RE-Center: Race & Equity in Education, also known simply as Re-Center, is a left-of-center educational advocacy and training organization focused on promoting critical race theory-inspired diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology within schools across the United States. The organization was founded in 1992 by celebrity donors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as the Discovery Center to promote diversity and educational immersion programs in public schools in the Hartford, Connecticut, area and turned further to the left in the late 2010s to rebrand to an organization focused on promoting “racial justice” in education. The organization employs far-left rhetoric within its programming around race, stating that racism “exists on four levels – internal, interpersonal, institutional and ideological.” ^{1 2}

The organization receives significant funding from the National Education Association, ³ Newman’s Own Foundation, and the SBM Charitable Foundation. ^{4 5}

History

What is now RE-Center was founded in 1992 by actors and left-leaning donors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The organization was originally called the Discovery Center and stemmed from a camp created by the couple for children with disabilities to interact with non-disabled peers. As participants in the camp self-segregated along racial lines, the Discovery Center was formed by Newman and Woodward to promote diversity along the premise of “contact theory” which focused on bringing together students from diverse backgrounds. Over the years, the center grew to conduct classroom programs with an emphasis on the Hartford area where the organization was founded. ⁶

The organization later took a turn to the far left in promoting critical race theory-inspired ideology. The organization states that it pivoted away from its previous model citing “inherent limitations” created by its previous model. In the late 2010s, the group stated that it “re-prioritized to a racial equity lens that recognized the root of the problem as racism.” The group rebranded as RE-Center: Race & Equity in Education and it announced that it would “work with educators and other school staff to educate them on the way oppression shows up culturally.” ⁷

The organization focuses on promoting critical race theory-aligned ideology within schools, school districts, education-related nonprofits, and teachers’ unions. ⁸

Activity and Publications

RE-Center conducts trainings and racial equity workshops for teachers, students, and parents. The group trains teachers about “developing a critical consciousness,” “anti-bias, anti-racist practices,” and creating “culturally responsive-sustaining practices in the classroom.” ⁹

The group also provides workshops to organizations and companies centered around “race, power and privilege” in the workplace.

The group also directly engages students and forms them into what it calls “Youth Equity Squads” which encourage students to confront school administrators, school board members, and teachers with “teach-ins” and “talk-backs.”

Leadership

The executive director of RE-Center is Natalie McCabe Zwerger, who assumed the role in mid-2021. Zwerger previously was the director of the Center for Strategic Solutions at the New York University Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. Her biography describes her as a “white Puerto Rican cis-hetero, non-disabled woman with significant class privilege.” ^{10 11}

In 2019, Zwerger published an article titled “Racism’s Hold on My Newborn Child” in which she contended “racism has a hold” on her infant due to the child’s being a “beneficiary of a racist society,” among other reasons. ¹²

Funding

RE-Center raises approximately $1 million in revenue annually. It receives funding from the Newman’s Own Foundation, the private foundation funded by proceeds from the Newman’s Own line of products founded by the late Paul Newman, who originally founded RE-Center as the Discovery Center in 1992 with his wife Joanne Woodward. ^{13 14}

The organization also receives funding from left-leaning teachers union the National Education Association, which gave the group $77,500 in its 2021 fiscal year for “[member]/staff education.” ¹⁵

Other funders of the group include the William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund, the SBM Charitable Foundation, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Webster Bank, and the J. Walton Bissell Foundation. ¹⁶

1. “Who We Are.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/who-we-are
2. “Our Story.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/our-story
3. National Education Association, Annual Report of a Labor Organization (Form LM-2), 2021, Schedule 19 https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/orgReport.do?rptId=788587&rptForm=LM2Form
4. “Our Partners.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/our-partners
5. Schoffstall, Joe. “Teachers’ union head raked in over $500K while fighting to keep schools closed during pandemic, tax forms show.” Fox News. August 19, 2022. Accessed September 1, 2022.  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/teachers-union-head-raked-500k-fighting-keep-schools-closed-during-pandemic-tax-forms-show
6. “Our Story.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/our-story
7. “Our Story.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/our-story
8. “Our Story.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/our-story
9. “Service Offerings.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/programs/service-offerings
10. “Natalie McCabe Zwerger.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022.  https://re-center.org/en/component/sppagebuilder/?view=page&id=86
11. “Natalie McCabe Zwerger.” LinkedIn. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliemccabezwerger/
12. Zwerger, Natalie McCabe. “Racism’s Hold on My Newborn Child.” NYU Steinhardt. 2019. Accessed September 1, 2022.  https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/perspectives/racisms-hold-my-newborn-child-2019
13. Schoffstall, Joe. “Teachers’ union head raked in over $500K while fighting to keep schools closed during pandemic, tax forms show.” Fox News. August 19, 2022. Accessed September 1, 2022.  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/teachers-union-head-raked-500k-fighting-keep-schools-closed-during-pandemic-tax-forms-show
14. “IRS Form 990.” RECenter Race and Equity in Education. 2020. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/20567674/04_2021_prefixes_01-03%2F020567674_202006_990_2021041417943328
15. National Education Association, Annual Report of a Labor Organization (Form LM-2), 2021, Schedule 19 https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/orgReport.do?rptId=788587&rptForm=LM2Form
16. “Our Partners.” RE-Center. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://re-center.org/en/aboutus/our-partners