How do we achieve racial justice in schools?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/11/2021 (1150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Across North America, battles are taking place as schools attempt to work toward racial justice. In the immediate aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, there appeared to be an emerging consensus that such work was of the highest imperative. That appears to have been short-lived.

In May, a teacher in Tennessee was fired for teaching his students that “white privilege is a fact” and refusing to provide contrary viewpoints after being directed to do so by school administrators.

Similarly, a Maryland superintendent was pushed out of her leadership position after writing a letter to parents with the words “Black Lives Matter” and stating that racism existed in the county’s schools. Normally sleepy school board meetings across the United States have become fractious events.

On this side of the border a similar pushback is occurring. Quebec Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge recently co-authored an op-ed published in Le Devoir with France’s Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer that railed against “la culture de l’annulation” (cancel culture), which they say has been imported from American university campuses into our schools.

The op-ed came in response to a Radio-Canada report that, as part of an effort toward reconciliation, an Ontario francophone school board held a “flame purification” ceremony in which it burned 30 books that negatively portrayed Indigenous people.

While the burning of books has few public defenders, some trustees at the Waterloo Region District School Board fear a similar effort is taking place after their district announced that it is in the process of reviewing every book in its school libraries and removing titles it considers “harmful” to staff or students.

Preventing harm would appear to be an unimpeachable value upon which to base our school systems. But we must be mindful that harm can also occur when attempting to work toward equity goals, as demonstrated by two recent examples from the Toronto District School Board.

Earlier this year, an investigation by the WSIB found that a school administrator was subject to harassment after he questioned assertions being made in an equity training session.

Similarly, in September, the TDSB hired award-winning writer and activist Desmond Cole to conduct anti-racism training sessions. The board would later apologize to its staff for the “harm that may have been caused” by the sessions after several administrators expressed dismay and outrage.

This included some who contacted the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center saying they were “traumatized” by Cole’s statements on Israel, as well as a self-identified Black principal who said she found Cole’s remarks on how Black students should be allowed to freely use the N-word “painful” and “disturbing.”

Understanding what to do about these issues involves being able to process two ideas simultaneously: 1. Racism, both individual and systemic, exists in our schools and must be addressed. 2. A lot of current equity efforts are either ineffectual or counterproductive.

While conservatives, against all evidence, often dismiss the existence of racism in our schools, some progressives appear to believe that it is acceptable to proceed with initiatives that do not have public support and for people who disagree with them to be bullied into submission.

But any progress achieved without public backing will prove ephemeral and there is no evidence that coercion achieves anything but superficial changes in behaviour. It certainly does little to change people’s minds, and in fact, often does the opposite. And make no mistake, in human institutions, any lasting progress involves changing how people think.

Instead of incendiary acts like burning books or berating staff, we need to engage in the painstaking process of building support, both among the public and within our institutions, for initiatives that will make a concrete difference in the lives of currently underserved populations.

This includes curricular reforms that shift away from a reliance on Eurocentric perspectives, ending policies that provide further advantages to privileged students, and the hiring of equity minded educators of all races. When done in a spirit of good faith and compassion, changes achieved in this manner stand the best chance of making a lasting difference in the lives of students.

Sachin Maharaj is an assistant professor of educational leadership, policy and program evaluation and a principal researcher at the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa.