Why the Head of One of New York’s Most Elite Schools Quit

The leader of one of New York’s most elite schools has stepped down after a damning internal audit found “disquieting problems of religious and cultural bias” at the school.

David Lourie, who became the leader of the all-boys Collegiate School in Manhattan just four years ago, announced on Monday that he and the board had agreed he would leave his post as head of school. “After four years filled with shared successes alongside challenges that required difficult and at times divisive decisions, we agreed that a new Head of School is what is best for the boys and the school community,” Mr. Lourie said in an email to the school community.

The Collegiate report, issued in May and reviewed by The New York Times, was commissioned by the school to investigate parents’ concerns about antisemitism and Islamophobia. Nearly two weeks later, a gender discrimination lawsuit was filed against Collegiate and Mr. Lourie by one of the school’s deans, who claimed that Mr. Lourie had referred to the report as “a joke” and a “power play by Jewish families.”

Mr. Lourie and Jonathan Youngwood, the president of the school’s board of trustees, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Collegiate is among numerous private schools across New York City that have experienced intense disagreement over how administrators and faculty members have addressed the Israel-Hamas war.

Private-school parents, teachers, administrators and students have been discussing — and in some cases, arguing over — the appropriate ways for schools to address issues related to the war both in the classroom and in broader academic and community discourse.