UK schools re-educating teens brainwashed by Andrew Tate: report

Teachers in the United Kingdom are creating lesson plans to re-educate teenage students who have been brainwashed by misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate, according to a report.

Tate, who is locked up in a Romanian prison on charges of rape and sex trafficking, has had a toxic effect on teens who have embraced his hateful ideology, forcing teachers to address his views with their students, according to The Sunday Times.

A school in south London gave a presentation to a group of 14-year-olds after teachers became concerned about the students’ expressing ideas they learned from Tate, a self-described misogynist who has amassed a massive following of mostly young men on social media.

The group of about 30 students were reportedly asked questions like “Do we think he [Tate] is still harmless?” and “What happens when we take in his messages?”

The conversation quickly turned into a debate about rape, with about 10 of the students maintaining that women were responsible for their sexual assaults — a view propagated by Tate.

The male teacher then asked the students how they would feel if one of their family members was a rape victim. 

“At that point a lot of the boys changed their tones when I put their mother or sister in that spot, but it was worrying that a few core kids didn’t and still said they would be to blame,” the teacher, who spoke anonymously, told The Times.

The 36-year-old former kickboxer and reality TV star is believed to be worth up to $100 million and has become hugely popular as a hyper-masculine life guru, posting online videos advising men to treat women like commodities.

He also brags about his wealth and shares his “secrets” of success — for a price.

In his videos widely shared on TikTok and other platforms, he claims that women belong in “the kitchen,” and should be controlled by men through violence.

Sophie Whitehead — who works at the School of Sexuality Education, which provides workshops on consent — called his rhetoric “violent” and said it has “affected so many young people.”

“It is a version of radicalization as far as I’m concerned,” said Sophie Whitehead, who works at the School of Sexuality Education, which provides workshops on consent.

In the south London classrooms, teachers have tried to explain to their students that misogynistic jokes and rhetoric can escalate to serious crimes like sexual harassment and rape, the outlet reported.

Jay Jordan, a teacher from Dundee in Scotland, told The Times the recent interest in Tate’s influence is evident among her students.

“You used to have to deal with sexist stuff but now it is explicitly connected to Andrew Tate – the boys do not stop talking about him,” she said.

Jordan recalled how after she rebuked one of her students, he shot back that she was “just a woman.”

“We’ve definitely gone backwards and it is worrying,” she said.

A female teacher at another British school told the newspaper that some students neglected to study for their final exams, saying ‘’I can get rich on the internet, that’s what Andrew Tate did.’”

The Ridgway Education Trust, which operates three state schools in Oxfordshire, has been teaching lessons about Tate’s rise to infamy.

“Every school should be addressing the Tate issue,” said Gohar Khan, director of ethos at the trust. “Up till last year I was wary about giving him airtime but pupils and staff have come to me and said, ‘Why are we not talking about this?’” 

In the lessons, Khan said they discuss “why Tate has been in the news recently, for his arrest in Romania on charges of human trafficking and accusations of rape”.

“Our pupils are hearing all of this and I feel they need to hear it from what I think are reliable sources,” he added.

Tate’s first rise into the limelight came when he appeared as a contestant on the UK version of “Big Brother” in 2016.

He was booted from the show after a video emerged of him allegedly attacking a woman. Tate claimed the video was edited and “a total lie trying to make me look bad,” as reported by the BBC.

In 2017, during the height of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, Tate was kicked off Twitter for saying that women should “bear responsibility” for being sexually assaulted.

Tate’s popularity skyrocketed with outlandish comments about women’s intelligence, calling them “intrinsically lazy,” and is a strong proponent that men should have “authority” over a woman when in a relationship. 

Last month, Tate and his brother, Tristan — along with two other men — were arrested in Romanian for allegedly running a criminal organization that lured in women and held them for sexual exploitation. 

Romanian authorities raided his properties and discovered Tate and his brother had allegedly exploited six women who were kept as virtual prisoners in some of his luxury properties. He was ordered to be held for 30 days in Romanian prison on Dec. 30 while the investigation continues.