ALES 50 YEARS: Admissions Acknowledges Afro-Latinx Needs

President of the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society’s (ALES) 51st Board, upper Rose Martin, says that she is one of few non-white-passing Latinas in the Class of 2019. She says that her friends are mainly students of color, but from different grades, because they “can’t find people in [their] own grades who share the same experiences.” Fifty years since the founding of ALES in 1968, Exonians reflected on race in PEA admissions, the source of enrolling a diverse student body.

Although Martin thinks that Exeter is relatively diverse “in a broad sense,” when the category “students of color” is broken down by grade and ethnic background, there are still many areas to improve.

For example, according to former President of ALES and senior Athena Stenor, there were only four black girls in the prep class of 2018, two of which had “significant white ancestry.” She and Vice President of ALES’s 50th Board, senior Charlotte Polk, were the only “fully black” female preps in the 2014-15 school year.

According to Exeter’s Deed of Gift, the school aims to admit “youth from every quarter,” and many generations of administrators have taken this to mean diversity in terms of ethnic background. During the Civil War, the Academy admitted an African-American student. Then-principal Gideon Lane Soule declared in response to the objections of four white students, “The boy is to stay; you may do as you please.”

President of the Trustees Tony Downer ’75 described the objective of obtaining “youth from every quarter” as the “priority of the highest order” and the “core of our school’s DNA.” In particular, Downer described how diversity at the school was crucial to the students’ success and experience even after they graduated. “For young people to thrive in, and contribute meaningfully to, this world and society, they must be able to relate to and work with people of all backgrounds.”

There has been a remarkable increase in racial diversity on Exeter’s campus, with the racial makeup for the 2018-19 school year being 36.8 percent students of color, 10 percent Black/African-American students and 7.6 percent Hispanic/Latinx students.

“We seek to enroll students from a wide range of backgrounds and with an equally wide range of perspectives,” Dean of Enrollment and External Relations William Leahy said. “Such a diversity of background makes the overall teaching and learning environment here even more instructive and meaningful.”

Associate Director of Admissions and Coordinator of Multicultural and Diversity Recruitment Nahin Jorgge agreed with Leahy, and said, “having a diverse community strengthens the educational experience for our students and faculty.”

That being said, Jorgge emphasized that there is no quota for different racial groups. “We look holistically at the applications we review and look to shape a diverse class with many interests and backgrounds, including race,” he said. “Academic strength continues to be one of the most important factors in admissions.”

According to Jorgge, the Academy continues to work with different community-based organizations and ALES alumni to connect with a diverse applicant pool from different parts of the country.

Mike O’Neal ’74, a former member of ALES, feels that Exeter has always played a significant role in leading the way for increasing diversity within the top-tier education systems, even before the population of Afro-Latinx students reached the level that it is currently. 

According to religion instructor Russell Weatherspoon, the 1950s to 1960s represented a “dramatic and gradual change in relationship to civil rights issues” through desegregation, equal voting rights and fair housing, which brought attention to race and the systems or laws that forced discrimination. “That caused many colleges and many public and private schools to look around and go, ‘Do we have the low numbers of black students here just by some kind of accident?’ or ‘Are we structurally set up to discourage their presence?’” he said.

Consequently, many secondary schools like Exeter stopped defending the low numbers of African American and Latinx students present at their schools and focused on addressing the problem through increased recruitment of those students. Weatherspoon concluded,“That jump you see is a focused effort on the part of the community to recruit and draw in black students to the school.”

However, a closer examination of statistics in the 2009-19 period would show that there has been a plateau in the number of Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students admitted in recent years, with percentages falling in between the 15 to 20 range. The percentage for the 2018-19 school year is one percent less than the previous year.

Numbers aside, there are still problems surrounding the way Exeter approaches the recruitment of Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latinx students. Dean of Multicultural Affairs Sami Atif brought up how “diversity” is approached from the viewpoint of benefitting white students. “When private institutions chose to integrate, that decision was made on different levels, including the need to make sure white males of that time understood black people,” he said. “I wonder how much of it has changed.” Atif also noted that this mentality leads to “enforcing and serving the dominant culture.”

Another pernicious notion is how students of color admitted to institutions like Exeter are “deviations to the norm.” “At some point I want everyone to know  the African-American and Latinx kids here are not special, not more special than the peers they left behind in their homes,” Atif said. “It is born out of a racist fault that this hand-selected group is [seen as] somehow an anomaly who can comprehend things that others can’t.”

Lower Johanna Martinez, who participated in the New Jersey SEEDS preparatory program, attested to Atif’s observation that there is a campus-wide notion that African American and Latinx students attended the Academy because of “special” conditions.

Even though Martinez feels more comfortable and confident as a lower, she experienced “diversity imposter syndrome” as one of the few Hispanic girls in her grade during her prep year, which made her feel uncertain of her abilities. “Prep year, I was not sure if I was supposed to be here because I was under the impression that the only reason I was here was because of New Jersey SEEDS and the need for diversity,” Martinez said.

Students have also brought up how the school recruits a substantial number of its students of color from preparatory programs like NJ SEEDS or Prep 9 that are dedicated to providing educational and financial aid to underprivileged African American and Latinx students interested in boarding schools. With 25 enrolled students, Prep 9 representatives made up roughly 13.5 percent of the African-American and Latinx student body in the 2017-18 school year.

Lower Eman Noraga thinks that the school is taking “the easy way out” by relying too much on these organizations. “They don’t look outside the bubble of those preparatory programs. It’s a one-sided type thing and it is unfair to have only one type of black person,” Noraga said, adding that she has friends outside of the New York area who are equally competent.

Lower Noel Gomez, who participated in the Prep 9 program, was unsurprised by how many African American and Latinx students came from preparatory programs and reasoned that the admissions team at Exeter may be “trying to find more qualified African American and Latinx students to some extent because if this was not the case then why would these preparatory programs exist. It’s kind of like Affirmative Action,” he said.

He sympathized with Noraga in diversifying the search for African American or Latinx students, adding that “African American or Latinx students shouldn’t have to go through a preparatory program to prove themselves.”

Gomez suggested that the school should provide more assistance in the admissions process for African American and Latinx students outside of these preparatory programs.                                                                    

Lower Tatum Schutt felt a growing awareness of the need for more diversity, acknowledging that Mr. Jorgge had explained to her that it can still be challenging “to get students of color to come to a campus where there still are so many problems.”

Despite this, both faculty and students have shown an enthusiasm to address discrimination at the Academy. History instructor William Jordan highlighted how a mutual commitment and cooperation between faculty and students will help facilitate the success of improving the school. “It’s been good to have that come not just from administrators, but from students,” he said.

While the Academy has demonstrated significant progress since the 1950s regarding student body diversity, specifically the percentage of African American and Latinx students, there is still a growing desire within the school for more African American and Latinx students who have diverse backgrounds and experiences.