From Spencer to Washburne: Elite Texas Prep School Incubates White Supremacy Across Generations

In 2016, I sat in the St. Mark’s newsroom as they deliberated on how to portray Richard Spencer: a neo-Nazi, the driving force behind alt-right political extremism… and a Class of ’97 alumnus. They called him ‘an outlier.’ Even back then, I knew it was a lie.

In the American imagination, private preparatory schools like St. Mark’s School of Texas project an image of genteel prestige and enlightened leadership.

But behind the polished brochures and polished LinkedIn résumés lies an unbroken thread of Euro-American supremacist ideology that stretches across generations.