Several members of the Black Student Union at Niles West High School spoke at the Niles Township High District 219 Board of Education’s December meeting and asked for changes, including training and education for both staff and students, to address what they characterized as racism in the district that creates a hostile environment for students of color.
One student noted this was the third protest in 2022, and that students at district schools, which include Niles West and Niles North, have protested or walked out of classes on two occasions earlier in the year to highlight what they described as a culture where hate speech is tolerated.
“Today, students and staff in the community have all united together to voice our concerns and push for the policies we want to see happen in District 219,” Cherie Animashaun, president of the Black Student Union at Niles West High School, told the board.
“We’re hoping to create a safer space for Black students especially, but we’re also advocating for all students of color today,” she added.
Animashaun said that prior to the Dec. 6 board meeting, a member of the board tried to convince her, and about two dozen other students and members of the community, not to stage their protest in front of the board, but to instead meet them in private.
“Don’t worry, the session is not an attack,” Animashaun, 18, a senior at Niles West, told the board. “It’s us standing up for change. The primary function of this board is to make policies, which is exactly what I’ve come to propose today.”
Niles West student Ashley Kyobe told the board the biggest issue she has faced at the school is hate speech toward Black students.
“The N word has been used as a way to spread hate against the Black population,” she said. “Over the years of my time at Niles West, this one word has been used comfortably around me, towards me and used against me.”
District 219 superintendent Tom Moore said he took the job five months ago because he was aware of the hateful claims of racism in the schools. He also said he is determined to change that culture.
“I’m sorry to each child who spoke,” he said. “If you want to know who to blame, blame me. I’m in charge.”
“It’s been 400 years. Racism is the ‘original sin’ of our country,” he added. “There’s a point where it just comes down to, if you hear the ‘N word’ in your class and you don’t do anything about it, then this isn’t the place for you to work,” he said, pounding the table with his fist.
“And that’s where we are, and that’s where we’re going to be and that’s how we’re going to operate,” he said. “We can’t put kids through that.”
Several students spoke, with some saying that hate speech in the high schools is on the rise; that Black students are singled out for discipline; that a disproportionate number of Black students get lower grades than white students; that students of color feel alienated and that students who engage in hate speech or actions are not punished.
Animashaun and others told the board they want the district to punish those responsible for hate speech in all its forms, as well as initiate mandatory training for staff on racism and hate speech, create a mandatory class for all students on hate speech, achieve better recruitment and retention of Black staff and hire an equity officer who can focus on the growth and academic outcomes of students of color.
“At the end of the day we can plaster ‘hate has no home here’ outside on every wall, but it’s the students inside that determine if our school will be a home or the opposite,” Animashaun said.
