Justice, Equity, and Diversity

In 2016, several staff members and parents came together to find a way to work towards greater justice, equity, and diversity in our school community and beyond. JED has addressed many things in the school, and has much, much more work ahead. In a time of deep and entrenched racism and classism, rising nationalism and fear, the Justice, Equity, and Diversity committee stands together, to bring forth radical, lasting change. In 2017, the Center School officially declared itself a Sanctuary School. Our policy is not to ask for immigration information on our applications and we won’t talk to ICE agents, if approached about any of our community members. Since its inception, JED has grown and matured into three separate and vital branches: one focused on curriculum, one focused on outreach and one focused on internal infrastructure.

Justice, Equity, and Diversity (JED) Mission

The mission of the Justice, Equity and Diversity Committee of the Board of Directors is to serve as a catalyst and resource for the school’s social justice work. The Center School recognizes that our culture is based on a structure of power that benefits the few at the expense of the majority. The Center School is committed to dismantling these systems through the lenses of curriculum, community and infrastructure and to inspire through deep thinking and transformative action.

An example of JED’s work includes the co-creation of our Interrupting (Macro and) Microaggressions Policy:

In every context in which we gather together to do work, we exist in a community of care.  In order for our community to exist in an authentically radical, progressive, loving and justice-oriented manner, we commit to naming micro and macro aggressions. The goal is to name and reduce oppression.*  We recognize that this work is difficult, messy and constantly unfolding. The following bullet points define our policy for embracing this work. 

• We live in a society where people are oppressed* based on certain identities (for example, people of color, women, queer folks, older folks, working class, non-neurotypical folks.) This means we are steeped in an oppressive system, therefore it would be impossible for us to avoid having beliefs, behaviors, prejudices and biases that contribute to and uphold a system of oppression.

• We will on occasion reveal these in our words or actions.

• We are all committed to furthering social justice in ourselves and our school and the world.

• We expect that folks with privileged identities will interrupt oppressive behavior or language.

• We expect people to accept that it is not personal when someone tells us our language or behavior is oppressive. 

• We will believe people, or their advocates, when they describe the impact of oppressive language and actions, regardless of our intent.

• We expect that people who are interrupted will respond non-defensively with “I hear you,” “Thank you,” or “Got it.” The person who did the interrupting will follow up* with the person they interrupted in a timely manner, but not in the moment. 

* They can meet directly with the person, to help them understand their mistake

* They can check in by email and send an article or relevant reading

* They can get assistance from a colleague or supervisor for following up

Definitions:

Oppression: Discrimination + Power = Oppression.  When an agent group, whether knowingly or unknowingly, abuses a target group. This pervasive system is rooted historically and maintained through individual and institutional/systematic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice, resulting in a condition of privilege for the agent group at the expense of the target group. (National Conference for Community and Justice) 

Oppression: The systematic and pervasive nature of social inequality woven throughout social, financial and governmental institutions as well as embedded within individual consciousness. Oppression fuses institutional and systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry and social prejudice in a complex web of relationships and structures that saturate most aspects of life in our society. (Teaching for Diversity)

2021 Update: Microaggressions reinforce (perpetuate) a power differential and by their nature make people feel they are inferior, and feed into their own possible internalized inferiority complex.  

Created by the Center School Justice, Equity, and Diversity Infrastructure Committee (JEDI) December 2018 and humbly open to constant revision.