CHICAGO DEFENDER — As a school that repeatedly claims to “honor diversity,” Lab must address its own problems with racism and intolerance. If our vision as a school is to “strive to appreciate fully the role of diversity in education and to define the crucial and continuous commitments we must make as a community to foster diversity at the Laboratory Schools,” we need to actively work against the many problems we have had as a community regarding racist incidents. As we settle into a new decade, it is time to radically change Lab’s culture into one that is truly inclusive in all aspects of student life. While we acknowledge the effort to start a conversation about the recent events, having rules that are so transparent that they allow any racially based altercation to not be included on a record is counterproductive.
