The coverage of the alumni letter to the Harvard Public Schools in the article entitled “Bromfield alumni call for greater attention to issues of race and social justice in school curriculum,” inoculates the town of Harvard against discomfort.
Comments by more recent grads were excluded from coverage. The voice of the administration dominates. Stacey Fair’s statement, “Only when students and families of color say that they truly feel comfortable and represented in the school have we done the work that we are trying to do,” rings truer than ever.
I encourage Dr. Linda Dwight to examine her power and her role as the gatekeeper of policy change as the school superintendent and founder of both the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and Arm in Arm. The ongoing efforts she and Scott Hoffman describe sound like positive steps toward an antiracist school culture and curriculum. As transparency and accountability are antidotes to white supremacy, the community deserves to know: How are the outcomes of these changes being evaluated? What are the consequences, intended and unintended? How do Black and Indigenous people and people of color in the school community experience these changes?
I am glad to hear Dr. Dwight is “not opposed” to hiring a diversity consultant from outside the community. Harvard is a small place where reputation precedes anyone and everyone. Speaking from outside the town is a privilege alums enjoy: We are less exposed than current residents and students to the social risk of challenging the status quo. An antiracist response from Dr. Dwight and Mr. Hoffman can start with centering voices of color and inviting objective expertise from outside the insular Harvard community. Fair’s point, “I hope that building a more equitable future for our world matters more to HPS … than maintaining a high ranking with U.S. News & World Report; but it will mean deeply, thoughtfully reevaluating how we measure our own success as a school,” is what dismantling white supremacy looks like. White Harvard Public School administrators and white Harvard residents, this work means giving up some of your power.
Eliza Ives Graeff
Bromfield Class of 2007
