It’s no secret that the Humanities and International Studies Program (HISP) isn’t as diverse as McClatchy. A “science” project presented at the school brought attention to the issue — but not in a constructive way. A student in HISP hypothesized that the lack of diversity in the program was “justified” because African-Americans, Latinxs, and Southeast Asians had low IQs compared to the IQs of Northeast Asians and whites.
The student’s “scientific experiment” consisted of picking one person from each race — a total of 5 people — and asking them to take an online IQ test at home. He then graphed each person’s score and presented it as science. It is unknown whether his science teacher knew what he was doing for his project but hearsay is that he mislead her until the day of the science fair.
When the project was first put on social media, Black Student Union president Karris Brooks, a senior, said that “due to the absurdity of the content, [she] figured it had nothing to do with McClatchy.” And when students like Adelina Hernandez, a sophomore in HISP, saw the project, “we all kind of laughed about it.” But she notes that “since that was our first response to this type of ideal, it kinda seems like we allowed this to happen.”
A HISP senior who wished to remain anonymous said she was “really disappointed and offended” by the science project and that the idea that a HISP student could do something like that “spits in the face of the values of the school and the program.”
Brooks says that “incidents like this make students (including myself) feel unsafe, unheard, and unwanted … I refuse for this situation to be brushed under the rug like previous ones. Many future black students will feel discouraged to want to join programs like HISP with the knowledge that these type of incidents are overlooked.”
As unscientific and racist as the project is, the student’s original question is a good one: why aren’t there people of color in the program? The answer is much more complex than the student’s conclusion. And the solution to the problem has to be more long-term than simple punishment for the student in question.
Part of the problem is a general lack of knowledge about the program. People outside of Sutter Middle School or Cal haven’t heard of HISP (as shown by seniors Jonah Wiener Brodkey and Amos Karlsen on page 3). In their attempts to help diversify their program for their senior project, Amos found that “a lot of them [students at Fern Bacon] simply hadn’t heard of HISP.”
The program isn’t racist or systematically built against people of color. Zachary Neff, a HISP senior, notes that “[HISPs] selection is color blind and the top 20% ranked students from any middle school is automatically accepted.”
It’s just that, as Amos said, “if you don’t have friends or family members who go through HISP and if you don’t go to Sutter or Cal then it’s entirely possible that you just haven’t [heard of the program].”
HISP Coordinator Ms. Wong said that before this incident, she spoke with SCUSD’s superintendent about advertising HISP at schools underrepresented the program. As of now, students can’t come in and talk about their program and their experiences within it, leaving eighth graders and their parents to depend on going to different schools’ orientations or just going to their home school. Because of this “HISP is missing out on crucial perspective that could be found in more outreach and encouragement to students from other middle schools like Will C. Wood or Fern Bacon,” said Zachary.
Ms. Wong doesn’t disavow the the perception of the program as elite. “If elite means academically challenging, then I don’t think we want to back away from that,” she said. She is aware, however, that elite has a certain connotation she doesn’t like: “elite is code word for exclusive, which means that criteria are a barrier to entry.”
Hernandez feels the same, stating that “I have noticed that there’s an alarming lack of diversity. When I look around I don’t see a representation of the school’s population, I just see the ‘elite’.” There are few people of color in the program who are able to enrich the classroom environment and to further the program’s discussions about race. Hernandez notes that “there comes a certain point where it’s not the educator’s job, but the peers around him who need to enforce that idea and not allow [his racist views] to continue.” But because of people’s silence, opinions like these are allowed to go on under the radar of admin who can really do something about it.
After the articles and the rants and the debates, this issue cannot die down. This can’t be another weeklong story before it all gets swept under the rug so we can pretend that our “there is no room for racism at CKM” signs mean something. This is not something we can “once race, the human race” away. It’s brought attention to “all of the racially charged injustices that go on at this campus, not only from students but from the teachers as well” says Brooks.
This issue requires long-term action. Senior Kiana Brown says that if HISP wants “to start the healing around CKM and working with them to not only amend the issues of CKM but also [within] the program itself.”