Thirty years ago, St. Louis U. High’s Board of Trustees released a Minority Action Plan. Since then, many notable events have happened in regards to race. In 2018, SLUH revisited that original plan, scratching it and drafted a new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Vision Statement which was released last week. 

Published in 1991, the Minority Action Plan outlined SLUH’s plan to make the school more inclusive to those within the school and to those within St. Louis. At the time the plan was published, just under 3 percent of SLUH’s student population was African American. The original statement dictated that it should be a goal of the SLUH administration to make the composition of the student body and faculty more closely resemble the diversity of the St. Louis region. 

Three years ago, SLUH decided that it was time to revisit the Minority Action Plan. However, they decided not to simply revise it, but to create a whole new vision statement named the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Vision Statement in order to help guide the Board of Trustees in creating a more inclusive environment within the school. 

“The catalytic events that have happened in America for the last seven to ten years really inspired the Church to reassess its stance and its promotion of anti-racist activities, and to examine its own history, and the Society of Jesus is doing that same sort of racial reckoning as well,” said Director of Equity and Inclusion Frank Kovarik.“It felt like the right time for us to reexamine our commitments as well.”

 “Here we are in 2021, and we are at a very different place culturally and in terms of what people understand and are thinking about race than we were in 1991,” said Assistant Principal of Mission Jim Linhares. “SLUH’s future really depends upon us getting St. Louis U. High to be a best practice school in the nation. And I think that a huge part of doing that is having a foundation for making sure that all students are included.” 

The goal of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Vision Statement was to create a set of guiding principles to train students to be leaders in our diverse world. The other object of the Statement is to fulfill one of the original intentions of the Minority Action Plan, to have a student body and faculty that better represents the overall demographics of the St. Louis region. 

“I think the statement is significant because it's the highest leadership of the school saying to the faculty and staff, ‘Here's where we want you to do in terms of the service that you provide to students, and who you're serving and how, and also what you're training them to do’,” said Kovarik. “And for that to come from the Board of Trustees, which is the body that is the overseeing group for the school, I think it gives us a lot of clarity on the school’s side as to what our goals are and what we're striving to do.”

The Equity and Inclusion staff felt that five separate topics needed to be addressed in the new vision statement—school culture, academics, representation, discipline, and student and family engagement—and that each topic should have its own objectives in order to put the new vision statement into practice.

“We've got two SMART goals—specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, and timely—for each of those topics. We've got things that we think we can accomplish in each one of those areas that we think will help move the ball forward, and make SLUH into an even better place,” said Kovarik.

While this Vision statement may seem to students like just another remote third-floor decree, the team hopes that students will slowly begin seeing the Vision statement be put into effect around the school in two major ways, the first being a more diverse student body. 

“It'll impact students’ experiences in the types of academic support they get, it will affect who their teachers are and who their classmates are, and I hope that in the long term, it'll make them more likely to be successful and allow them to go out into a diverse world and be leaders who understand how to build bridges between people and make the world a more fair and just place.” said Kovarik.

The second way that students will begin seeing the Vision statement implemented into their daily school routines is through the addition of more diverse imagery within public spaces and more culturally inclusive religious events and liturgies. 

“One of the main areas that they'll eventually see the vision statement at work will be the physical environment of the school: how are different people represented in the public imagery and iconography of the school,” said Kovarik. “Hopefully they'll also see it in some of the prayer and religious culture of the school. How do our liturgies reflect a range of cultures? How do our prayers give voice to many different types of experiences?” 

While the new vision statement will certainly promote spending more time and energy on helping students of color, members of the committee believe that this will lead to benefits for everyone, regardless of one's race.

“I think so often, some white people feel like by helping students of color, we’re taking something from them, you know, that kind of ugly stereotype,” said Kate Toussaint, Anti-Racist Coalition moderator. “And the reality is, when we have a diverse and equitable community, everybody does better.”

While there is still much work to be done, faculty members are hopeful that the new Vision Statement will usher in a new attitude at SLUH, an attitude of students better realizing their shared humanity, and accepting each other regardless of race. 

“I hope the Vision Statement enriches us,” said Linhares. “We say the aphorism that our diversity enriches us, that our diversity contributes to the creativity of our whole community and reminds us of our shared humanity. I think we're going to be richer and better at what we do because of this statement.”