Deciding what to disclose in a personal essay for college applications has plagued students since, perhaps, the essay first became required. How should they present themselves? What do they think colleges need to know about them? Should they try to fit their whole life story onto a page and a half? Should they focus on the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, or their greatest success? 

In the first year after the Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in college admissions, how students chose to present themselves in their essay became of even greater consequence. In years past, students could write about their racial or ethnic identity if they wanted to, but colleges would know it either way and could use it as a factor in admissions. Now, it’s entirely up to students to disclose their identity or not.

Data from the Common App shows that in this admissions cycle about 12 percent of students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups used at least one of 38 identity-related phrases in their essays, a decrease of roughly one percent from the previous year. About 20 percent of American Indian and Alaskan Native applicants used one of these phrases; 15 percent of Asian students; 14 percent of Black students; 11 percent of Latinx students and less than 3 percent of white students. 

To better understand how students were making this decision and introducing themselves to colleges, The Hechinger Report asked newly accepted students from across the country to share their college application essays with us. We read more than 50 essays and talked to many students about their writing process, who gave them advice, and how they think their choices ultimately influenced their admissions outcomes.

Here are thoughts from eight of those students, with excerpts from their essays and, if they permitted, a link to the full essay.

Jaleel Gomes Cardoso, Boston

A risky decision

As Jaleel Gomes Cardoso sat looking at the essay prompt for Yale University, he wasn’t sure how honest he should be.  “Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected,” it read. “Why is this community meaningful to you?” He wanted to write about being part of the Black community – it was the obvious choice – but the Supreme Court’s decision to ban the consideration of a student’s race in admissions gave him pause.

“Ever since the decision about affirmative action, it kind of worried me about talking about race,” said Cardoso, who grew up in Boston. “That entire topic felt like a risky decision.” 

In the past, he had always felt that taking a risk produced some of his best writing, but he thought that an entire essay about being Black might be going too far.

“The risk was just so heavy on the topic of race when the Court’s decision was to not take race into account,” he said. “It was as if I was disregarding that decision. It felt very controversial, just to make it so out in the open.”

In the end, he did write an essay that put his racial identity front and center. He wasn’t accepted to Yale, but he has no regrets about his choice.

“If you’re not going to see what my race is in my application, then I’m definitely putting it in my writing,” said Cardoso, who graduated from Boston Collegiate Charter School and will attend Dartmouth College this fall, “because you have to know that this is the person who I am.”   

 – Meredith Kolodner

Excerpt:

I was thrust into a narrative of indifference and insignificance from the moment I entered this world. I was labeled as black, which placed me in the margins of society. It seemed that my destiny had been predetermined; to be part of a minority group constantly oppressed under the weight of a social construct called race. Blackness became my life, an identity I initially battled against. I knew others viewed it as a flaw that tainted their perception of me. As I matured, I realized that being different was not easy, but it was what I loved most about myself.

READ ENTIRE ESSAY

Klaryssa Cobian, Los Angeles 

A semi-nomadic mattress life

Klaryssa Cobian is Latina – a first-generation Mexican American – and so was nearly everyone else in the Southeast Los Angeles community where she grew up. Because that world was so homogenous, she really didn’t notice her race until she was a teenager.

Then she earned a scholarship to a prestigious private high school in Pasadena. For the first time, she was meaningfully interacting with people of other races and ethnicities, but she felt the greatest gulf between her and her peers came from her socioeconomic status, not the color of her skin. 

Although Cobian has generally tried to keep her home life private, she felt that colleges needed to understand the way her family’s severe economic disadvantages had affected her. She wrote about how she’d long been “desperate to feel at home.”

She was 16 years old before she had a mattress of her own. Her essay cataloged all the places she lay her head before that. She wrote about her first bed, a queen-sized mattress shared with her parents and younger sister. She wrote about sleeping in the backseat of her mother’s red Mustang, before they lost the car. She wrote about moving into her grandparents’ home and sharing a mattress on the floor with her sister, in the same room as two uncles. She wrote about the great independence she felt when she “moved out” into the living room and onto the couch. 

“Which mattress I sleep on has defined my life, my independence, my dependence,” Cobian wrote.

She’d initially considered writing about the ways she felt she’d had to sacrifice her Latino culture and identity to pursue her education, but said she hesitated after the Supreme Court ruled on the use of affirmative action in admissions. Ultimately, she decided that her experience of poverty was more pertinent. 

“If I’m in a room of people, it’s like, I can talk to other Latinos, and I can talk to other brown people, but that does not mean I’m going to connect with them. Because, I learned, brown people can be rich,” Cobian said.  She’s headed to the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall.

– Olivia Sanchez

Excerpt: 

With the only income, my mom automatically assumed custody of me and my younger sister, Alyssa. With no mattress and no home, the backseat of my mom’s red mustang became my new mattress. Bob Marley blasted from her red convertible as we sang out “could you be loved” every day on our ride back from elementary school. Eventually, we lost the mustang too and would take the bus home from Downtown Los Angeles, still singing “could you be loved” to each other.

READ ENTIRE ESSAY

Oluwademilade Egunjobi, Providence, Rhode Island

The perfect introduction

Oluwademilade Egunjobi worked on her college essay from June until November. Not every single day, and not on only one version, but for five months she was writing and editing and asking anyone who would listen for advice.

She considered submitting essays about the value of sex education, or the philosophical theory of solipsism (in which the only thing that is guaranteed to exist is your own mind). 

But most of the advice she got was to write about her identity. So, to introduce herself to colleges, Oluwademilade Egunjobi wrote about her name.

Egunjobi is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who, she wrote, chose her first name because it means she’s been crowned by God. In naming her, she said, her parents prioritized pride in their heritage over ease of pronunciation for people outside their culture. 

And although Egunjobi loves that she will always be connected to her culture, this choice has put her in a lifelong loop of exasperating introductions and questions from non-Nigerians about her name. 

The loop often ends when the person asks if they can call her by her nickname, Demi. “I smile through my irritation and say I prefer it anyways, and then the situation repeats time and time again,” Egunjobi wrote. 

She was nervous when she learned about the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, wondering what it might mean for where she would get into college. Her teachers and college advisors from a program called Matriculate told her she didn’t have to write a sob story, but that she should write about her identity, how it affects the way she moves through the world and the resilience it’s taught her. 

She heeded their advice, and it worked out. In the fall, she will enter the University of Pennsylvania to study philosophy, politics and economics. 

– Olivia Sanchez

Excerpt:

I don’t think I’ve ever had to fight so hard to love something as hard as I’ve fought to love my name. I’m grateful for it because it’ll never allow me to reject my culture and my identity, but I get frustrated by this daily performance. I’ve learned that this performance is an inescapable fate, but the best way to deal with fate is to show up with joy. I am Nigerian, but specifically from the ethnic group, Yoruba. In Yoruba culture, most names are manifestations. Oluwademilade means God has crowned me, and my middle name is Favor, so my parents have manifested that I’ll be favored above others and have good success in life. No matter where I go, people familiar with the language will recognize my name and understand its meaning. I love that I’ll always carry a piece of my culture with me.

Francisco Garcia, Fort Worth, Texas 

Accepted to college and by his community

In the opening paragraph of his college application essay, Francisco Garcia quotes his mother, speaking to him in Spanish, expressing disappointment that her son was failing to live up to her Catholic ideals. It was her reaction to Garcia revealing his bisexuality. 

Garcia, 18, said those nine Spanish words were “the most intentional thing I did to share my background” with colleges. The rest of his essay delves into how his Catholic upbringing, at least for a time, squelched his ability to be honest with friends about his sexual identity, and how his relationship with the church changed. He said he had strived, however, to avoid coming across as pessimistic or sad, aiming instead to share “what I’ve been through [and] how I’ve become a better person because of it.” 

He worked on his essay throughout July, August and September, with guidance from college officials he met during campus visits and from an adviser he was paired with by Matriculate, which works with students who are high achievers from low-income families. Be very personal, they told Garcia, but within limits. 

“I am fortunate to have support from all my friends, who encourage me to explore complexities within myself,” he wrote. “My friends give me what my mother denied me: acceptance.”

He was accepted by Dartmouth, one of the eight schools to which he applied, after graduating from Saginaw High School near Fort Worth, Texas, this spring.

– Nirvi Shah

Excerpt: 

By the time I got to high school, I had made new friends who I felt safe around. While I felt I was more authentic with them, I was still unsure whether they would judge me for who I liked. It became increasingly difficult for me to keep hiding this part of myself, so I vented to both my mom and my closest friend, Yoana … When I confessed that I was bisexual to Yoana, they were shocked, and I almost lost hope. However, after the initial shock, they texted back, “I’m really chill with this. Nothing has changed Francisco:)”. The smiley face, even if it took 2 characters, was enough to bring me to tears. 

READ ENTIRE ESSAY

Hafsa Sheikh, Pearland, Texas 

Family focus above all 

Hafsa Sheikh felt her applications would be incomplete without the important context of her home life:  She became a primary financial contributor to her household when she was just 15, because her father, once the family’s sole breadwinner, could not work due to his major depressive disorder. Her work in a pizza parlor on the weekends and as a tutor after school helped pay the bills. 

She found it challenging to open up this way, but felt she needed to tell colleges that, although working two jobs throughout high school made her feel like crying from exhaustion every night, she would do anything for her family.

“It’s definitely not easy sharing some of the things that you’ve been through with, like really a stranger,” she said, “because you don’t know who’s reading it.”

And especially after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action, Sheikh felt she needed to write about her cultural identity. It’s a core part of who she is, but it’s also a major part of why her father’s mental illness affected her life so profoundly. 

Sheikh, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, said her family became isolated because of the negative stigma surrounding mental health in their South Asian culture. She said they became the point of gossip in the community and even among extended family members, and they were excluded from many social gatherings. This was happening as she was watching the typical high school experiences pass her by, she wrote. Because of the long hours she had to work, she had to forgo the opportunity to try out for the girls’ basketball team and debate club, and often couldn’t justify cutting back her hours to spend time with her friends. 

She wrote that reflecting on one of her favorite passages in the Holy Quran gave her hope:

“One of my favorite ayahs, ‘verily, with every hardship comes ease,’ serves as a timeless reminder that adversity is not the end; rather, there is always light on the other side,” Sheikh wrote.

Her perseverance paid off, with admission to Princeton University.

– Olivia Sanchez

Excerpt: 

Besides the financial responsibility on my mother and I, we had to deal with the stigma surrounding mental health in South Asian culture and the importance of upholding traditional gender roles. My family became a point of great gossip within the local Pakistani community and even extended family.  Slowly, the invitations to social gatherings diminished, and I bailed on plans with friends because I couldn’t afford to miss even a single hour of earnings.

Manal Akil, Dundalk, Maryland

Life lessons from cooking

Manal Akil explores the world’s cultures without leaving her family’s kitchen in Dundalk, Maryland. 

“I believe the smartest people in all of history were those who invented dishes. The first person who decided to throw tomato and cheese on dough, the first person who decided to roll fish with rice in seaweed,” Akil wrote. “These people experimented with what they had and changed the world.” 

For Akil, cooking is about much more than preparing a meal. It’s about knowing when you have to meticulously follow directions and when you can be creative and experimental. It’s about realizing when you make a mistake, and being mentally flexible enough to salvage your ingredients with a positive attitude. And it’s about marveling at the similarities and differences of humanity across cultures. 

Akil’s parents are from Morocco, but she chose not to mention her cultural identity in her essay. Because she didn’t choose where she came from, she feels it doesn’t reveal much about who she is. In supplemental essays, Akil said she did write about her experience growing up with immigrant parents. In those essays, she wrote about how she understands her parents’ native language, but can’t speak it, and how she had to become independent as a young child. 

But the life lessons Akil has gained through cooking are so important to her that she chose to focus on them in her primary essay instead of sharing a personal narrative. When comparing essay ideas and drafts with her classmates, she realized that most of them were writing much more directly about their identities and experiences. 

She felt her nontraditional approach to personal essay writing was risky, but it worked. She was admitted to eight colleges, and in the fall she’ll enter Georgetown University. 

“​​I have never, nor will ever, regret any time spent making food; all my work in the kitchen has paid off,” Akil wrote. “I enter with ambition and leave with insight on myself and the world. Each plate served, each bite taken, and each ‘Mmmh’ has contributed to my growth.”

– Olivia Sanchez

Excerpt: 

In the comfort of my own home, I have been to many countries from all around the world. Throughout this world travel, I have picked up on different quirks unique to each region, while simultaneously connecting the dots between the world. South Asia with its warm taste profile, East Asia with its wholesome flavors, and North Africa with its savory delights. Thousands of miles apart and all so distinct in regard to culture, yet sharing similar foods, just under different names: Paratha, Diao Lu Bing, and Msemen — all flaky pancakes. I love discovering such culinary parallels that make me say, “This reminds me of that!” or “That reminds me of this!” These nuances serve as a powerful reminder that regardless of our varied backgrounds, we as humans are one because at the end of the day, food is the heart of every civilization. 

READ ENTIRE ESSAY

David Arturo Munoz-Matta, McAllen, Texas

If I’m honest, will an elite college want me?

It was Nov. 30 and David Arturo Munoz-Matta had eight college essays due the next day. He had spent the prior weeks slammed with homework while also grieving the loss of his uncle who had just died. He knew the essays were going to require all the mental energy he could muster – not to mention whatever hours were left in the day. But he got home from school to discover he had no electricity. 

“I was like, ‘What am I gonna do?’” said Munoz-Matta, who graduated from Lamar Academy in McAllen, Texas. “I was panicking for a while, and my mom was like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna drop you off at Starbucks and then just call me when you finish with all your essays.’ And so I was there at Starbucks from 4 until 12 in the morning.” 

The personal statement he agonized over most was the one he submitted to Georgetown University. 

“I don’t want to be mean or anything, but I feel like a lot of these institutions are very elitist, and that my story might not resonate with the admissions officers,” Munoz-Matta said. “It was a very big risk, especially when I said I was born in Mexico, when I said I grew up in an abusive environment. I believed at the time that would not be good for universities, that they might feel like, ‘I don’t want this kid, he won’t be a good fit with the student body.’”

He didn’t have an adult to help him with his essay, but another student encouraged him to be honest. It worked. He got into his dream school, Georgetown University, with a full ride. Many of his peers were not as fortunate. 

“I know because of the affirmative action decision, a lot of my friends did not even apply to these universities, like the Ivies, because they felt like they were not going to get in,” he said. “That was a very big sentiment in my school.”    

– Meredith Kolodner

Excerpt:

While many others in my grade level had lawyers and doctors for parents and came from exemplary middle schools at the top of their classes, I was the opposite. I came into Lamar without middle school recognition, recalling my 8th-grade science teacher’s claim that I would never make it. At Lamar, freshman year was a significant challenge as I constantly struggled, feeling like I had reached my wit’s end. By the middle of Freshman year, I was the only kid left from my middle school, since everyone else had dropped out. Rather than following suit, I kept going. I felt like I had something to prove to myself because I knew I could make it.

READ ENTIRE ESSAY

Kendall Martin, Austin, Texas

Between straight hair and a hard place

Kendall Martin wanted to be clear with college admissions officers about one thing: She is a young Black woman, and her race is central to who she is. Martin, 18, was ranked 15th in her graduating class from KIPP Austin Collegiate. She was a key figure on her high school basketball team. She wanted colleges to know she had overcome adversity. But most importantly, Martin said, she wanted to be sure, when her application was reviewed, “Y’all know who you are accepting.”

It wouldn’t be as simple as checking a box, though, which led Martin, of Kyle, Texas, to the topic she chose for her college admissions essay, the year after the Supreme Court said race could not be a factor in college admissions. Instead, she looked at the hair framing her face, hair still scarred from being straightened time and again. 

Martin wrote about the struggles she faced growing up with hair that she says required extensive time to tame so she could simply run her fingers through it. Now headed to Rice University in Houston – her first choice from a half-dozen options – she included a photo of her braids as part of her application. Her essay described her journey from hating her hair to embracing it, from heat damage to learning to braid, from frustration to love, a feeling she now hopes to inspire in her sister.  

“That’s what I wanted to get across: my growing up, my experiences, everything that made me who I am.” 

– Nirvi Shah

Excerpt

I’m still recovering from the heat damage I caused by straightening my hair every day, because I was so determined to prove that I had length. When I was younger, a lot of my self worth was based on how long my hair was, so when kids made fun of my “short hair”, I despised my curls more and more. I begged my mom to let me get a relaxer, but she continued to deny my wish. This would make me so angry, because who was she to tell me what I could and couldn’t do with my hair? But looking back, I’m so glad she never let me. I see now that a relaxer wasn’t the key to making me prettier, and my love for my curls has reached an all-time high. 

READ ENTIRE ESSAY

This story about college admission essays was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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In matters both big and small, women in education leadership are treated, spoken to and viewed differently than their male colleagues. And it impacts everything from their assignments and salaries to promotions.

The career moves that are open to aspiring women leaders often propel them toward a very real glass cliff — leadership roles in which the risk of failure is high. By failing to address this bias, states and districts are constraining the rise of some of their most capable current and would-be leaders.

New survey data and research illuminates the experiences and perspectives of women who confront this bias and demonstrates the need for systemic change to dismantle the bias driving the gender gap.

The glass cliff for women is real, but it is not insurmountable. If more leaders — both women and, critically, men — take even a few steps forward, we can build a bridge to a future in which every leader can reach their full potential.

Here are some ways district and state leaders can transform the pipeline for who advances and leads their systems.

First, women in education leadership need more active support, with a shift from mentoring to sponsorship. That calls for women and men to take an engaged role in advancing up-and-coming women leaders — and all leaders, at all stages, who can benefit from on-the-job coaching.

These relationships can be game-changers, results from the first annual Women Leading Ed insight survey found. What’s more, they provide excellent opportunities for men to be allies in advancing gender equality.

Related: Widen your perspective. Our free biweekly newsletter consults critical voices on innovation in education.

For example, Kyla Johnson-Trammell, the superintendent of schools in Oakland, recently recalled having a male coach when she started out. He served as her sponsor, providing coaching and introducing her to other experienced leaders.

“When I started as superintendent of Oakland Unified School District, one of the former superintendents called me. This man coached me for two years every Friday,” Johnson-Trammell recounted. “He helped me and pushed me to be the leader I wanted to be as a Black woman. . . . His sponsorship helped open doors to accessing people, it helped me to connect to other superintendents.”

Second, rebalanced evaluation, promotion and hiring processes can be key levers in undoing bias. That means creating diverse applicant pools and hiring committees and providing bias training for those making key personnel decisions.

Seemingly small changes can have big effects. For example, having a finalist pool with two women candidates — instead of just one — made the likelihood of a woman getting hired 79 times greater, recent research in the Harvard Business Review found.

More broadly, the existing education leadership pipeline continues to disadvantage women. Data from the U.S. Department of Education shows — and the Women Leading Ed survey results verify — that women are predominantly funneled toward elementary school leadership and instructional leadership pathways that keep their trajectories below the top jobs in the district or state.

Men, however, are elevated to high school principalships and district positions that include fiscal or operational roles — precisely the kind of experiences that are prioritized during superintendent search processes.

The Women Leading Ed survey results underscore this divergence. Of respondents who had been principals, fewer than 20 percent served in a high school. Overall, just over one in 20 respondents had held finance or operations roles.

In one response to the survey, a woman who was a senior leader in a large urban school district described the bias of the skewed leadership pipeline succinctly: “I was told I’m too petite to be anything but an elementary principal.”

Third, bolstered family and well-being supports are essential to advancing more women leaders. These include parental leave, childcare, eldercare time and scheduling flexibility.

Rising to top district leadership positions comes with costs for women that are typically not shouldered by men.

Respondents to the Women Leading Ed survey reported feeling pressure to overperform professionally to prove their competency. Fully 95 percent of women superintendents believe that they must make professional sacrifices that their male colleagues do not, the survey data show.

Some women reported working long hours while neglecting family, under pressure to maintain unrealistic expectations at the office. One pointed out the additional responsibilities that women often carry in their personal lives, including the care of children or parents, attending and organizing school events, providing homework help and taking family members to doctor appointments.

Related: OPINION: We need more women in top leadership positions in our nation’s public schools

Added pressure at work and greater responsibilities at home lead to burnout: Roughly six out of 10 survey respondents said they think about leaving their current position due to the stress and strain; three-quarters said they think about leaving daily, weekly or monthly.

Providing high-quality benefits can be a key lever for addressing these underlying gender inequalities. So can offering flexible work schedules, hybrid work arrangements and remote work options that provide elasticity in where and when work gets done.

Finally, systems — not just individuals — must be accountable. Setting public goals for female leadership on boards and in senior management is a start. Reporting on progress toward those public goals is vital. So too is ensuring equal pay for equal work.

More than half the superintendents surveyed said that they have had conversations or negotiations about their salaries in which they felt their gender influenced the outcome.

One solution: establish audits for pay equity and increased transparency around compensation. Another: include salary ranges in job postings. These can be powerful steps toward the goal of pay equality.

Over 700 leaders have signed Women Leading Ed’s open letter calling for the adoption of these strategies. The strategies are already taking root through the advocacy and actions of women in education leadership and their allies of all genders.

It is a movement that is both growing and vital, as research makes clear that women continue to face a different set of rules than men in leadership, and districts too often give women window-dressing roles instead of actually reforming their practices to achieve gender equality.

The time for change is now.

Julia Rafal-Baer is the founder and CEO of Women Leading Ed, a national nonprofit network for women in education leadership, and co-founder and CEO of ILO Group, a women-owned education and policy strategy firm.

This story about women education leaders was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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In the three years that I’ve been a student journalist, every text, conversation or interview I’ve had with a fellow teen reporter has dealt with a common thread: censorship. 

A principal stifled a story about a cafeteria that had never met fire regulations. A school newspaper was barred from writing about recent book bans. Student journalists were told they could not interview teachers at their school without explicit permission from the district communications director. 

In New York and across the country, adults are censoring or stifling the voices of student journalists based on local politics or fear of tarnishing a school’s image. This is a dangerous trend — and a common one in our current national discourse. It comes at a time when college campuses across the country are similarly engulfed in debates over free speech. We see this status quo infecting school boards and state legislatures, and we see it in the way professional reporters are treated. 

Tolerance and respect for differing views on race, sexual orientation and political parties are needed now more than ever to ease drastic polarization and division across our nation. But how can teens learn to value others’ perspectives when student journalists are barred from reporting on sensitive topics in their own communities? 

Censorship for the purpose of image upkeep is antithetical to good journalism education and, more broadly, to democracy. 

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Student journalists could be part of the solution, which is why my peers throughout New York State and I stand behind a bill designed to protect the First Amendment rights of those not yet eligible to vote. 

The bill, sponsored by New York democrats Assemblymember Donna Lupardo and Senator Brian Kavanagh, clearly defines unprotected speech, protects student newspaper and yearbook advisers from retribution by administrators and shields schools from liability for expression in student media, distinctly separating such expression from school policy.

Similar legislation is already helping student journalists in 18 other states (including Minnesota as of May 19). These laws, known nationally as New Voices, counteract the vague censorship guidelines established by the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. 

Without New Voices laws, students are taught to accept favorable narratives blindly, instead of seeking the truth. And their readers develop a false sense of what is news, especially at publications in schools where the administration prefers to showcase positivity rather than sincerity. When students are taught to ignore stories that are based on facts, they won’t be as prepared for the rigors of critical thinking in college. 

Students at Binghamton High School are fighting to establish the right to focus on facts at their school newspaper, Polaris Press. They have requested that it be recognized by the administration as a “public forum for student expression,” wording that aligns with the Hazelwood ruling. If granted, the change would appear to give the paper stronger first amendment protections locally, so that it can operate with editorial independence (and the guidance of their adviser) — and clearly reflect the views and interests of the schools’ students.

The staff want to write about climate change, gun violence in nearby districts and issues surrounding immigration. Yet, currently, all of their work is subject to prepublication review by their administration before their reporting can be printed. 

This review process led to indirect censorship last fall when the September issue wasn’t approved until mid-October. Students say the administrators took issue with wording in the publication’s founding statement, which highlighted the Polaris staff’s aims to provide “wholly truthful” content to their peers. The editors eventually changed the wording, but the hold-up made what was once newsworthy irrelevant for a print-only publication — a five-week delay, for example, of coverage of gunshots heard at a varsity away game in early September. 

In my view, prioritizing positivity over tackling controversial topics turns student journalists into public relations specialists.

Related: The magic pebble and a lazy bull: The book ban movement has a long timeline

My high school’s yearbook in Corning, New York, for which I am currently a reference section staffer, is free from prior review and censorship. Both our superintendent, Michelle Caulfield, and executive principal, Robin Sheehan, enthusiastically support our freedom and the New Voices legislation, as does my yearbook adviser, Michael Simons, a key leader in New Voices New York since 2017. 

As a student media publication, our yearbook is considered part of our school’s scholastic journalism program. My fellow student journalists and I have covered depression, sexual health, school safety and the dress code, along with hunting and gun ownership. And our award-winning yearbook is widely regarded as one of the best in the country. 

New York City high schools provide other examples of accountability/investigative journalism. The Spectator at Stuyvesant High School reported on climate change, the overturning of affirmative action and the impact of co-ed swim gym on Muslim girls. The Classic, the newspaper at Townsend Harris High School in Queens, reported on the national blood shortage and on sexual health programs in New York City schools. 

The rules that student journalists operate under in New York State vary by district — the threat of censorship is often based on the sensitivities of school administrators, the power of the superintendent and the seniority of the school’s journalism adviser. 

Freedom of speech cannot be so subjective. Restricting student press freedom is the first step toward limiting journalist inquiry and will erode our democracy. 

Nationally, the New Voices’ bills will strengthen our schools and empower student journalists by providing them with adequate protections to speak truth and to think for themselves. 

Call your legislators and urge them to pass the Student Journalist Free Speech Act. Free speech must continue to flourish in and outside the classroom walls.

Adelaide Barlow is a student journalist on the Tesserae Yearbook staff at Corning-Painted Post High School in Corning, New York, and a New Voices New York advocate.

This story about student newspaper censorship was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up forHechinger’s newsletter. 

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Many American students face a strange punishment for missing school: losing more class time.

Educators nationwide regularly turn to suspension as a response to attendance problems, according to a Hechinger Report review of data from a dozen states that track this information.

Between 2017-18 and 2021-22, school districts in those states cited attendance-related violations as a reason for student suspensions more than half a million times. In all, they made up almost 1 in 10 discipline records.

Those totals are “crazy high,” said Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Education.

His research has shown that school attendance is an early indicator of whether a student is on track to graduate. Punishing students by forcing them to miss class can harm their chances of getting a diploma on time.

“To me, whether you’re truant, absent or late, that our remedy is to tell you to miss more school is just poorly thought out at best,” Balfanz said. “We just know from years and years of research that it’s really important for kids to be in school every day.”

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Hechinger’s analysis is the largest national look to date at suspensions for attendance violations, gathered as part of its Suspended …for what? project.

A previous Hechinger analysis of 150 Arizona school districts, in partnership with the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, found nearly 47,000 suspensions for attendance issues across five years, also accounting for 10 percent of all such punishments.

Both Hechinger reports found that the suspensions for missing class disproportionately affected students from certain minority groups.

Educators say suspensions can be a useful tool to teach students a lesson when they have persistent attendance problems or to help keep schools safe. But many experts criticize these punishments as an ineffective way to solve the problem.

“One can understand the theory behind that, but there’s no real evidence to show that it actually then spurs a student to change,” said Joshua Childs, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “What that doesn’t recognize is that a lot of attendance issues are beyond an individual student’s control.”

Students may miss part or all of the school day for any number of reasons, including mental health concerns, transportation problems or family responsibilities. A suspension addresses none of these issues and can instead further alienate a student from school.

Related: Vague school rules at the root of millions of student suspensions:

At least 11 states ban suspensions for attendance-related violations, and another six limit out-of-school suspensions for attendance violations. Following the 2022 Hechinger/AZCIR report, an Arizona lawmaker twice proposed bills that would have done the latter. Both measures stalled after initially drawing bipartisan support, and the legislator has decided not to seek reelection.

Some districts have acted on their own. In the 2022-23 school year, Georgia’s Gwinnett County Public Schools banned suspensions for attendance-related reasons. In the five years before that, the 194,000-student district assigned more than 27,000 such suspensions.

Statewide, educators issued more than 190,000 suspensions for attendance violations in that time, which accounted for more than 13 percent of all suspensions records.

The ban came with problems, though, Gwinnett spokesperson Bernard Watson said, including “an increase in the number of students arriving late to class, skipping class, and hanging out in restrooms and locker rooms.”

After hearing concerns about safety from school leaders, the district changed course. School leaders could once again suspend students for missing class, but only after they had first tried other options, such as detention, parent outreach or check-ins with support staff.

“Decisions related to discipline are not made in a vacuum,” Watson said in an email, adding that the district considers data, as well as seeking feedback from staff, parents and students. “These efforts help keep students and staff safe and productive in schools.”

Related: When the punishment is the same as the crime: Suspended for missing class

Lori Miller, executive director of the Georgia-based Truancy Intervention Project, said her organization regularly works with kids who are punished for missing class, even if they managed to get to school for part of the day. In these cases, she says, the suspension rarely makes sense to the students.

“Well, you’re telling me I should go to school, but I showed up, even though I’m late, and your response was to pull me out,” she said. “It’s very confusing to kids. We have to be very careful with the messages we’re sending.”

Miller added that the problem is worse at schools that are under-resourced, which disproportionately serve Black and Latino students. There, teachers and staff are stretched thin dealing with a wide array of student issues including mental health challenges and food insecurity. In those cases, she said, suspension can be the easiest, quickest way to address a problem — even if it’s not the best.

In almost all states with available data, Black students were more likely to be suspended for attendance-related violations than their white peers. The same was true in our previous investigation in Arizona. Experts called the findings concerning and said further investigation was merited.

The Hechinger Report and AZCIR also found many school leaders who were committed to eliminating suspensions for attendance-related reasons. These educators focused on developing connections with students and addressing the root causes of what was keeping kids out of class, strategies Balfanz said are key to improving attendance problems.

In Arizona’s Tolleson Elementary School District, for instance, every student is paired with an adult who checks in with them regularly. Clubs and extracurriculars also help students find a place where they feel they belong. An onsite health clinic helps address medical concerns early to get kids back to school as fast as possible.

Schools should be focused on “What does it take to get the kids to be there every day?” Balfanz said. “Not just, ‘We take the ones who come and we punish the ones who don’t.’”

This story about school suspension data was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Picture a young girl named Emma, who finds herself transitioning from a public school to a private school due to her unique educational needs. The journey that Emma (a pseudonym) and other students like her embark upon will mean entering a world where protections they once relied on vanish.

Every year, tens of thousands of U.S. students are placed in private schools at public expense to receive the Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) they are entitled to under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These transitions appear promising on the surface.

However, they come with a hidden cost: the loss of the students’ constitutional rights.

Many parents agree with their public schools’ recommendations to move their children to private schools to better address their educational needs. Yet many are also unaware that the constitutional safeguards their children possess in public school, such as the right to equal protection of the laws, won’t follow them to their private placement due to a loophole in IDEA.

If a publicly placed student with disabilities is suspended from their private school, for example, they will not have a right to due process, a fundamental protection for public school students. Private schools are not legally required to provide students with the basic rights to understand the disciplinary charges against them, to hear evidence supporting those charges and to present their own side of the story.

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox. 

As an education attorney, I’ve witnessed this unfortunate dilemma unfold time and again: Parents who are aware of these lost safeguards often feel that they have to make an impossible choice — stay in a public school that can’t meet their child’s educational needs, or accept placement in a private school that can, but at the cost of losing constitutional protections.

This is a false choice, however, because it contradicts, among other things, the central purpose of the IDEA, which is to ensure that all eligible students with disabilities receive equitable educational opportunities.

The IDEA should thus be amended to affirm that when private schools opt to take on the public function of providing special education services on behalf of school districts, they also take on the public responsibility of respecting students’ constitutional rights.

The problem that parents and students currently face stems from a legal principle known as the state action doctrine, which emphasizes that the federal Constitution primarily regulates government action — not private conduct. This means that a student’s constitutional protections and right to due process only apply when the government, and not a private entity, is involved in the provision of special education services.

Exactly when the state action doctrine applies, however, has been the subject of much debate in recent years, particularly in the realm of public education.

Previously, the Supreme Court held that a private school serving publicly placed general education students was not considered a state actor because the state had not delegated a “traditionally exclusive state function” to the private school. In a separate case, however, the Court unanimously held that a statewide association governing high school athletic events — comprised of both public and private schools — was a state actor subject to constitutional scrutiny due to the “pervasive entwinement” of public school officials in the association’s structure and operations.

This lack of clarity impacts the students that IDEA is intended to protect. For example, without an opportunity for a fair due process hearing, students with disabilities like Emma can be suspended or expelled from their private school placement for behaviors that are related to, or a manifestation of, their disabilities; the private school does not have to properly consider whether the behavior at issue was caused by the student’s disability.

Related: Students with disabilities often snared by subjective discipline rules

The unjustified suspensions and expulsions that can result disrupt students’ individualized education programs and undermine their ability to effectively learn and make progress toward critical goals — goals enshrined in law, such as comprehensively preparing students for integrated employment and vocational education through transition services tailored to their individual needs and preferences, as mandated by IDEA.

Without being considered state actors, private schools receiving public funds are free to trample on students’ due process rights, free speech protections and more — constitutional safeguards those same students would otherwise possess if their public schools could have met their legal obligations under IDEA in the first instance.

No student’s constitutional protections should depend on the setting in which they receive their education. All students placed by school districts in private schools as a means of providing FAPE should thus be entitled to the same legal safeguards as those who remain in public classrooms.

Congress has the power and the moral imperative to correct this injustice. It’s time to make equal rights a reality for all students with disabilities.

Chris Yarrell is a staff attorney at the Center for Law and Education.

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Even as we approach the 70th anniversary of Brown vs. Board this May, key parts of its history remain buried. Reporting has begun to engage with some of the lost, and often complex, aspects of Brown’s legacy, such as the mass firing of Black educators following the Brown decision.

At least one critical piece, however, still remains largely unknown: NAACP lawyers submitted a letter with evidence about segregation’s impact on white students as well as Black students.

In the letter, signed by more than 30 social scientists, Thurgood Marshall and his team at the NAACP warned that, in addition to its more well-known harms to Black educational opportunity, segregation also has detrimental effects on white children.

If school integration is going to reach its full potential — for schools and for democracy in general — we should take a close look at this neglected letter and its chilling resonances with contemporary society. The letter notes that “segregation imposes upon individuals a distorted sense of social reality” that can take shape in different ways for white students.

As we approach a milestone for Brown, let’s seize this opportunity to recommit to one of its primary goals: integrated public schools as “the very foundation of good citizenship.”

This requires thinking about Brown more expansively than we have in the past. Thinking of school integration not as an individual benefit for one group of students but as an essential component of a healthy multicultural democracy.

Related: Any educational reform that ignores segregation is doomed to failure

Indeed, research clearly illustrates that white students in diverse schools gain social awareness and intercultural understanding among other benefits. In a recent study, my colleagues at the University of Massachusetts and I compared white students in segregated white schools with those in racially diverse schools. We found that the latter reported higher levels of civic engagement and a sense of belonging.

This is just one example in a long history of social science research that connects racial contact to enhanced participation in a diverse democracy — including increased sociocultural empathy and reduced belief in stereotypes.

The NAACP letter warns that those on the top of a social hierarchy can experience “confusion, conflict [and] moral cynicism” when trying to reconcile a contradiction between the stated “importance of justice and fair play by the same persons and institutions who, in their support of racial segregation and related practices, seem to be acting in a prejudiced and discriminatory manner.”

It notes that those majority members, in their effort to make sense of this apparent paradox, may “develop patterns of guilt feelings” or embrace “rigid stereotypes.”

Others may “attempt to resolve this conflict by intensifying their hostility toward the minority group,” the letter notes.

And in perhaps its most prophetic line, the letter warns that racial hostility is often accompanied by an “uncritical idealization of all authority figures” and “the development of a social climate within which violent outbreaks of racial tensions are likely to occur.”

If that sounds familiar, it’s for good reason. And it’s deeply troubling. Consider the recent steady rise of hate incidents that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the “Trump effect.”

The former president’s current campaign is even more explicit in its embrace of racial stereotypes and dictatorial rule.

Surely, part of Trump’s support is connected to those “feelings of hostility” the letter described.

We see this today in efforts to ban curriculum on the history of school desegregation or even to outlaw any analysis of racism that inspires feelings of “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.”  

Our current political climate might look different if the court had emphasized the benefits for all students in its final Brown ruling; of course, it did not.

Related: OPINION: Why segregation and racial gaps in education persist 70 years after the end of legal segregation

Segregation’s impact on white students is noticeably absent from one of the decision’s most iconic lines: “Segregation of white and colored children in the public schools hasa detrimental effect upon the colored children.”

Taking its cues from the court ruling, our country pursued Brown’s mandate narrowly, as an often one-way form of desegregation. Families of color bore a disproportionate burden — long bus rides, the white mobs — because it was presumed that desegregation was for their benefit only.

Thankfully, there are vibrant existing venues for a more expansive conception of school integration, much of which is organized by the National Coalition on School Diversity.

In some cities, youth organizers are carrying forward the similarly forgotten legacy of student protest for school integration. The student organizing operates according to a reimagined notion of Brown’s mandate, described as the 5 Rs of real integration: race and enrollment, resources, relationships, restorative justice and representation.

There are also efforts underway across the country to organize white and/or affluent parents — of course, the chief opponents of desegregation — to choose racially diverse schools for their children.

Research gives us reason to feel hopeful that these kinds of efforts can usher in a new era of school integration. Recent polling illustrates that white parents opposed to school integration are likely to change their opinions after learning more about the impact of segregation on white children: the exact results the NAACP letter warned us about 70 years ago.

We need to address segregation as a collective challenge and create a new approach that breaks from the one-sidedness of the past. Even as Brown turns 70, it’s not too late.

The seeds were planted long ago, and our current moment gives us plenty of motivation to help them grow.

Peter Piazza is a research assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate director of the university’s Beyond Test Scores Project.

This story about Brown vs. Board of Education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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Robert Fitzer was watching news footage of New York City firefighters rescuing people from a Manhattan apartment building on fire, a fire started by a lithium-ion battery in an electric bike. 

Fitzer, the associate vice president for public safety at Fordham University in New York, looked at the calendar. It was late 2022. With winter holidays — and the year’s biggest gift-giving season — around the corner, it was possible students would return to campus in January with their own battery-powered transit devices in tow. Fearing that the same kind of fire could occur in a campus residence hall, Fitzer crafted a policy to ban the bikes not only from buildings on Fordham’s Bronx campus but even from the university grounds — an option made possible by gates walling off its perimeter.

Since the entire length of the Bronx campus takes a mere 10 minutes to cross on foot, he said, there was little justification for needing an electricity-powered bicycle to traverse it. 

The kind of fire that spurred Fitzer to act has happened hundreds of times across the country, and especially in New York City – including on Feb. 23, in a Harlem apartment building where The Hechinger Report’s data reporter Fazil Khan lived.

It cost Khan his life.

Fordham, some other universities and some cities, including New York and San Francisco, are creating policies to regulateor ban e-bikes and their siblings, e-scooters and hoverboards powered by similar batteries, in the absence of federal or state legislation. 

Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.

Talk of setting standards for the bikes, or more precisely for the batteries that power them, is the goal of stalled legislation in Congress. Lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes can catch fire if damaged, overcharged or overheated, according to the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association, which provides training and standards on fire safety. The fires the bikes start can produce toxic gases and burn so hot that extinguishing them can be difficult. 

The federal agency that could regulate e-bikes, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is instead pushing companies to adhere to voluntary standards for e-bikes and their batteries, such as those set by UL Standards & Engagement.  “CPSC staff believes that products designed, manufactured, and third-party-certified to this standard, or other applicable voluntary standards, reduce the risk of fire and shock,” a spokesperson, Thaddeus Harrington, said, adding that the agency had no plans to mandate these standards.

At the University of Connecticut, a rule took effect at the start of the fall term about what it calls motorized personal transportation vehicles – they cannot enter any campus building. 

The risk of a fire from an electric bike or scooter is “a clock that’s constantly ticking,” the university’s deputy fire chief Christopher Renshaw said. 

That risk is acute when the vehicles aren’t maintained correctly, Renshaw said, or the wrong kind of battery is slipped in, or a charging cord is swapped. A plug may not meet the rating needed for the battery to charge. Students, however, “they see an outlet, and they think, always, the two are compatible,” he said. “They might not be.” 

In New York City, where the fire department said the batteries have become the area’s primary cause of fires, a law that took effect last September requires any mobility device sold or rented that uses lithium-ion batteries to be certified as complying with UL standards. The city also got a $25-million grant from the federal Department of Transportation to set up nearly 200 outdoor charging stations for e-bikes and more than 50 e-bike storage sites. 

“Most lithium-ion batteries and chargers are safe, and we need to encourage the use of more sustainable transportation alternatives moving forward,” New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said at a press conference last year about the grant. “But we also need to make sure that these micromobility vehicles are stored and charged safely, so that faulty or improperly manufactured batteries don’t put people in harm’s way.”

Related: Remembering our friend and colleague Fazil Khan

Storage and charging, especially in residences, cause many of the fire hazards. In San Francisco, where 58 fires were started by lithium-ion batteries last year, a new law sets limits on how many scooters and bikes powered by these batteries can be charged in apartments and also requires them to have certified batteries. 

It’s in this landscape that some universities are forging their own paths.

Yale and Boston College restrict the bikes, as well as how and where they are charged. Some items, including e-scooters, are banned altogether. Quinnipiac University in Connecticut bans them from its dorms, Mark DeVilbiss, the director of housing, said.

“We definitely restrict any kind of item that’s got a lithium-ion battery,” DeVilbiss said. With 4,500 students living in university housing, his institution’s safety committee speaks often with its insurance and risk management company, United Educators, about adjustments to what’s allowed, and not allowed, in the dorms. 

When air fryers, for instance, became a popular new appliance, the committee consulted with the company and determined they are only permitted in apartment-style housing with kitchens wired for appliances.

With the e-bike restrictions, students didn’t protest much, DeVilbiss recalled, except one who insisted their e-bike was essential for traveling between the university’s two campuses, which are about a half-mile apart. Since shuttles are available for students to get back and forth, the university declined to make an exception. 

“Sure enough, they had brought it inside, plugged it in and left for spring break,” DeVilbiss said. It was confiscated and returned to the student to take home. 

United Educators, which works exclusively with education institutions, including K-12 schools, colleges and universities, advises some of its 1,600 clients how to lower risks, so that they won’t need to invoke their insurance policies. In 2020, it offered suggestions about issues institutions should consider when setting policies about e-scooters. Back then, the primary concern was accidents. United Educators suggested that schools adopt rules about helmets, parking and operating the vehicles under the influence. 

“Indoor charging was not an issue,” said Christine McHugh, senior risk management counsel for United Educators. 

Accidents remain a worry, but now the batteries and the fires they can cause are the primary concern for some college administrators. 

The liability insurance company doesn’t track college policies on the issue, however. “Every year we’re seeing new things, from drones to maker spaces to tech toys,” McHugh said. “Then schools have to wrestle with ‘What do we do with these on our campuses?’”  

This story about e-bikes on college campuses was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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WILMINGTON, Del. — Entrando a un centro comunitario repleto de estudiantes de último año de secundaria, Atnre Alleyne tiene algunos consejos para la audiencia, miembros de la primera clase de solicitantes universitarios que serán influenciados por el fallo de la Corte Suprema del pasado junio que derribo las admisiones con conciencia racial.

“Hay que obtener buenas calificaciones, hay que encontrar una manera de hacer lo académico, pero también convertirse en líderes”, dijo Alleyne, el enérgico cofundador y director ejecutivo de TeenSHARP, una organización sin fines de lucro que prepara a estudiantes de entornos subrepresentados para la educación superior. “¡En sus escuelas, hagan algo! Luchen por la justicia social”.

A varios de los participantes de TeenSHARP reunidos ahí, que son predominantemente negros o hispanos, les preocupa que sus posibilidades de ingresar a escuelas de primer nivel hayan disminuido con la decisión del tribunal. Se preguntan qué decir en sus ensayos de admisión y qué tan cómodos se sentirán en campus que podrían volverse cada vez menos diversos.

En esta noche de otoño, Alleyne y su equipo responden preguntas de las docenas de estudiantes a quienes asesoran, sobre todo, desde plazos de aplicación temprana hasta qué escuelas tienen más probabilidades de otorgar becas y ayuda generosa financiera. El cambio en el panorama de admisiones solo ha aumentado la determinación del equipo de desarrollar una nueva generación de líderes, estudiantes que lucharán por que sus voces estén representadas en los campus y más adelante en el lugar de trabajo.

“Quiero que abran las puertas de estos lugares de una patada, para que regresen y abran más puertas”, dijo Alleyne.

Este objetivo lo comparten los ex alumnos del programa que Alleyne y su esposa, Tatiana Poladko, iniciaron en el sótano de una iglesia hace 14 años. Varios están presentes esta noche contando sus propias travesías educativas, que culminaron con becas completas para escuelas como la Universidad de Chicago y la Universidad Wesleyan, donde los costos anuales estimados se acercan a los $90,000.

Antes de la decisión de la Corte Suprema en el caso Students for Fair Admissions contrz Harvard, las universidades altamente selectivas servían como un faro de esperanza y movilidad económica para estudiantes como los que aconseja TeenSHARP. Muchos son los primeros en sus familias en asistir a la universidad y carecen de conexiones heredadas o de acceso a consejeros privados que durante mucho tiempo han dado un impulso a los estudiantes más ricos.

But even before the high court ruling, Black and Latino students were poorly represented at these institutions, while the college degree gap between Black and white Americans was getting worse. For some students, the court decision sends a message that they do not belong, and if they get in, they worry they’ll stand out even more.

Incluso antes del fallo del tribunal superior, los estudiantes afroamericanos y latinos estaban escasamente representados en estas instituciones, mientas que la brecha de títulos universitarios entre estadounidenses negros y blancos sigue empeoriando. Para algunos estudiantes, la decisión judicial envía el mensaje de que no pertenecen, y que, si ingresan, les preocupa resaltar aún más.

“Me sentí realmente molesto por eso”, dijo Jamel Powell, un estudiante de secundaria de Belle Mead, Nueva Jersey, que participa en TeenSHARP, sobre el fallo de acción afirmativa. “Este sistema ha ayudado a muchas minorías subrepresentadas a ingresar a estas escuelas de la Ivy League y sobresalir”.

Si bien el impacto total de la decisión sobre la demografía de los estudiantes no es claro, los representantes de 33 universidades escribieron en un informe amicus presentado en el caso que la proporción de estudiantes afroamericanos en sus campus caería de aproximadamente 7.1 por ciento a 2.1 por ciento, si se prohíben acciones afirmativas.

La incertidumbre sobre lo que significa la decisión está pasando factura a los estudiantes y consejeros escolares a nivel nacional, dijo Mandy Savitz-Romer, profesora titular de la Graduate School of Education de Harvard. Mientras las universidades analizan cómo pueden cumplir sus compromisos con la diversidad y al mismo tiempo cumplir con la ley, los estudiantes se preguntan si mencionar su raza en los ensayos de aplicación los ayudará o los perjudicará.

En la decisión mayoritaria, el presidente del Tribunal Supremo, John Roberts, escribió que la raza sólo podía invocarse dentro del contexto de la historia de vida del solicitante, haciendo de los ensayos la única oportunidad para que los estudiantes discutieran su raza y origen étnico. Pero desde entonces, Edward Blum, el activista conservador que ayudó a llevar el caso ante el tribunal, ha amenazado con más demandas, prometiendo cuestionar cualquier tema de ensayo que no sea “más que un subterfugio clandestino para divulgar la raza de un estudiante”.

El Departamento de Educación ha publicado directrices que dicen que, si bien las escuelas no pueden poner el dedo en la escala de los estudiantes en función de su raza, “siguen siendo libres” de considerar las características vinculadas a las experiencias de vida de los estudiantes individuales, incluida la raza. La National Association of College Admission Counseling emitió una guía similar, mientras que la Common App introdujo nuevos temas de ensayo que incluyen uno sobre la “identidad” y los “antecedentes” de los estudiantes.

Debido a la incertidumbre, los consejeros escolares necesitan capacitación específica en la elaboración de ensayos y en cómo hablar o no sobre la raza, dijo Savitz-Romer durante un webinar en Harvard, el mes pasado, sobre admisiones universitarias después de la acción afirmativa. “Necesitamos consejeros y maestros para que los estudiantes comprendan que la universidad todavía es para ellos”, dijo.

Es una tarea difícil: en promedio, los consejeros de las escuelas públicas atienden a más de 400 estudiantes cada uno, lo que ofrece poco tiempo para asesoramiento personalizado.

Esa realidad es la razón por la que grupos de asesoramiento sin fines de lucro como TeenSHARP trabajan junto a los estudiantes, guiándolos a través de un sistema de admisión cada vez más confuso. El equipo de tres asesores de TeenSHARP trabaja intensamente con aproximadamente 140 estudiantes a la vez, incluidos 50 estudiantes de último año que a menudo se postulan hasta a 20 universidades para maximizar sus posibilidades.

Esa es una fracción de los que necesitan ayuda, otra razón por la que los líderes del grupo dependen de su red de más de 500 “Sharpies”, como se conoce a los alumnos.

Emily Rodríguez, estudiante de último año de TeenSHARP que asiste a la Escuela de Ciencias Conrad en Wilmington, decidió abordar la raza de frente en sus ensayos universitarios: escribió sobre su determinación de no “hacer el papel de la pobre y sumisa mexicana”.

Hamza Parker, estudiante de último año de la escuela secundaria Smyrna de Delaware, quien se mudó a Estados Unidos desde Arabia Saudita cuando cursaba sexto grado, dijo que al principio estaba en contra de escribir sobre su identidad. “Siento que te pone en una posición en la que tienes que tener una historia triste para tu ensayo en lugar de hablar de algo bueno que sucedió en tu vida”, les dijo a Alleyne y Poladko durante una sesión de asesoramiento por Zoom.

Pero en la sesión, Alleyne y Poladko la alentaron a inspirarse en su propia historia, una de la que conocen algo gracias a su trabajo con su hermana mayor, Hasana, ahora estudiante de tercer año en Pomona College. La familia tuvo una mudanza difícil desde Arabia Saudita a la ciudad de Nueva York y más tarde a Delaware, donde Hamza se unió a la Black Student Coalition de Delaware.

Hamza decidió revisar su ensayo centrado en la lingüística para describir cómo experimentó el racismo y luego abrazó su herencia musulmana.

“Soy mi yo social normal y mi fe y vestimenta musulmana son ampliamente conocidas y respetadas en mi escuela”, escribió. “Incluso mi escuela tiene ahora un espacio dedicado a la oración durante el Ramadán”.

Alleyne y Poladko normalmente trabajan con estudiantes que están comenzando su primer año de escuela secundaria, por lo que la pareja puede guiar todo el proceso de solicitud de ingreso a la universidad, como lo hacen algunos costosos asesores privados. Los servicios de TeenSHARP son gratuitos y como organización sin fines de lucro, depende del apoyo de una variedad de donantes.

Ni Poladko ni Alleyne asistieron a escuelas de élite. Se conocieron como estudiantes de posgrado en la Universidad de Rutgers y se comprometieron a iniciar TeenSHARP después de ayudar a la sobrina de Alleyne, estudiante de una gran escuela secundaria pública de la ciudad de Nueva York, a postularse para universidades.

Asombrados por lo complicadas e inaccesibles que podían ser las admisiones universitarias, los dos decidieron convertirlo en el trabajo de su vida, redactando subvenciones y obteniendo donaciones de bancos y fundaciones locales para poder atender a más estudiantes.

Su trabajo ahora es en gran medida remoto: durante la pandemia, la pareja se mudó de Wilmington a la Ucrania natal de Poladko para estar más cerca de su familia, lo que los llevó a una dramática fuga a Polonia con sus tres hijos pequeños cuando estalló la guerra. Poladko se está tomando un año sabático en TeenSHARP este año, aunque todavía ayuda a algunos estudiantes a través de Zoom. Alleyne vuela de Varsovia a Wilmington para reunirse con los estudiantes en persona, a menudo en el centro comunitario del lugar que alguna vez albergó sus oficinas.

También dependen de las relaciones que han construido a lo largo de los años con presidentes de universidades y funcionarios de admisiones en escuelas como Boston College, Pomona College y Wesleyan, Carleton y Macalester Colleges en Minnesota y muchas otras universidades las cuales han dado la bienvenida a los solicitantes de TeenSHARP.

“Necesitamos más ‘Sharpies’ en nuestro campus”, dijo Suzanne Rivera, presidenta de Macalester College, en Minnesota, y miembro del consejo asesor de TeenSHARP. “Sus preguntas son siempre muy inteligentes y reveladoras”.

Los Sharpies también tienden a convertirse en líderes del campus, en parte porque TeenSHARP requiere que sus estudiantes desarrollen habilidades de liderazgo. Eso es algo que William García, quien se graduó de la Universidad de Chicago la primavera pasada, les dijo a los estudiantes de último año en Wilmington.

Al principio, se sintió aislado en Chicago, reticente a hablar de sus experiencias como hispano. “Yo estaba en tu lugar hace cinco años”, dijo García. Más tarde se dio cuenta de que su experiencia podía ser una ventaja y la aprovechó para convertir un ingrediente de uno de los licores más populares de México en una iniciativa comercial para su propia empresa de bebidas de agave.

“Abraza tu historia; cuenta tu historia”, dijo García. “Contaba mi historia y la gente se interesaba mucho y empezaba a ayudarme”.

Alphina Kamara, graduada de Wesleyan University en 2022, instó a los estudiantes de último año a apuntar alto y mirar más allá de las escuelas estatales y los colegios comunitarios locales que tienen tasas de graduación más bajas y menos recursos, lugares donde podría haber terminado si no fueran para TeenSHARP.

“Nunca hubiera sabido que existían escuelas como Wesleyan y que yo, como mujer negra de primera generación, tenía un lugar en ellas”, dijo Kamara, hija de padres inmigrantes de Sierra Leona.

Aun así, siempre habrá algunos estudiantes de TeenSHARP que no van a querer estar en campus con un historial terrible en materia de diversidad, incluso antes de la decisión del tribunal.

Tariah Hyland, quien en la escuela secundaria cofundó la Black Student Coalition de Delaware, sabía que se sentiría más cómoda en uno de los más de 100 colegios y universidades históricamente negros (o HBCU, por sus siglas en inglés) del país. Le dijo a la audiencia de Delaware que está prosperando en su tercer año en la Universidad Howard, donde estudia ciencias políticas.

Powell, estudiante de tercer año de Nueva Jersey, está mirando tanto a Howard como al Morehouse College de Atlanta y dijo que probablemente sólo postulará a las HBCU.

“Cuando estaba en la escuela pública, era el único niño negro en mis clases”, dijo Powell, que ahora asiste a Acelus Academy, una escuela en línea. “Siempre fui una minoría, por lo que, al ir a una HBCU, probablemente vería más personas que se parecen a mí”.

Esto no sorprende a Chelsea Holley, directora de admisiones del Spelman College en Atlanta, quien dijo que espera “más interés por parte de los estudiantes negros y minoritarios, ahora que la Corte Suprema ha tomado lo que creo que es una decisión política regresiva”.

HBCU como Spelman, entre cuyos graduados se encuentran la fundadora del Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman, y la autora Alice Walker, ya están viendo más solicitudes y se están volviendo aún más competitivas.

“Si los estudiantes afroamericanos de último año de secundaria ya no se sienten bienvenidos en campus predominantemente blancos, es menos probable que presenten su solicitud e incluso menos probable que se inscriban, aun cuando se les ofrece la admisión”, dijo Holley y agregó que los estudiantes pueden estar preocupados por más ataques a la diversidad y la inclusión en los campus universitarios y creen que se sentirán más cómodos en una HBCU.

Aun así, no todos predicen que el fallo judicial precipitará una caída permanente de estudiantes afroamericanos e hispanos en universidades selectivas predominantemente blancas. Richard Kahlenberg, autor y académico de la Universidad de Georgetown, predice que la caída será temporal y que la prohibición de la acción afirmativa eventualmente conducirá a un panorama más justo para los estudiantes de bajos ingresos de todas las razas.

Kahlenberg, quien sirvió como testigo experto para Students for Fair Admissions, dijo que quiere ver el fin de las preferencias heredadas, así como del reclutamiento atlético, para que las universidades puedan dar “un impulso significativo” a los “estudiantes desfavorecidos de todas las razas”, agregando que es posible “obtener diversidad racial sin preferencias raciales”. Los desafíos a las admisiones heredadas están aumentando: el Departamento de Educación ha abierto una investigación sobre el uso de esta práctica por parte de Harvard y un reciente proyecto de ley bipartidista exige que las universidades pongan fin a esta práctica.

A medida que se acerca la mitad de diciembre, Alleyne y Poladko esperan ansiosamente ver cómo le irá al puñado de estudiantes de TeenSHARP que solicitaron una decisión anticipada.

“Los funcionarios de admisiones nos aseguran que su compromiso con la diversidad no ha cambiado”, dijo Poladko. “Pero tendremos que ver. Hemos explicado a las familias y a los estudiantes que este año es un año de aprendizaje”.

Hasta entonces, tanto Poladko como Alleyne seguirán presionando a los estudiantes para que ayuden a quienes vengan después de ellos.

“Nuestro objetivo es descubrir el juego de las admisiones y darles una ventaja a nuestros estudiantes”, dijo Alleyne. “Y nuestro trabajo es enseñarles cómo jugar”.

Esta historia sobre TeenSHARP es la primera en una serie de artículos producidos por by The Hechinger Report conjunto con Soledad O’Brien Productions, sobre el impacto de la decisión de la Corte Suprema que prohíbe la acción afirmativa.

The post Asesores universitarios prometen “abrir la puerta” a estudiantes afroamericanos e hispanos a pesar del fallo de acción afirmativa appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Education has become a major battleground for the attempted anti-racist paradigm shift of diversity, equity and inclusion work; mirroring society, this work remains stuck in a cycle of advancement and retaliation.

Education administrators at all levels need to act now to resist a rising tide of efforts against social science knowledge. That tide includes bans on state funding for teaching DEI in schools, public colleges and state agencies.

Alabama just followed Florida, Utah and Texas in banning state funding of DEI work and DEI positions and programs are being restricted, challenged and canceled across the nation, in industry and academia. DEI instructors are suffering the consequences.

The backlash against DEI work is predictable. History reminds us that counterattacks have followed every advancement in equity and inclusion, from Brown vs. Board of Education to affirmative action.

But schools must not acquiesce to this backlash. The work is too important to abandon. That’s why schools need to broaden the reach of DEI content and protect the instructors and faculty who are responsible for teaching it.

Related: One school district’s ‘playbook’ for undoing far-right education policies

Instead of caving in, educational institutions should double down on DEI efforts. California is leading the way by requiring the teaching of ethnic studies at the secondary level. That’s a good start, but to be transformative, nationally, content should be representative and include African American studies; Asian American studies; Latinx studies; Native American Studies; women, gender and sexuality studies; and sociology and other social sciences across the K-12 curriculum. The lack of instruction in these fields in K-12 education can help explain why there are such strong attacks on DEI.

Universities also need to integrate such content more fully to foster an understanding of diverse experiences and inequities within our institutions. Universities would do well to consider requiring DEI seminars as part of orientation and encourage faculty to include DEI content in every course. Universities can offer professional development to faculty and staff.

Universities must also update retention, tenure and promotion methods to create new ways for faculty who teach DEI content to be evaluated and help neutralize the personal and political anti-DEI response. Neither university nor K-12 policies have yet caught up with the need to protect faculty.

As professionals, instructors are expected to facilitate controversial course content and student dialogue. Yet, for DEI instructors, university environments can be openly contentious, particularly in predominantly white spaces and in courses addressing a less receptive crowd.

And yet DEI content is vital. If students are exposed to DEI curricula, they can learn how white supremacy is enacted and maintained. They can learn how white privilege and power operate, how institutional policies uphold whiteness, how stereotypes are perpetuated and how implicit biases cultivate mistrust and disrespect.

Yet many students, especially in required courses, have difficulty accepting these concepts.

Usually, when a student in a classroom is not understanding the material, they ask for help. But a different tactic is typical in DEI classes. There, too often, struggling students attempt to discredit the educator and the field of social science.

In course evaluations, some students have called DEI educators “divisive” or “close-minded” for discussing racism — and have even attacked the appearance of their DEI educators. Their end-of-term evaluations reveal hate speech protected by anonymity.

These attacks then become entrenched as part of professors’ academic records and impact their well-being, salaries, employment and careers. Research shows that women and educators of color, particularly Black, Asian, Latinx and Indigenous women, receive worse evaluations than their white and male counterparts.

How should educators respond to such hostility and resistance? Should we confront, ignore, accommodate, negotiate, tolerate or use conflict mediation techniques?

A business educator would not be required to conform to the beliefs of anti-business students; we don’t ask dental educators to change their practices and curriculums to be more palatable to anti-dentistry audiences.

To accommodate resistance to our legitimate fields is to coddle and reproduce white supremacy.

Related: STUDENT VOICE: Bill targeting DEI offices in public universities has a chilling impact on students

DEI knowledge must be made accessible even to an aggressively anti-DEI crowd. This education is direly needed. States and universities fail their faculty and the public when they cave in and allow cuts and bans to DEI and fail to protect those who teach it.

Education is meant to broaden horizons and encourage critical thinking. Exposure to social science research, which underpins and is informed by much DEI work, is needed to build an informed public.

When paradigms are shifting, they rarely go without resistance.

Sumer Seiki is an artist and associate professor at University of British Columbia with the Restoration Project.

Megan Thiele Strong is a sociology professor at San José State University and a 2023-24 Public Voices fellow at the The OpEd Project.

This story about DEI bans was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

The post OPINION: This is no time to ban DEI initiatives in education; we need DEI more than ever appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

The April 18 protests at Columbia University over the war in Gaza and Columbia’s investment in weapons manufacturers and companies doing business in Israel led to more than 100 arrests, and sparked widespread unrest not seen on campuses in decades. Barnard College, which is affiliated with Columbia, suspended at least 53 students and evicted them from their dorms, cut off their meal plans and barred them from campus.

We wanted to learn how the suspensions and evictions felt to students on a personal level, and what the experience meant to them. So we interviewed several Barnard students who were suspended. Most have had their suspensions lifted on the condition that they refrain from unauthorized protest, and to allow them to speak freely we are not identifying them.

A Barnard spokesperson said the college does not comment on confidential student conduct proceedings. The administration said in a statement that it was “committed to open inquiry and expression” and that “students rejected multiple opportunities to leave the encampment without consequence.”

The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

L.S., who is Jewish, attended the protest on April 18 but said she was careful not to get arrested. Barnard suspended and evicted her from her dorm anyway. Because she is an international student, a long-term suspension could have meant the loss of her visa. She would have had to leave the country within 15 days.

How did you find out you lost your housing?

I was not counting on being suspended. I didn’t know that that was even a possibility. I figured that out when I tried to enter my dorm [that night] – they had my face on a poster in my lobby, with the words ‘ban list’ written on it.

You could only imagine what all could happen in a moment like that in the middle of the night. It’s cold. Some people genuinely had nowhere to go. I was scrambling at 2:30 a.m. to find somewhere to sleep. Luckily, there’s a huge community that was kind of immediately mobilized to help the evicted students.

How do you understand the university’s rationale for the arrests, with concern for student safety?

I don’t think anyone buys the safety narrative. There’s nothing safe ever about evicting students. Barnard is treating us worse than an American court would.

Why is this movement important to you personally?

I think this movement invites a lot of other people to see their own struggles and their own principles in the causes of Palestinian liberation. I’m not a politician. I’m just a student who comes from a background of generations of genocide survivors, and that’s why I’m a part of this.

It’s because I see the struggle of the Palestinians and the struggle of my ancestors as very, very clearly connected. I come from the region. The places I’m from have also been destroyed by war and by empire, and by diaspora and by exile. And so, you know, exile is like a universal experience I think a lot of us can identify with.

No matter what people are saying about us, we will continue to hold our Jewish identity close to our organizing and we will be Jewish even as people continue to deny that.

Is there anything you want people to know that you think isn’t getting covered enough by the media?

It’s horrible what we’ve gone through, and eviction and homelessness of students without due process is unacceptable. But at the same time, we are all going to be okay. The students in Gaza are not going to be okay. There are no universities left in Gaza. And every single bit of media attention we eat up with repeating our same story over and over again – that needs to be that same energy for the people in Gaza. Because the reason that we started all this, the reason that people were willing to get suspended and arrested is because they know that there are no universities left in Gaza, and we do not want to be financially or politically complicit in that.

Related: OPINION: I teach Renaissance literature at Columbia, but this week’s lessons are about political protests and administrative decisions

I.L., a Jewish student from New York City, was arrested at the protest and allowed to return to her dorm that night, but was told she had to leave the next morning.

What happened when you found out you had to leave the dorm?

It was honestly one of really the worst parts about this whole experience. I have two friends who have an apartment off campus. They had an air mattress so they offered it to me and I tried to sleep there, but a lot of students who were suspended and evicted have housing accommodations through our Center for Accessibility Resources and Disability Services. And I’m one of those students.

How do you understand the university’s rationale for the arrests, with concern for the student safety?

It’s absolutely not true. I blame [Columbia President Nemat] Shafik for what’s happening on other campuses with all of these arrests. She normalized calling the cops on her own students. She said that we were a threat when we were just sitting on our campus singing songs [on April 18].

Why is this movement important to you personally?

When October 7 happened, I didn’t really know anything. I went to Hebrew school for 10 years. I was pretty critical when anyone would say anything negative about Israel, because I kind of internalized this conflation between antisemitism and criticizing Israel.

But then I started seeing how Israel responded after October 7th. I basically had another Jewish person swipe up on my [Instagram] story that started the conversation with me. I was like, let me do my research, and I spent a lot of time just reading.

Once I learned, I was like, ‘Whoa, how is any of this about being Jewish?’ I felt like Judaism was being weaponized to somehow support what the State of Israel was doing. I felt like it was absolutely my duty as a Jewish person, and also just an American, because I knew that this was my tax dollars and my family’s tax dollars, that directly funds all of the brutality.

October 7 to me was just a major turning point in the whole rest of my life because I see the struggle of the Palestinians as part of the struggle for liberation of all people, and I become more aware of the other struggles throughout the world.

And so I think that now what’s happening with this encampment is such a beautiful combination of really everything that I believe in. It’s about people coming together.

I continue to bear witness because this is the worst thing that I’ve ever seen in my life. I think how I got here is definitely informed by the fact that I was watching Judaism being kind of twisted to somehow support this. So as an American and a human, that’s why I show up now.

My goal in all of this is a phrase that I’ve really come to in the past seven months. It’s that another world is possible.

Is there anything you want people to know that you think isn’t getting covered enough by the media?

I think overwhelmingly the media doesn’t understand what we’re doing. I’ve been really upset to see the way that the media is focusing on specific individuals who say things that are antisemitic, but they never say anything about the Islamophobia that I see happening every day.

I think that if you actually spend time at the encampments, you’d see that there’s something very beautiful going on. This is about divestment, because it’s the one tangible way that as college students we have the power to change what was happening to Palestinians.

This is because the world does not have to be this way and that other worlds are possible. It’s been the greatest honor of my life to be a part of this.

This story about protests at Columbia University was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

The post Q&A: Barnard students share experiences of suspension and eviction during Columbia protests appeared first on The Hechinger Report.