Chicago Public Schools are made up of four types of schools: neighborhood schools, magnet schools, classical schools, and gifted schools. Neighborhood schools are exactly what they sound like: if you live in the neighborhood boundaries, you automatically qualify to go to your neighborhood schools. Magnet schools have some sort of focus (art, math, science, language immersion). Students can apply for them and are selected by a random lottery. Classical and gifted schools comprise what we also call “selective enrollment” schools: students apply for the schools and, based on a test score and, for high schools, their grades in 7th grade, they are admitted or not.
In 1980, the federal government sued Chicago Public Schools, alleging that the city effectively operated a racially-segregated school system. To resolve that suit, the Chicago Board of Education entered into a consent decree with the federal government, agreeing to work to desegregate the city’s school system. One prong of that consent decree involved the city considering students’ race and Hispanic origin as they applied to selective enrollment schools.
The consent decree lasted almost three decades. In 2009—the year I moved here—a district court judge ended the consent decree. Selective enrollment schools could not longer consider applicants’ race. To make up for that, and to ensure continued access to the top schools by students of color, the school district replaced its considerations of race with socioeconomic considerations: students are placed into one of four tiers based on a number of economic factors (including median income, percentage of residents who own their own homes, median educational achievement, stuff like that).
And how did this new experiment in equity go? Not well from a diversity perspective. In the intervening years, three of the top schools in the city (and seriously, for those of you not from Chicago, these are three of the best high schools in the country) have seen the percentage of white students increase, while the percentage of Black students has decreased.
Why? The reasons are myriad, and well beyond the scope of this blog post.[fn1] But Chicago’s experience with elite education is that racial diversity at elite schools is not the equilibrium state. Someday maybe with luck and effort it will be. But today it takes active and sustained (and, importantly, explicit) effort.
But this is a Mormon blog and, besides the fact that my kids, who attend Chicago Public Schools, are church members, what does this have to do with the church?
Plenty. In June, the Supreme Court held in Students for Fair Admissions that universities cannot consider race in admissions decisions.[fn2] While colleges and universities are struggling to figure out how to maintain diverse student bodies within the confines of the Supreme Court’s ruling, selective schools that cannot consider race will almost certainly become less racially and ethnically diverse.
Enter BYU. BYU-Provo is not a model of racial diversity by any means—81% of 2022’s freshman class was white, while only 1% was Black. But a year and a half ago, the school’s Committee on Race, Equity & Belonging published a report on rooting out racism from the school, so that the school’s actions were consistent with Pres. Nelson’s charge that the church needed to work to root out racism. They grounded their effort in LDS scriptures’ vision of Zion and in the community described in the Book of Mormon after Jesus came to visit.
In other words, they (and we) have a religious charge to root out racism, based both on ancient scripture and modern prophets.
They proposed a number of steps toward achieving that religious goal. Among them? Race-conscious recruiting and race-conscious admissions.
The report was published before the Supreme Court’s decision. But even in light of the decision, BYU can and should explicitly consider race in recruiting and admitting students. They have a religious mission. And the church has a significant interest in an expansive reading of religious liberty. That expansive reading should include the ability to pursue a diverse Zion culture.
Why BYU? In part because it has access to a law firm—Kirton McConkie—that has the capability to pursue this type of religious liberty claim. In part, because it has laid out a clear religious justification—and even a religious call—to promote racial diversity. And in part because it has a history of pursing religious exemptions from generally-applicable laws.
There’s no reason BYU would have to move unilaterally on this, of course. There are hundreds of religiously-affiliated colleges and universities in the United States. I am entirely sure that some non-zero number of those schools also have a religious imperative to maintain a racially diverse student body; BYU could certainly put together a coalition of like-minded religious institutions.
This is a chance for BYU to lead, to promote a more just and Zion society. And BYU is in a unique position to do so; I hope that it not only maintains but increases its work toward rooting out racism in on its campus and in our world, including by ensuring a racially-diverse student body.[fn3]
[fn1] They include everything from structural racism in housing and in the location of the schools to the fact that wealth and access to education compounds generation to generation to the fact that wealthier and whiter families find it easier to get test prep for their kids.
[fn2] This sentence is, of course, a massive simplification of the 237-page decision, but it’s not an inaccurate simplification.
[fn3] I understand that some of you reading this are going to say, “Actually, BYU/the church doesn’t care about racial justice.” And, while I understand where you’re coming from, I also choose to believe Pres. Nelson and Pres. Worthen and the excellent members of the Committee on Race, Equity & Belonging. Are BYU or the church where they should be? Clearly not. But they’ve expressed willingness and desire to move toward that goal. And I’d rather encourage and facilitate that movement than argue that, because of history, that movement is a hypocritical lie.
Photo by Aubrey Odom on Unsplash