Table of Contents
The culturally orthodox “core values” of Jesuit schools exhibit their solidarity with the educational elite, whose ideas and policies continue to harm generations of students in public schools.
Part 1: Brophy College Prep Seeks an English Teacher
While the telos – or aim– of education has always been the cultivation of the virtues, Jesuit antiracist schools have elevated as “core values” the prevailing culture’s mantra of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Unlike the virtues, which are directed toward the Good, Jesuit’s in-vogue values, arising from Critical theories, direct its adherents toward their own moral superiority as possessors of an “anointed” vision of social justice.
Last spring, Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix listed, as a prerequisite for a new English teacher, a passion for “the work of anti-racism.”
A now-retired English teacher myself, I couldn’t resist laughing. The hubris — and folly — of a Jesuit high school exploiting a teenager’s education to serve Ibram X. Kendi’s “radical reorientation of the (student’s) consciousness” awaits its own Mark Twain or Tom Wolfe.
Brophy, it turns out, requires a “commitment to anti-racism as a qualification in all job postings,” even weight room assistant, with interviewers asking “questions related to that commitment.”
The end result produces a teacher new to the school but already anointed in its antiracist ideology, increasing the pressure on any recalcitrant faculty to submit.
Selecting for “excellence” now means the face of the potential teacher and a demonstrated faith in antiracism and diversity dogma play pivotal roles.
What matters to the hiring committees at an increasing number of Jesuit high schools – following in the footsteps of their more sophisticated university siblings – is twofold: whether a candidate’s selection increases the diversity of “under-represented” group identities among teachers, and how the applicant’s “knowledge, skills, and experiences” align with the antiracist core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI+A).
When a school hires for diversity and equity, the committee members often undergo implicit bias training, as they do at Colorado’s Regis Jesuit High. Bringing the subconscious to the fore is an essential pre-hiring task as antiracist schools believe any white person in their structurally racist schools are unconsciously, and thus passively, racist unless engaged actively in antiracism.
To consider, for example, that an applicant who is Catholic – or who is a Jesuit grad – might make a “good fit” for the school is acknowledged, by the school’s diversity practitioner, as a “bias” at Regis. Bias awareness advances the mission-driven goal of selecting someone not “like yourself.”
If upping the diversity quotient is not possible in a particular case, asking substantive questions about the candidate’s commitment to DEI+A helps to exclude those not conforming to the vision.
Parents paying the freight ought to know that expertise in subject matter, classroom-tested teaching skills, and sound moral character are no longer the primary variables in hiring decisions. Oh yes, they retain some importance — you will be assured whoever is chosen is the best — but
Parents recall those teachers who were truly excellent and naturally seek such teachers for their children. In the spirit of the times, “excellence” too – like “woman,” like “marriage” – is being redefined to fit the Goodthink of the anointed.
Part 2: The Debasement of Excellence Follows the Elevation of the Ideologues
The university system of California is an influential leader in creating hiring practices that broaden our benighted conception of excellence. In 2019 Jerry Kang, UCLA’s $400,000-a-year Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, asserted the “essential interconnection between excellence and diversity.” Directors of DEI+A at Jesuit schools no doubt believe, like Kang, that a teacher’s “contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion” promote excellence in Jesuit faculties.
Is it mere coincidence that the union of diversity with teaching excellence serves to justify the existence of Kang’s — and every director’s — diversity bailiwick?
This intentional corruption of excellence arises from the prevailing culture’s skepticism of any standards that smack of merit, merit being a means, in the minds of Critical theorists, for preserving the privilege of dominant identities.
Such skepticism rears its foolish head in the Jesuit Network’s Standard 13.5. Knowledge that is a “metric or means of distinction” is somehow in opposition to, or not aligned with, knowledge that guides students to understand “God’s call” to act “in service to the common good.”
Human nature and human experience both suggest that students who are persistent — studying hard to obtain the best grades, and sometimes striving for and receiving honors along the way — often develop into adults who make the discoveries and create the inventions that produce more food to feed the hungry, cure once “incurable” diseases, and build businesses that furnish jobs and paychecks for families.
Solving real-world problems affecting the common good is not possible without the rigorous standards that human excellence meets. In a fallen world, the achievement of excellence is one of God’s distinct blessings.
The Jesuits once understood – like Aristotle – that excellence derives from training in the intellectual and moral virtues that habituates a person toward the Good. Now, virtues are subordinated to “anointed” values that level all identities, values displayed on an In This House We Believe yard sign. Thus, excellence itself is contingent upon one’s fealty to the culture’s identity orthodoxy.
Jesuit schools are, then, following the decadent Goodthink practices of today’s secular schools at all stages of education. The candidate’s cover letter for John Carroll University’s assistant professorship in Engineering Physics includes “the ways you’ve contributed to diversity, equity, inclusion in prior professional environments.” Those applying for assistant professor of Anthrozoology at Canisius College supply “a statement demonstrating their approach to diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging in their role as a college professor.” Potential professors of Mathematics at Loyola Marymount University write statements explaining their “contributions toward greater diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in your career.”
Yes, a potential English teacher for Brophy may be well-versed in Shakespeare’s major plays, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Homer’s epics Iliad and Odyssey. He may have demonstrated success at conveying a love for great literature to high school students at another school. He might bring with him a respected reputation for teaching composition and the art of revision.
But if this teacher were to tell a hiring committee that he refuses to be color-conscious rather than color-blind; that he rejects the premise that “implicit bias” interferes with a teacher’s professional duty toward his students; that both antiracism and the diversity fetish are counterproductive to genuine justice and perpetuate the lie that some teenagers in his classroom are victims and others are oppressors – this teacher will not meet the hiring standards at Brophy.
A publicly stated antiracism or diversity criterion has the advantage of eliminating beforehand the incorrigible. Teachers who believe that Holy Scripture and the Commandments are foundational to creating a just society, and who recognize that the secular Academy’s obsession with the identities of students is contrary to a Catholic’s doctrinal belief in the imago Dei, will not apply.
Brophy’s postings could inform potential applicants that the school believes, like St. Ignatius, that the special aim of teachers is “to inspire one’s students to the love and service of God our Lord, and to a love of the virtues by which they will please him.”
To proceed as though Ignatius’ words retain their significance today requires a faith and self-confidence far too many Jesuit educators no longer exhibit.
Part 3: Jesuit Proceeds down the Public School Path to Social Justice
Brophy hiring priorities are complemented by training of its veteran faculty so that all members of the Brophy community “buy-into” the school-wide antiracism plan of action.
The plan integrates for all of its teachers implicit bias training, workshops on how to “navigate and facilitate conversations about race – particularly in class and with students,” and the creation of a “culturally responsive curriculum” with “antiracist content and pedagogy.”
Begun in 2020, the school’s two-year plan to “ensure” everyone is “indeed antiracist in their work” creates the foundation for the continuing struggle of the anointed, whose antiracism is sustained, as Kendi says, by “persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination.”
Brophy’s hiring philosophy is similar to that of the Oakland Unified School District, whose posting for a high school math teacher – to cite one example – seeks an applicant intent on “developing as an antiracist educator,” knowing that “working to eliminate racism is critical to the educational success of all students.”
Certainly, Brophy’s review of policies regarding access to AP/Honors courses, its study of “more equitable grading practices,” and its examination of existing reading lists to ensure they “are representative of our entire student body and their histories/narratives” are procedures familiar to Oakland, Buffalo, and other public and private schools.
Once embarked on the antiracist end – racial equity – every standard is potential prey. Do the percentages of group identities in each honors course reflect the percentages of identities in the school as a whole? Are the final grades in each course equitably distributed across racial/ethnic identities? Are requirements for turning in assignments on time and opportunities for do-overs culturally responsive to marginalized students?
When you are blessed with a morally superior vision as to cause, the failure of the solutions you choose only prove how powerfully ingrained the oppression is.
In revising its standards in response to the summer of 2020, the Jesuit Schools Network accelerated the influence of its DEI+A commissars, incorporating more deeply into their mission the values common to public school districts. Like the school systems in Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, Jesuit schools have decided that the basic elements of Critical theories and identity politics advance academic excellence and the pursuit of justice – and make a “good fit” with Catholic Social Teaching.
Both Boston College High School and St. Ignatius Prep in San Francisco expect applicants to demonstrate “knowledge and commitment around diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.” St. Ignatius, like BC High, is a “more safe, loving, and anti-racist community of belonging,” one whose faculty participate in “on-going identity and anti-bias anti-racist professional development.”
At St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia, ideal candidates for open positions “demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” All members of its community are responsible for an “ongoing dialogue around diversity and inclusion issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, privilege, religion, physical ability, and family structure.”
Brebeuf Prep in Indianapolis encourages applications from those who increase its faculty’s “racial and ethnic diversity,”along with those having “multicultural experience” and a demonstrable “ongoing commitment to diversity.” Its Office of Equity and Inclusion trains new teachers to “understand their own biases and where they fall on the intercultural spectrum.” Opportunities exist for all of its teachers to develop “tools to further the conversation about anti-racism and equity” and participate annually in “culturally responsive” training related to curriculum and pedagogy.
To address persistent academic disparities adversely affecting certain marginalized identity groups, cultural competence and culturally responsive teaching are promoted in public schools as a way to bridge the gap between the student’s culture at home and the culture of the school.
That the disparities persist despite decades of citing systemic racism as the cause has encouraged little soul-searching: Could we be wrong about the primary causes of low academic performance in certain racial/ethnic groups? Could we be trying to “fix” the wrong problem?
When you are blessed with a morally superior vision as to cause, the failure of the solutions you choose only prove how powerfully ingrained the oppression is.
Part 4: To Question the Vision of the Anointed Is Heretical
Gloria Ladson-Billings introduced critical race theory into education in the mid-1990s. She developed a theory of “culturally relevant pedagogy (that) must provide a way for students to maintain cultural integrity while succeeding academically.” To become culturally responsive and promote cultural competence, Ladson-Billings says teachers must themselves be “aware of social inequities and their causes” — as the “anointed” vision perceives them — so they can help students “recognize, understand, and critique current inequities.”
She echoes the Marxist educator Paulo Freire, a key figure in liberation theology whose books, including Pedagogy of the Oppressed, are a major influence in American schools of education. A student’s education must create social change, contends Freire; turning students into social activists is the desired end.
Under the guise of seemingly benign concepts – Jesuit core values – the Academy’s Critical theories disseminate culturally approved perspectives into every institution.
Thomas Sowell refers to these perspectives as The Vision of the Anointed. Those who “accept this vision are deemed to be not merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane.”
Their assumptions about the primary causes of social inequities – systemic racism, capitalism, white privilege, the legacy of slavery – “are so much taken for granted by so many people” that anyone demanding empirical evidence proving that these are indeed the causes “may be viewed as suspect.” Today’s “morally superior” social justice worldview is not open for debate.
How that “anointed” perspective operates within Jesuit schools is on display in a series of online Conversations for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Antiracism Educators at the Ignatian Solidarity Network. Not only do Jesuit diversity professionals use the secular Critical theory language and ideas common to public schools, they advocate the failing remedies public schools employ.
Terri Jackson, Assistant Principal for Student Services at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, and Christine Vela, Director of Equity and Inclusion at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado, explain the details of “Mission-Driven Hiring for Equity, Diversity, and Cultural Competence.”
The initial 32-minute video presentation begins with a nod to Catholic teaching, acknowledging that “respect for the dignity of each person is the core of Catholic social and moral teaching and we want our students to see where this fits within their own lived experience.”
While respect for the dignity of a person is tied to the Catholic belief in the imago Dei, the phrase “lived experience” derives solely from Critical theories. “Lived experience” grants to a student whose group identity has been marginalized – a student who is not white, or not male, or not heterosexual – a personal truth (“my truth”) that can only be affirmed by others, never disputed.
After three minutes, “respect for the dignity of each person” takes a back seat to the statistical reality of group identities. We are told that almost 44% of students attending Jesuit secondary schools are from “non-white backgrounds.” The demographic charts then expose the major concern of the presenters: only 23% of administrators and 20% of teachers are non-white. How to remedy this disparity is the focus here and in a followup 64-minute Q&A video.
It never occurs to anyone in these Conversations that the demographic statistics reveal nothing of substance.
Unless I know how genuinely excellent 100% of the administrators and teachers are, I have no idea how well 100% of the students are being educated and whether the parents entrusting their children to Jesuit schools are getting their money’s worth.
If the teachers were 100% black, 100% Latino, or 100% indigenous, still nothing of substance would be demonstrated: demographics do not reveal the quality of the teaching.
The assertion that “barriers” exist for students of color at a Jesuit school validates having a director in charge of DEI+A in perpetuity: antiracism demands everlasting struggle because there will always be barriers.
The logic of Kendi’s “anointed” agitprop says that the percentages of white and non-white faculty and administration ought reflect, in approximately equal percentages, the group identities of white and non-white students. This sought-for equality of result makes hiring for diversity and equity essential for institutions dedicated to antiracism, where racial discrimination “creating equity” is, of course, not racist but “antiracist.”
We are told that “hiring for diversity is integral” to a Jesuit school’s mission, animating efforts to “engage every one of our students.” Such hiring demonstrates that Jesuit schools value “the contributions as educators of teachers of color,” seeks “personal perspectives from diverse backgrounds,” and accepts “the challenge of looking at the world through a diverse lens.”
The assumption that a person’s color provides “personal perspectives” and a way of “looking at the world” that is necessarily “diverse” demonstrates the deep divide: those who see each applicant (or each student) as an identity whose strongest bonds are with those of like identity, and those who see each as a human being created in God’s image and thus intimately tied to all humankind as God’s children.
We are told that, because non-white students confront barriers to educational skill success “including in our own Catholic schools, it is important we have teachers of color to help represent those students, to help support them and advocate for them.”
That students “must see themselves in a teacher” is standard DEI+A identity doctrine: the more white the faculty (and student body) are, the more students of color are forever in jeopardy, needing the fortress of protection, representation, and advocacy that only teachers of color can provide.
The assertion that “barriers” exist for these students at a Jesuit school validates having a director in charge of DEI+A in perpetuity: antiracism demands everlasting struggle because there will always be barriers.
However, practitioners of DEI+A identity doctrine remain resolutely incurious about those students of color who are Asian-American and yet somehow manage to succeed academically – and otherwise – without needing to see mirrors of themselves in their classrooms.
As Thomas Sowell has noted, statistics comparing black and white Americans in various categories are often drawn from data with similar information about Asian Americans, but that information is seldom included in news reports. Why? Because, says Sowell, reporting the data for Asian Americans would “undermine, if not devastate, the conclusions reached from black-white comparisons,” for Asian-Americans consistently score higher than whites on academic testing for math and reading – as well as for many non-academic categories.
Cultural theorists cynically accuse successful Asian-Americans of being “adjacent white” or “model minorities” just as they minimize as immaterial to their vision of society the academic success of individual black and Latino students. Those who assign these labels remain uninterested in the culture of the home and family of successful students.
Not only do they rely on theory that spurs unproven methodologies, they also ignore — or are embarrassed by — those aspects of Catholic Social Teaching that directly address cultural realities that must be confronted.
Part 5: Public Schools Have Failure to Offer Jesuit Schools
Parents and alums have every right to ask for solid empirical evidence that excellence in teaching requires adopting the current fashionable priorities favored by teacher unions at public schools from Los Angeles to Cleveland to the District of Columbia, all attempting once again to reinvent the wheel of teaching excellence.
Yes, we are told, “Research has shown us that teachers of color don’t just inspire and guide students of color to better academic outcomes, they benefit every student….”
What we are not told is that the few studies that have been done are, quite naturally, filled with caveats and conditional language. Some studies “may suggest” and “might indicate” a positive correlation between the race of a teacher and the race of a student. As the study of Florida data by Egalite, Kisida and Winters in 2015 reminds everyone concerning its results, research “should be interpreted with caution” as to what degree, if any, having same-race teachers effect the academic outcomes of students.
We’re not discussing students in a K-3 education program in Tennessee (Dee 2004) or statistical data involving students grades 3 – 10 in Florida schools, but students attending Jesuit high schools.
Educating teenagers seriously about Catholic teaching on marriage and the family – why both “central social” institutions are crucial for the common good of a healthy society – would actually do more to foster a just society for future generations than any amount of culturally responsive teaching in Algebra II.
Jesuit schools do not replicate the academic environment found inside urban school districts, which is where most Jesuit schools reside. The quality of instruction, teacher expectations and standards, and the disciplined ambience at a Jesuit school have not been variables in any such study. A further unexamined variable is the culture of each student’s home life: whether both parents live in the home, their academic and behavioral expectations for the child, etc.
At Regis, department chairs study culturally responsive teaching so that they, in turn, can direct questions to applicants about the cultural relevance of their teaching practices in the classroom. “I’m not just looking to see if this person can teach math,” says Regis’ diversity director. “I am looking to see how this person is really and honestly incorporating culturally responsive teaching in their math teaching.”
I am sure that some DEI+A directors have taught in a classroom, but “looking to see” how a prospective math teacher for a Jesuit high school incorporates the latest public school prescription for overcoming student failure ought to raise alarms.
Antiracist educators distinguish themselves from their public school counterparts by pointing to a distinguishing feature of a Jesuit school, Catholic Social Teaching. But pointing to it is not believing it.
While waving their DEI+A banners in unison with their public school counterparts, these Jesuit educators ignore a fundamental truth about society that, like the imago Dei, is bedrock in Catholic Social Teaching.
God established marriage and the family as “our central social institutions that must be supported and strengthened, not undermined.” Both institutions, scorned and belittled by the Critical theorists whose ideas the Jesuits weave into Catholic teaching, have undergone serious deterioration in all communities in the past six decades.
Educating teenagers deeply about Catholic teaching on marriage and the family – why both “central social” institutions are crucial for the common good of a healthy society – would actually do more to foster a just society for future generations than any amount of culturally responsive teaching in Algebra II or any other course.
If Jesuit schools wish to “walk with the marginalized” so that they can succeed academically and then, through their own efforts as adults, promote justice in their communities, they would hire teachers who know that Catholic Social Teaching needs no help from the corrupting antiracist influences of the secular world.
First published October 14, 2022, at JesuitSchool@Substack; modified/edited for The Jesuit School.