park—and near enough to the Atlantic that students might be lulled to sleep by the lapping of waves upon the hull of Geronimo, the school’s 70-foot-long sailing yacht.
Yes, St. George’s is as WASP-y as it sounds, “overwhelmingly white, and very well connected,” according to a former student, although its pupils are not known for their smarts. It’s part of a group of prestigious prep schools—along with St. Paul’s, St. Mark’s, Groton, and Middlesex—known as “St. Grottlesex,” New England’s answer to the traditional private schools of Old England. St. George’s alumni include an aggregation of Astors, Vanderbilts, and Bushes. Boarders can expect to pay $76,050 a year for the pleasure of joining them.
How did so serene a place—St. Gorgeous, as it’s known—come to blows with the former Fox pundit? The links between the two run deep. Not only did Carlson attend the school, graduating in 1987, but he met his wife, Susan, while they were both students—she was the headmaster’s daughter—got married on the school grounds, and sent three of his four children there.
It’s clear that Carlson (who did not respond to requests for comment) loved St. George’s. His wife was a board trustee until 2018, and the pair have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the school over the last decade. They hosted a reception for St. George’s students at their Washington, D.C., home while Carlson worked at Fox. And, in 2015, Carlson was the keynote speaker at the school’s annual Richard H. Dent Forum (which seeks to “enhance and enrich the study of the social sciences at St. George’s”). He was set to talk on campus again this spring, and that’s where the current drama unfolded.
The story as we know it is this: Earlier this year, a student group at St. George’s approached Carlson about speaking on campus. Carlson agreed, but concerns arose within the school regarding Carlson’s high profile, the media attention his appearance might draw, and the safety issues that could result from such a visit. In light of these hurdles, it was decided that the engagement would be best conducted over Zoom, to which Carlson agreed.
Then, on March 29, an eight-minute-long recorded excerpt of Carlson’s Zoom with the St. George’s students appeared on X. In it, Carlson says that his attempts to negotiate a visit to the school with St. George’s headmaster, Michael C. Wirtz, and members of the school board were, he claimed, met with unanswered phone calls, lies, and circuitous explanations. The reason for the school’s ambivalence was clear, at least to Carlson: “Why don’t you just say, ‘We don’t like your politics; we think you’re scary,’?” he lamented.
As laid out by Carlson in the video, the school’s arguments kept changing. One minute, they were concerned that he was too famous, to which he retorted: “If Oprah wanted to come—who’s more famous than I am—could she?” The next, St. George’s was saying that it could not provide security for the event, to which Carlson suggested bringing his own armed guards, arguing, “If Joe Biden wanted to come with Abrams tanks and F-16s, you would allow him because you like Joe Biden.”
Carlson framed his formerly beloved school as a place where a particular ideology is forced “down your throat, not allowing you to disagree,” and claimed that it censored “academic freedom, and free speech, and free inquiry.” Punctuating each point with his high, shrill laughter, Carlson saw his forbidden visit as a mockery of the school’s motto, Sapientia Utriusque Vitae Lumen (Wisdom, the light of every life).
“If Joe Biden wanted to come with Abrams tanks and F-16s, you would allow him.”
But things have changed since Carlson was last invited to campus. Following a massive investigation in 2016, in which more than 50 former St. George’s pupils revealed they had been sexually abused by staff and employees in the 1970s and 1980s, the school appears to be extremely desirous of avoiding any further reputational damage. Since Carlson has repeatedly expressed controversial views, claiming immigrants make the United States “poorer and dirtier” and only last month posted on X, “How do you convince women to give up what they love most and submit to wage slavery at a bank? Simple: call it feminism,” he may not be the co-ed school’s most appropriate mascot.
Since Carlson’s post-2016 embrace of Donald Trump, Carlson’s brand and that of St. George’s have clearly diverged. Like many hyper-preppy institutions, the St. George’s administration is generally conservative. Admittedly, Wirtz did once work as a research scientist for Pfizer—one of Carlson’s bugbears for its creation of the coronavirus vaccine—and Dana Schmaltz, the chairman of the board of trustees, has donated to the Lincoln Project, a centrist organization formed in opposition to the Trump presidency. But the school is a far, far cry from Carlson’s usual list of targets: A.O.C., Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris. Did the school really deserve the abuse this Dragon (as former pupils are known) was heaping on it, especially considering that Carlson still got to speak to the students by Zoom?
All might have been forgiven and forgotten if Carlson hadn’t recorded and broadcast his conversation. St. George’s responded in glowering tones in a community-wide “What Really Happened” letter, sent the evening of the video’s release. The letter refuted most of Carlson’s accusations—Rhode Island’s prohibition on guns in schools meant they couldn’t allow Carlson’s private armed security detail into the school—and it stated that they were “most troubled … by his unfair criticism of our dedicated faculty and staff.” (When I reached out to the school, a representative declined further comment and sent me the same letter they had already circulated.)
Further, Carlson and his team had “agreed that there would be no recording of the students participating,” as most of the students were minors. The video was a “clear violation of that agreement and our policies.” According to the school, the students had no knowledge that the Zoom would be filmed.
“He’s not getting invited back, probably ever again. He doesn’t offer enough upside,” I was told by a contact from the school who wished to remain anonymous. “[He] has no unique perspective to offer. Just anger, and slightly more eloquence and thought than the average reactionary. St. George’s has a brand to protect.”
So, was Carlson, in fact, right? Did his politics get him blocked from visiting St. George’s, which is trying to depict itself in a more sharing, caring light? Or was he simply barred from his beloved old school, despite his familial ties, his donations, and his demonstrated interest, because he’s an exasperating, tiresome pain in the ass?
Jack Sullivan is an Associate Editor at AIR MAIL