Towards an Antiracist Exeter
By Betty Luther-Hillman
In his keynote address on Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day, Ibram X. Kendi called on our community to be antiracists, which means to dispute racist ideas and racist policies and to adopt antiracist ideas and antiracist policies. Kendi argues convincingly that there is no such thing as a “not racist” policy; instead, there are only racist policies, which perpetuate racial inequity, and antiracist policies, which work to eliminate it.
Phillips Exeter Academy has been doing much work over the last several years to challenge individual members of its community to discard racist ideas and adopt antiracist ones. However, are we really doing the antiracist work to eliminate those racist policies that shape the makeup of our student body and, hence, our school?
Kendi defines a racist policy as “any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups.” PEA’s admissions policies surely fit this definition. If one’s family has the money to pay for Exeter, that person is considered in a separate admissions pool and is more likely to be admitted. Because of the legacy of racist policies that have resulted in inequitable wealth accumulation across racial groups, it is not an accident that individuals who can afford to pay PEA’s full cost—and hence are more likely to be admitted under current policies—are more likely to be white. Therefore, if we truly want to be an antiracist school, we must change our admissions policies.
Fundamentally, all tuition-charging private schools are built upon a racist premise. By bestowing the privilege of an elite education disproportionately upon those who can pay tuition, such schools perpetuate exclusion and (white) privilege.
Adopting need-blind admissions, in which financial need is not taken into account when determining acceptance to the school, would be an important first step towards an antiracist Exeter. Yet even need-blind admission can only do so much to change the fundamental premise of exclusivity on which private schools are based.
My dream is that PEA could become the leading cost-free private high school in the nation.
While removing tuition and fees wouldn’t immediately cure inequality at the school, it would be an important step towards changing its mindset. Instead of students entering the school on unequal footing from the get-go—some pay money while others receive financial aid—a cost-free school brings all students into the school on an equal level, at least within the school environment itself. No student would be worth “less” or “more” than another student, and no one could feel entitled to privileges over others simply because they can afford to pay.
Many of our school’s policies, including admissions policies, are shaped by and ultimately approved by the Board of Trustees. PEA remains somewhat unusual in that every trustee must be a PEA alum. While I appreciate the obvious efforts to diversify the Board of Trustees in terms of race, age, gender, wealth and profession, the fact that all trustees must also be PEA alumni may itself hinder the creation of an antiracist Exeter, due to the racist admissions policies that assemble the group of PEA alumni in the first place. I worry that the Trustees’ vision in this area lacks the perspective that a board inclusive of non-PEA alumni would bring. After all, supporting need-blind admissions or cost-free education could threaten to undermine the system in which they, and their children, receive a leg up as a result of their wealth.
If Phillips Exeter wants to be an antiracist school, and thereby truly fulfill its articulated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, it needs to remake its policies to reflect a commitment to antiracism. If our school cannot recognize as fundamentally racist the idea that wealth should afford disproportionate access to a PEA education and fully reject that idea, all of the trainings and speakers attempting to effect individual change will ultimately go to waste.