Kanye West's school Donda Academy shuts down 'effective immediately'

AP Photo/Lewis Joly

Update: Donda Academy has reopened "with a vengeance" just hours after the school announced its closure. In an email on Wednesday, the school sent an email to staff and parents asking them to come together "in worship for the return of Donda Academy" tomorrow. 

"With the help of our parents and community, weare back and returning with a vengeance!" the message read. "The children of Donda are going to change the world!" 

The original story reads as follows:

Kanye West’s Donda Academy, the school he set up, will be shut down “effective immediately.”

The school’s closure comes in the wake of the rapper's widely condemned anti-Semitic comments. 

In an email to parents, Jason Angell, the school’s principal, said that “at the discretion of our founder, Donda Academy will close for the remainder of the 2022-2023 school year effective immediately.” 

“There is no school [Thursday],” Angell wrote in the email obtained by the Times.

West, who named the school after his late mother, opened the Donda Academy in August and charged $15,000 in yearly tuition. Parents who signed their children up for the academy were told to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent leaks, Page Six reported. 

West’s own children did not attend his school, which was a subject of dispute between the rapper and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, who opposed their enrollment. 

As detailed by the New York Post, the rap artist and designer once proposed that the couple's four children alter their schedule to three days at their current private school to attend Donda Academy for two days a week. 

In light of the school’s immediate closure, West’s children will not be able to attend Donda Academy. 

According to the email sent to parents, Angell said that the school intends to “begin afresh in September 2023,” presumably with a new administration. 

“Our leadership team will be working diligently to assist all families during this transition, ensuring that every scholar has what they need to succeed in their next community in a prompt and gracious manner,” Angell wrote. “We are confident that our scholars will continue to advance as the creative innovators, courageous influencers and academic leaders of the next generation.”

The closure of the school comes as West faces multiple dissolutions of his partnerships with brands like Adidas, GAP, and Balenciaga, all of which have severed their relationships with the rapper in light of his comments about Jews.