The decision to entirely reprint this year’s edition of Tabula, the OPRF yearbook, is done. The school’s concerns came over the realization that the initial press run included 18 photos of some 50 students using a hand sign — the upside down OK — that has been, is in the process of, being adopted by the growing white supremacist movement.
The $54,000 decision in a 4-2 vote by the school board was ultimately the right choice in a complicated matter. We want to offer thoughts on the complications and to express thanks to each of the six board members who cast a vote (one board member was absent from the special meeting.)
Oak Park and River Forest High School has consciously chosen to be a leader on issues of racial equity. It has recently adopted an equity policy. The most progressive faculty contract in memory was adopted this year with provisions that advance equity work. Board members campaigned on equity issues in the April election. The current superintendent was hired to focus on equity. And that superintendent, Joylynn Pruitt-Adams, recently completed the full reorganization of the administration with the hire of a new equity leader replacing the principal. The school was the focus of a 10-part nationally televised documentary on race.
That makes it about impossible for this school to ignore any issue related to falling short on equity. There’s a lot of upside to placing itself in that position. And there are downsides — mainly we think, in so often being in a place of reaction to small matters magnified through the equity lens into seeming significance. The swastika discovered on the wall of an outside building. An offensive Air Drop during a school assembly. The white kid posting a blackface image on social media. The yearbook containing candid photos of school clubs and athletic teams where a diverse group of students flash this hand sign now seen as the symbol of a national racist movement.
If the school is serious about sending a singular message that attitudes and actions about race need to change in the school, then what is effectively a zero tolerance policy on actions ranging on the outrage scale from troubling to idiotic to likely innocent all get the hammer.
It can be exhausting, and in the current circumstance of shredding a press run of yearbooks, also expensive. But ultimately we don’t see that the school had a choice.
Two dangers. One is that the district is perpetually distracted from doing the real work of equity when it is, so often, in immediate reaction mode to the latest “thing.” With 3,400 students and social media, there will always be another “thing.” Second danger is that we will lose our ability to see and respect nuance on what are ultimately judgment calls. Two board members, Tom Cofsky and Matt Baron, both white men, voted to distribute the yearbooks as is. We respect those men. We respect their reasoning. We respect those votes.
The hard and fascinating path ahead will be a more productive one if we add not subtract, if we remain persuadable, if we value the complexity.
