How to Understand and Enhance Anti-Racist Practices in Your School

Recently, schools all over the country have started to ask and address the same question: How can we best promote diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging (DEIJB) in our communities? Is there a presence of different identities, experiences, and perspectives? Have we developed a culture that enables people to see themselves reflected in the institution? Is there a system of accountability and repair for wrong-doing? Do students, staff, and parents feel valued and respected in ways that enable them to feel a sense of agency and trust in the school?

This is not easy work. It is fraught with uncertainty, discomfort, and anxiety, especially as the term “anti-racist” has taken hold and contributed to fear and confusion about what exactly schools are teaching students when it comes to the issue of race.

Most schools’ efforts have a strong and positive intent, but anti-racist practices can lead to pushback in the community if these efforts are not rolled out slowly and strategically. If schools want to engage in conversations about racism and abolish the systems that perpetuate it, they must first acknowledge that racism and cycles of oppression are real.

When this happens, they can undertake the critical work of building and promoting understanding, relationships, and community with actionable steps. This, in turn, has a profound social and cultural impact that resonates even outside the confines of school walls.

Unpacking Racism

To effectively strengthen an anti-racist stance, it’s important for school leaders to define racism.

1. Internalized racism lies within individuals. It includes private beliefs and biases about race and racism influenced by culture. It includes prejudice toward others of a different race, internalized oppression (that is, negative self-evaluation held by people of color), and internalized privilege (that is, white individuals’ feelings of entitlement).
2. Interpersonal racism occurs between individuals and refers to the bias that occurs when public interactions between individuals are affected by their personal racial beliefs.
3. Institutional racism occurs within institutions and systems of power, and it refers to the unfair policies and discriminatory practices of institutions (schools, workplaces, etc.) that consistently produce racially inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for white people.
4. Structural racism is racial bias among institutions and across society. It involves the cumulative and compounding effects of societal factors, including the history, culture, ideology, and interactions of institutions and policies that systematically privilege white people and disadvantage people of color.

An anti-racist school commits to examining its institutional policies and practices. It also subsequently opposes and dismantles those that either intentionally or unintentionally affect outcomes based on race. One of the best ways to introduce anti-racism is to tie it into the school’s mission, emphasizing words and phrases that show DEIJB work in action.

Mission Ready

An initial step toward anti-racist practices might be to invite all stakeholders of the community–students, staff, parents, administrators, and Board members–to ask questions that help them reflect on the effectiveness of the school’s policies and practices. Some examples might include:

1. Orientation: How are people welcomed into our school?
2. Enrollment: Who chooses to become a part of our school?
3. Application: How do people express interest in being part of the school?
4. Selection: How are people selected to be part of the school?
5. Marketing: How is the school promoting itself?
6. Assignment: How are people’s roles within the school determined?
7. Experience: How do people feel about being a part of the school?
8. Institutionalization: Who is leaving feeling positively about the institution?
9. Exit: Who is leaving feeling negatively about the institution?
10. Ejection: Who is being counseled out of our school and why?

As the community considers and responds to these questions through the lens of anti-racism, leadership can focus on determining what mission-appropriate DEIJB initiatives can be put into place to address areas of concern.

One Step at a Time

Once a school has determined its readiness to begin anti-racist work, here are some initial steps to take.

1. Identify the DEIJB curriculum and determine how students experience it. Can they identify with what is being taught? Can they identify whether with the person doing the teaching? When it comes to learning about issues related to DEIJB work, do the students know the differences between diversity, equity, and inclusion? Do they know what racism is? Do they know what anti-racism is? Do they have a true understanding of how to stand up and participate in social justice? Having clear learning objectives in mind, as well as strategies for ensuring that the curriculum is delivered in a way that makes it accessible to all students, is an essential part of the work.
2. Examine your school’s discipline and award data. Who is being disciplined and for why and how long? Who is receiving the awards? Who is being chosen to lead in the community? For staff and leadership, who is being appointed to committees and positions, based on what policies, and by whom are those decisions being made? Collecting and evaluating this data can help to reveal where effective anti-racist work is being done and whether there are lost opportunities to be redressed.
3. Establish how racial affinity groups will interact with each other. These are groups of people sharing a common race who gather intending to find connection, support, and inspiration. They are resources that provide the support participants need to overcome the racial isolation that exists in many schools and institutions, and they are retention tools specifically designed to encourage people of color to feel a sense of belonging and remain a valued part of the community.
4. Identify faculty willing to serve as DEIJB Ambassadors in the community. These are people who speak about and do the anti-racist work that can help coordinate learning. Invite educators across disciplines to take on the responsibility of examining the curriculum and think of ways to incorporate anti-racist lessons. Schools can go one step further by establishing DEI Committees that comprise representatives from the student body, faculty, staff, parents, and Board members who are committed to best practices and frequent assessment of whether the stance of the school reflects its mission as it relates to DEIJB and anti-racism.
5. Ensure that staff members are aware of the school’s DEIJB stance and that they are trained to help support its efforts. The people working in the school are “mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors,” which means 1) that others’ experiences are reflected back at them by members of the community, 2) that others can develop empathy by learning more about the lives and experiences of those around them, and 3) that others can change their perspective about the possibilities that exist in the real world for authentic and equitable human connection.

A community invested in anti-racist policies and practices will innovate and support the unique needs of its constituents. But schools need an actionable place to start—one that helps them feel confident in their work and promotes equity and inclusion.

Allies to Practitioners

As schools become more comfortable with their anti-racist stance, they transition from being allies to becoming practitioners—moving away from addressing incidents of discrimination and bias and instead calling out the underlying issues that motivate such behavior. Schools become institutions that mobilize and organize to further the cause of social justice.

The school community is not only aware of differences and interested in focusing on “common humanity,” but is visible, active, vigilant, and public in its willingness to lean into the challenges of anti-racism. Becoming anti-racist is a work in progress—a task that seldom yields perfection. But it is incumbent on schools, as institutions, to begin the work even if they can’t complete it.