Two weeks ago, my oldest daughter warmed my heart with the news that she is getting married. In our little hometown church by the Jersey shore, no less, with a reception in our backyard. Our daughter lives and works just outside of Washington, D.C., and her fiancé is from North Carolina, so we were very pleasantly surprised by the choice of location. Mostly we were thrilled for them. They have a 15-month-old son, a grandchild we adore, and it brings us great comfort to see them committing to go forth as a family. Having children before marriage is hardly unconventional any longer, and we have believed in them all along. They have a great partnership, strengthened by their many similarities. They are different in at least one way, however. Our daughter, who recently turned 30, is white; our future son-in-law is black. They appreciate the ways in which their life experiences have differed, which also makes their partnership stronger. It has also reinforced for me the need to continually improve my own cultural competence. On a personal level, my family is stronger as a result of diversity and thinking about diversity.
Our daughter chose education as a career — only one of six children who did, though two remain undecided. She knew from the beginning that that she wanted to serve economically disadvantaged kids. She works in a low-income school that is racially and ethnically diverse; she has great rapport with students, has received awards for teaching, and aspires to lead her own school. Her colleagues and closest friends are largely African American. Her professional experience reminds me of my own while working in the charter school world. The schools I worked in served primarily non-white students and families. My educational teammates represented the diverse racial and ethnic groups in the schools we served, from Honolulu to Miami and everywhere in between. It was in this role that I recognized the benefits of continually improving one’s cultural competence in a professional setting. By understanding and respecting one another’s perspectives, we became a better team. Indeed, many of the most effective and inspirational leaders that I have met in my career were among my charter school colleagues.
I shared these stories with nearly 90 independent school educators attending NAIS’s Diversity Leadership Institute (DLI) at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. This was my third DLI, I’m proud to say, since giving the welcome at the 2013 institute was my first official role after becoming NAIS president. I’m passionate about this institute and the work that NAIS does in support of diversity and inclusion, equity and justice. I’m proud of the work that independent schools do in support of these essential human values. I’ve been honored to lend my personal voice to the cause, at the People of Color Conference, our many institutes, and through this blog. But last week, I felt far less adequate speaking to the issues — despite a life that I thought prepared me at least reasonably well to do so.
I’ve seen inner-city despair firsthand and experienced the distrust between urban communities and external reformers. I know race is part of the conflict. But in the last year, my understanding of race and culture has been rocked by the deep-seated tension between white police officers and communities of color in numerous cities; by the sometimes violent protests; by the public pleas that “black lives matter” — as if that human right may in fact be questioned by some; and by the racial hatred that drove a young white man to slaughter nine black parishioners after Bible study in Charleston.
I have also watched, without clarity, our nation react to the public introduction of former Olympic decathlon gold medalist, Bruce Jenner, as Caitlyn. Gender identity seems to be approaching the broad stage of public consideration, much as gay marriage did a decade ago and questions of sexual orientation some time before that. But there is no telling how public opinion will evolve. We are a nation founded on the principle of liberty. History has generally been on the side of tolerance. But tolerance has many facets. Freedom and tolerance also apply explicitly to religious institutions. In a 5-4 decision this week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting same sex marriage, affirming a “liberty” that with the passage of time the American people overwhelmingly accept. The decision settles a vital legal question. It does not resolve differences between different religious and cultural groups about what constitutes marriage. In the same way, our courts and legislatures will likely provide future guidance on matters of gender identity. They can do much less to promote cultural understanding.
Our schools — really all schools — continue to grapple with both old and new issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some school leaders, like the marvelous faculty and leaders of DLI (kudos especially to NAIS’s Caroline Blackwell), have devoted much of their careers to matters of equity and justice. They are far more culturally competent than I. This doesn’t mean that they have the answers. But they do appreciate how we might pursue them, community by community.
DLI is explicitly about leadership, for leadership is the key to how schools address questions of diversity and inclusion. School communities are seldom homogeneous or static. The issues of the last year are not being interpreted identically by every family, faculty member, alum, or trustee in a school community. This has always been so, and likely always will be. Equity and justice are less destinations and more processes, applying fundamental human, religious, and American values to new questions about rights in a free society.
Among many exercises, school leaders at DLI tackled a case study about a transgender student. To paraphrase, “A biologically female student at a coed K-12 school since kindergarten informs the school in ninth grade that she identifies as a male. The student’s parents are very supportive and ask the school to begin addressing and treating their child as a male, including allowing the child to use male bathrooms. Parents in the second grade unanimously petition the school head to exclude the transgender ninth grader from the second-grade buddy program — none of the parents wanting a transgender mentor for their child. The parents of the transgender student want their child to play athletics with other males.” And this is just the beginning of the challenges — already familiar to some schools, just reaching others. Participants divided into several small groups to develop strategies.
These were leadership strategies. Where there are not yet answers, the task of leadership is to acknowledge differences in deeply held values, to facilitate open discussion, to bring out of the shadows beliefs that may seem too progressive or traditional to share. Leaders must ultimately make decisions, and not always the most popular ones. But they would not be leaders if they did not seek first to bring together the school community, as followers of a widely embraceable set of principles and practices, consistent with core school values and the evolving outlook and needs of our larger society.
Nothing I have said here changes what has always been said about great leaders. They unite people around noble missions — and equity and justice are among the most noble in education. I would add just one thing. And this is the essence of what I shared at DLI. We need leaders who can facilitate both consensus and change on matters of diversity and inclusion, now as much as ever. To accomplish this, we should also recognize, as I certainly have, that our personal cultural competence is far from perfect. The cultural differences that we think we appreciate, we likely do not understand accurately or completely. We are all evolving, learning, and we can always improve.