Sunny Hostin Says Her Children Faced Racism at Predominantly White Private Schools

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin said Monday that her children experienced racism while attending predominantly White private schools, even as they excelled academically at the well-resourced institutions.

Hostin raised the issue while discussing comments from Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the 1619 Project and a reporter for The New York Times Magazine, who recently said she regretted aspects of her choice to send her daughter to predominantly Black, high-poverty public schools in Brooklyn as part of an effort to confront educational inequality.

Hostin said she made a different choice for her own children but that it came with its own costs.

“I sent my children to private schools, a predominantly White private school. So, while they didn’t suffer academically, they excelled, but it was a well-funded school, a private school, well-resourced school, they suffered a different type of pain,” Hostin said.

She described the toll on her children’s mental health and sense of identity.

“There was psychological trauma, there was racism that they experienced,” she added. “They were bullied. There was, you know, trauma around their identity. My daughter wears a big afro, kids were trying to stick pencils in her hair. Boys were calling her butter face, meaning she looked good, but her face, and she is a beautiful girl.”

Hostin acknowledged her children did not struggle academically the way Hannah-Jones’ daughter reportedly did, but said the two situations point to a broader, systemic issue in American education.

“So I think the real question here is, nationally, schools in predominantly non-White districts receive $23 billion less in annual funding than their White counterparts. Underfunded schools versus well-funded schools. So public schools are funded from property taxes. So we need to look at the systemic problem that’s happening in this country around public education,” Hostin said.

Fox News Digital reached out to ABC and to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, where Hostin previously sent her children, for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Hannah-Jones said she hoped the public conversation would focus less on her own family’s choices and more on families without the means to seek out better schools for their children.

“I hope people concerned about the choice my husband and I made for our daughter will have equal or more outrage for the thousands of Black children whose parents don’t have the resources to send them to better schools,” she said. “As I write in the piece, there is no absolution to be had for any of us.”