It's been two years since Boston Latin School was scrutinized by students on social media, who called out racial hostility in the school through the #BlackatBLS campaign.
If you've been paying attention to the Boston Latin School saga, you've heard of #BlackatBLS, a hashtag used by students to call out what they saw as racial hostility at the school. Following a 2016 investigation by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz into civil rights in the school, former headmaster Lynn Mooney Teta decided to resign. This year, her replacement, headmaster Rachel Skerritt, is the first person of color to lead the prestigious public school.
Our School Desk Diaries checked in with Laila, a senior at Boston Latin, who has been an active member of #BlackatBLS from the start.
Laila grew up in Dorchester and went to an Islamic school.
“In that community, they didn't really talk about Boston Latin School because it was more like 'We're just going to keep staying in this Muslim school for a high school,'” she said.
She was the only student in her small class of seven to take the test. She was excited to get into the school, even though she knew it would be a change.
“It was very different, because at my old school, everybody was Muslim,” she said. “I was the only black student, but everybody was Muslim. We would stop classes for prayer, we would be learning about the Quran and about our history as Muslims.”
Laila said going to a school where she was in the minority was a new experience. “I have had people just not know my race,” she said. “First, my complexion, it’s a lighter complexion, so that’s something that probably makes my race more ambiguous to people. But also, because I am Muslim. I feel like people don’t understand that Muslim is a religion,” she said. “You can be from anywhere and be Muslim!”
She’s had people not realize that and talk about black girls negatively around her. “[Saying things] like 'They’re loud,' or they’re this or they’re that,” she said. “Like, ‘Um ... Excuse me. I’m here!’” She said people still see her as different from black.
“That’s just a really weird experience, because being black is something that is so important to me," Laila said. "Being differentiated from it because of something that is also important to me, my religion — that’s just ridiculous.”
At Boston Latin's extracurricular fair, Laila found out about #BlackAtBLS and joined. Since last year, she said, “A lot of [the initial] energy has died down, but ... we still are in this position now where we can still address those issues, and we also have more time to focus on it … So even if it is a different way that we're affecting change, I think we're still able to do that, and that's what, really, the club is all about.”
Beyond the media attention, Laila said the club is still working on making Boston Latin School equitable from the inside. “Something that really saddened me was that sort of ... the media coverage and the negative kind of perception people got from us raising these issues,” she said. “We want to change the school, but we never wanted to vilify it.”
Laila says that some of the group’s message was overlooked. “It got spun into like, ‘Oh we hate this school' or something like that,” she said. “One of the things that early on got misconstrued by the media or by ... outsiders was that our goal was to get the headmaster, Ms. Teta, fired. And that was never our intention. We wanted to show that there were injustices within the school and that as a school community, together, we need to address them and move forward. We're very fortunate and lucky to have the new headmaster, Ms. Skerritt. So, we're definitely moving forward.”
“I think that having graduated from BLS, having done some of the same activities as students are now, like step squad and gospel choir, I think the new headmaster will be able to relate to us on that level. And I think that is what will make her a great headmaster,” Laila continued. “But I'm sure there is a lot of pressure, both because she's black and because of the climate she's entering into at the school. I feel like because she's black, there's going to be this fine line of not wanting to feel like she's doing too much, or looking out only for minority children, or something like that.”
Laila thinks that will be a difficult line for Skerritt to walk, “to make sure that she's advocating for the change that the new headmaster is supposed to be doing, but not making people feel like she is doing a disservice to other students while she's doing that.”
Skerritt’s opening assembly speech really stuck with Laila. “She was saying that you can love something and still want to improve it, want to critique it, to make it better,” she remembered.
Laila said that’s a lot of what she feels, too. “I can still critique the racist undertones within the school and still love it. I do love BLS, and I'm proud to go there and I'm so thankful for all the opportunities it's given me, but I still want to critique it and make it better for the future and for now," she said.
WGBH News’ coverage of K-12 education is made possible with support from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
