Berkshire Alumni for Anti-Racism is a group led by black alumni that is urging the Trustees, Head of School, and Senior Admin to lead by 1) dismantling systemic racism and inequity at Berkshire and 2) engaging alumni around dismantling systemic racism and inequity in America.

The purpose of this petition is to garner support for our letter, which details how to accomplish our mission. A round table has been scheduled with Berkshire Administration for 6/16 to discuss the fulfillment of these goals through a collaborative effort. We do not want to obstruct any action that current Berkshire students are taking.

To learn more information about Berkshire Alumni for Anti-Racism and our anti-racist resources click here: Berkshire Alumni for Anti-Racism

We have also created a survey to gauge financial support for the dismantling of systemic racism and inequity at Berkshire. Please consider taking the survey, linked below: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfY5F6caWASBCTOpxLrDkIZe8fT3UuhWBd7kOEAxgymtEvQng/viewform

Please note that by signing this petition you pledge your support for Berkshire adopting ALL changes put forth in the letter.

To learn more information about the Berkshire Alumni for Anti-Racism and our anti-racist resources click here:

The letter* is presented in full below:

*Please note: the opening of the letter has been slightly amended since its submission to Mr.Mulder to incorporate more alumni voices. The action items are materially unchanged. Please send any inquiries to berkshirealumniforantiracism@gmail.com

From:  Berkshire School Alumni of Color and Alumni Allies 

To: Lara McLanahan, Chair of the Board of Trustees; Pieter Mulder, Head of School 

Dear Mrs. McLanahan & Mr. Mulder,

We are writing to you regarding Berkshire’s urgently needed leadership in combating systemic racism and white supremacy in the United States. We were distressed that Mr. Mulder’s response to the murder of George Floyd by four police officers came five days late. Furthermore, while the content of the response condemned police brutality and white supremacy, it did not lend support to the Black Lives Matter movement nor did it outline specific action that the school can take to further combat systemic racism.

We are saddened by Berkshire’s non-committal response to the murder of George Floyd given Berkshire’s past successes in diversity and inclusion education. We expect more. In 2010, Berkshire hired Wil Smith as the first Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, before the position was commonplace. In 2013, Berkshire had its first WeWeek, a campus-wide diversity and inclusion celebration. In recent years, Berkshire has failed to build upon its early successes. A single diverse voice on the senior administration team and a miscellaneous grouping of extracurricular activities, elective courses, all school meetings, and diversity weeks is not an adequate response to systemic racism. 

Berkshire must adopt a strategic plan to combat systemic racism, poverty, and injustice through education. Berkshire must also do more to support the inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in its student body and faculty. We find it disingenuous for Berkshire to promote respect & inclusion as core values in admissions materials when the school’s leadership fails to affirmatively support the Black Lives Matter movement, and struggles to make strategic commitments to the development of a racially diverse Board,  administration, teaching faculty, and student body. Living up to the mission, “For School. For Life.” requires diverse leadership, a strategic plan, and accountability.

Those of us who are white allies recognize that we were, and continue to be, perpetrators of systemic racism and inequity. Berkshire’s cultural atmosphere and curriculum kept us sheltered and ignorant of the world our Black peers face and which we help to maintain. We urge you to help end the perpetuation of White Privilege in the Berkshire community and across America by building an anti-racist culture that dismantles microaggressions, silence, and fear of emotional discomfort and ideological conflict. This will make Berkshire stronger. Those of us who are alumni of color urge Berkshire to live up to the core values of diversity & inclusion by taking concrete steps to help reduce the fear and violence we face on a daily basis. Berkshire has consistently failed to meet our emotional, psychological, and academic needs due to 400 years of systemic inequity in America.     

All of us care deeply about Berkshire. It is more than just a school, but also a home for young, impressionable students who will grow into future leaders. The Berkshire community needs to be safe, nurturing, and supportive for everyone. It also needs to accurately represent the racial diversity of America and equip students with the tools to dismantle systemic racism.  

To this end, we have compiled the following set of action items for urgent adoption by the Board of Trustees and senior administrators:

1. Emphasize that Berkshire’s commitment to a “for life” education must include educating students and faculty to combat systemic racism by…

• Implementing a communications strategy that denounces acts of  police brutality, white supremacy and systemic racism with urgency and provides historical context to such acts
• Conducting an independent audit of the academic curriculum with the goals of:
  
  • Incorporating texts from BIPOC authors into all classes (see Appendix).  
  • Giving the institution of slavery,  Jim Crow, and mass incarceration due attention    
  • Incorporating concepts from race studies and gender studies into all classes, and devoting 50% of English and History electives to addressing these topics. Some examples from similar institutions include:
    -Hotchkiss: "Dismantling the Iv(or)y Tower," "Native American Literature," and "Race in US History". 
    -Exeter: “Identity, Empathy, and Understanding,” "Art of Protest," "Voices of Zadie Smith," "Toni Morrison," "Looking for Zora," "James Baldwin," "Race: A Global History" and "Native Peoples of North America"
  • Building an anti-racist curriculum that helps students and faculty unlearn their unconscious biases, acknowledge their privileges, and practice allyship. 
• Hiring an independent archivist to document any history of racially and sexually discriminatory practices at Berkshire for community-wide learning purposes. 

2. Present a comprehensive report on the health of existing funds and initiatives to increase racial diversity and sensitivity training to the alumni community. Such funds & initiatives include:

• Wil Smith Jr. Scholarship Fund 
• William Randolph Hearst Fund for African American Students 
• Storrie-McCain Family Scholarship Fund for Native American Indians 
• Seed Training 
• WeWeek 

3. Create new funds and initiatives for Berkshire and the local community:

• Hold a virtual Town Hall on Berkshire’s diversity plan with Mr. Mulder, Ms. Edgerton, and Mrs. McLanahan in attendance.   
• Publish a Diversity & Inclusion action page with links to volunteering and fundraising pages for: 
  - NAACP Berkshires
   -NAACP Legal Defense Fund 
   -Black Lives Matters 
  - WEB DuBois Homesite  
• Officially designate space on campus for affinity groups
• Acquire the most current print and database resources on systemic racism for academic research and student affinity group work (see attached appendix). 
• Conduct an annual feedback survey for BIPOC students and alumni that assesses whether Berkshire’s  disciplinary system, dorm system, alumni programming, and advancement communications adequately consider their diverse circumstances. 
• Raise an endowment for a public speaker series on Race and the American Justice System to complement existing initiatives 
• Make financial aid and faculty retention 50% of the next capital campaign. 

4. Commit to board-level and compensation-level accountability for reaching diversity and equity goals: 

• Develop a diversity recruitment evaluation for all members of the Admission Office that is directly linked to compensation.
• Develop a diversity recruitment evaluation for athletic recruitment that is tied to compensation.
• Adopt a diversity rider to ensure that multiple BIPOC candidates are considered for every open faculty position. 
• Publish data on faculty diversity to the school website on an annual basis.
• Increase the share of BIPOC Administrators on the senior leadership team and in the Advancement Office, Admissions Office, and College Counseling Office to at least 40%.
• Tie the compensation of the Head of School, Associate Head of School, and Assistant Head of School to implementing the above goals.

This is a cry of mourning for Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Nate Woods, James Scurlock, Tony McDade, David McAtee, George Floyd, and other unarmed citizens extinguished by systemic racism. This is a call to seek justice through action. This is a cry for Berkshire’s leadership.  This is an appeal to live up to the mission: “For School. For Life.”

If not Berkshire, then who?  If not now, then when? 

We look forward to hearing your responses to each of these requests specifically. You can send your response to berkshirealumniforantiracism@gmail.com, to be shared publicly with the entire Berkshire community. 

We must keep working. 

Resources for DEI  Education:

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race. Reni Eddo-Lodge 

White Privilege: The Myth of the Post-Racial Society. Kalwant Bhopal. 

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Robin DiAngelo. 

Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates

13th Documentary by Filmmaker Ava DuVernay.

The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Audre Lorde 

The Ferguson Report: Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department.

Demarginalizing the Intersection. Kimberlé Crenshaw

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Michelle Alexander.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning. Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Teaching to Transgress. bell hooks. 

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor. Layla F Saad.

So You Want to Talk About Race. Ijeoma Oluo.

Racism Without Racists: Color-blind Racism and Racial Inequality in Contemporary America. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. 

Everyday Anti-Racism: Getting Real About Race in School. Edited by Mica Pollock. 

Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School. Mica Pollock. 

White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism by Paula S Rothenburg- a series of essays touching on privilege, what it means and how to recognize.

The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack

Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin Wall Kimmerer. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Sherman Alexie.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Roxanne Dunbar-Oritz. 

Decolonizing the Mind. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Paulo Freire. 

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Audre Lorde.

Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies. Renee Linklater.

A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn.

The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims. Nathan Lean. 

Home Fire. Kamila Shamsie. 

Exit West. Mohsin Hamid.

Born A Crime. Trevor Noah  

Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe

The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 by Thomas Pakenham 

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo

Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality. Marilyn Lake & Henry Reynolds. 

“Psychological Treatment of Ethnic Minority Populations” Published by the Association of Black Psychologists,Washington, D.C., November, 2003: https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/brochures/treatment-minority.pdf

“The New Reality: Diversity and Complexity” https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/Addressing-Cultural-Complexities-in-Practice-Chapter-1-Sample.pdf

“Addressing Cultural Complexities in Practice: Assessment, Diagnosis, and Therapy, Third Edition” by Pamela A. Hays, PhD