A mannequin displayed wearing Ku Klux Klan (KKK) garb in Wallingford precipitated a meeting hosted by Choate Afro-Latina Student Alliance (CALSA) on Sunday, October 2.
Twelve days prior, on September 20, local newspapers reported the sighting of a mannequin dressed “in a full KKK outfit, including white robe and hood, and positioned in a Nazi-like salute,” according to Lauren Sievert, staff at the Record-Journal. Dean of Students Mr. James Stanley was the first of the senior administrators aware of the situation. Mr. Stanley then notified Headmaster Dr. Alex Curtis and Director of Equity and Inclusion, Dr. Keith Hinderlie, who then communicated with Associate Head of School Ms. Kathleen Wallace. These faculty members decided to learn more about the incident before notifying the community.
At the faculty meeting on September 22, Dr. Hinderlie aimed to arm faculty with tools to support students if and when the news got out. However, knowledge of the incident spread quickly as students learned of the event from a Facebook post of alum Hakeem Angulu ’16 on September 23.
CALSA hosted a meeting to discuss the incident and the KKK’s history in Wallingford, which raised concerns of derogatory epithets from passing cars. Dean of Faculty Ms. Katie Levesque said, “I’m really glad we had the opportunity to come together and hear from students, and I look forward to making sure that we continue the conversation and follow-up. It’s helpful to hear students voice their concerns and ideas.” The following day, Dr. Hinderlie sent a letter to the student body outlining the events and reasoning behind the decision to refrain from notifying the student body.
At school meeting on September 28, Dr. Hinderlie and Dr. Curtis noted that their priority was to ensure the safety of students. They also invited students to attend a gathering hosted by Dr. Curtis and Dr. Hinderlie to discuss the situation. According to Mr. Stanley, however, no students attended the gathering. Students viewed the non-student initiated forum as a reactionary act of an administration “scrambling to find a solution,” according to CALSA President Blair Cox ’17. She also said it was an attempt to “pull the wool over the eyes of the students affected by these events.” The administration intended for the forum to be a place for the administration to “just sit there and listen” and not take control of the dialogue.
The morning of September 29, Cox sent a letter with signatures of campus organizations to the senior officers involved in making the initial decisions surrounding whether to inform the community. The recipients were Dr. Curtis, Mr. Stanley, Ms. Wallace, and Dr. Hinderlie. The letter, in addition to inviting the officers to the open forum, outlined three measures that the administration could enact “to ensure the safety and comfort of all students.” Those measures include: (1) positioning a community safety officer at the four way intersection of Christian St. and North Elm St., a place of heavy traffic where many students note encountering racist or gender based epithets from passing drivers, (2) making the administration work closely with local government and advocacy groups to “bring awareness and resolution to the prejudicial attitudes that still exist in Wallingford and affect the Choate student body,” and (3) ensuring the Choate administration will “prioritize transparency, honesty, and timeliness when deciding how to deal with issues that reach the magnitude of this most recent event.”
Cox opened Sunday’s forum: “We aren’t calling an open forum to criticize Choate because we’re ungrateful for the wonderful environment that has been created for us. In fact, we’re expressing our disappointment with the handling of this incident because we love Choate, and we think we should hold it to the rigorous standards that we have been taught to value as part of our Choate education.”
“The school has a responsibility to keep the student body informed about issues that affect student safety,” said a student. Similar sentiments, drawing on feelings of frustration and disappointment, were echoed throughout the forum.
The proposed structural solutions to better respond to situations such as the KKK incident include developing protocols to notify the community in similar situations and creating reporting guidelines for street harassment from cars. They determined that in the case that someone encounters such a situation, one should attempt to catch any information accessible about the car, whether that be model, color, license plate number, and report this information to Community Safety.
Faculty and students generally agree that they must develop clear channels of communication between different spheres of the Choate community. “We need to work together in order to solve the problems,” said Ms. Levesque. This situation, as acknowledged by key decision makers, was not handled perfectly, but it permitted a learning opportunity for all to grow from. Now, there appears a commitment to change and growth from all members of the community.
