Since the tragic murder of George Floyd, leaders of many independent private schools across the country—including those at Jesuit secondary schools—have been challenged to respond to growing demands from two groups of their alumni, parents and students. The conflict within these schools has played out publicly, on national outlets such as Fox News to local media sources in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.
Here is how it all happened. Last summer, many Black alumni, parents and students from these schools came forward to express their experiences of sustained, personal and systemic bias. They reflected the larger movement of racial reckoning across institutions and sectors simultaneous with last summer’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations and protests. On Instagram accounts and in petitions demanding change, school communities heard painful stories ranging from neglect in some cases to outright disrespect and targeted, racist bigotry in others. Their preponderance and similar texture and character give credence to the veracity of these stories and the collective harm done over several decades and generations of students.
Many school leaders formally apologized for this harm, but this group understandably desires more than words. They demand that their schools implement curriculum, student formation, hiring and programmatic measures to promote greater diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.). They want to see accountability and progress in meeting measurable goals in these areas. In response to these grievances and claims, school leaders have adopted and announced various new D.E.I. measures and resources during this school year.
These changes led to a backlash from other groups of parents and alumni, who often expressed their opposition through anonymous letters directed to school leaders. They criticized classroom exercises and lessons that segregated students on the basis of race, seemed overly reliant on racial identity or promoted conceptions of white privilege. They argued these exercises reveal a kind of essentialism that reduces everything to one’s racial background. Some who oppose these measures believe they are the result of critical race theory, which focuses on the structural aspects of racism. Critics charge that this theory finds racism omnipresent and creates a binary zero-sum game of winners (the “oppressors”) and losers (the “victims”). In Catholic school communities, they warn that critical race theory is Marxist and therefore anti-Catholic. Many who are opposed to proactive D.E.I. initiatives offer an alternative approach that teaches that race is a social construct. They want schools to either downplay, ignore altogether or transcend race in order to recover and emphasize the common humanity that unites us.
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