Icon Collective

I was an online student at Icon Collective Music School for four out of six quarters. Several weeks ago, Icon posted an article on their blog titled "Black Lives Matter Resources". In this article were included links to articles titled "Why are white people always stealing black music?" as well as suggestions to examine their "privilege" and detailing the "violent and destructive" nature of whites.

I expressed my concern over this blatant violation of Icon's own nondiscrimination policy to Aaron Perez, the admissions director, who promised he would set up a meeting between myself and Chris Wight, the founder of Icon, to discuss the issue. That was more than two weeks ago and no meeting ever transpired.

What happened instead was that I was removed as moderator of the Icon discord server at the demand of Chris, without being given a reason.

The only possible explanation is an act of retaliation for asking questions about how race would be determined in awarding their "black voices" scholarship. I had pointed out that someone could look white, but may have a black or half black parent, and asked if they would require genetic tests. I was then told by the Director of Online Education, John Von Seggern, that Chris had instructed him to remove me as moderator. They then removed my farewell post explaining that I had been removed.

I have been a straight A student and active participant in the academic community, as a discord moderator and also a host of an online student meetup every week. I have tried to be a productive member of the community, yet have been faced constantly with the promotion of leftist dogma in official instructor office hours including but not limited to BLM, communism, Satanism, hatred of Trump and ridicule of conservatives that bordered on bullying.

It is quite clear to me that Icon Collective is engaged in educational malpractice, discrimination, and creating a hostile learning environment for students who do not share their leftist ideologies. It is clear that I am not welcome at Icon.

There are a number of students that have privately voiced their support for me, but are clearly still afraid to speak up.

If you are a conservative, Christian, or patriot you will not be welcome at Icon. Ironically, even if you are black, you will only be taught techniques of making "EDM". Hip Hop and R&B is not even mentioned in passing. They have never brought in one black artist for a Q&A. They only have one black instructor on staff. Icon is nothing more than a cult of leftist poseurs who are more concerned with the appearance of racial equality than actually teaching black music curriculum and hiring black instructors.

Although Icon is lauded breathlessly online as the "preeminent" music school for electronic music production, the reality could not be further from the truth. Although some of the instructors are talented and well meaning, there are too many who cannot even answer basic questions about common tools and techniques used in production. The basic course they charge upwards of $25,000 for is now taught for a fraction of the cost by more skilled and talented instructors at countless other online productions schools. Do yourself a favor, save yourself the money and indoctrination, and go somewhere where education is taken seriously and voices of all types and political views are listened to and respected.