There have been times in her teaching career when Marwa Elmasry was so floored by racial insults that she considered switching professions.
“People might say, ‘You are a terrorist,'” said Elmasry, who is Arab American. “I was confused. Because we don’t have training on racial harassment, I wasn’t sure what to do. I just went home crying.”
Elmasry, who teaches at Oak Lawn Community High School and taught at other Illinois schools earlier in her career, said students have told her they were hurt by racist remarks but didn’t know who to turn to. Or they reported the incidents and nothing happened.
Those experiences led her to join with teachers across the state to promote legislation that would address racism in schools.
She is one of 15 teaching policy fellows working on the Racism Free Schools Act through the Teach Plus Illinois organization.
The act would classify instances of racial harassment as civil rights violations for officials and institutions that don’t work to stop them. Schools would need to adopt and display a policy, as well as train employees and distribute it to everyone involved. The proposed bill is online at www.racismfreeschools.org.
Ideally, students would have an easier time reporting these incidents and the rules would protect them against retaliation, said Bill Curtin, policy manager for Teach Plus Illinois. He said the act came about when the teaching fellows were discussing ways to diversify the field and examining whether schools were safe and welcoming places for teachers of all backgrounds.
A poll of teachers conducted by the nonprofit last spring showed 93% were concerned about racial harassment and most supported more training, he said.
A video from one school showed a teacher directing a racial slur at students. The teacher was fired soon after, but the incident still affected students. At another school, Curtin said a racist remark from a coach wasn’t addressed by administrators until it went public.
According to the federal Government Accountability Office, race-based harassment and hate crimes have doubled in the last five years, Curtin pointed out. But he said the problem was underreported because teachers and students don’t trust the system.
“I have a 4-year-old daughter who is going to start kindergarten next year,” Curtin said. “As I see her learning and growing, it’s because she feels safe at home. She’s able to take risks and try new things. When students go to school and don’t feel safe, they can’t take those risks.”
And, he said, if teachers don’t feel safe, they can’t “be there for students.”
Justin Antos, another area Teach Plus fellow, said racism is having a profound effect in schools.
“We’re seeing a lot of teachers of color not being retained in the classrooms, and it’s so important for our students to learn from teachers of color,” said Antos, who teaches music at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island and courses at St. Xavier University in Chicago and Trinity Christian College. “With racism running rampant in schools across the country right now, we need to be able to provide safe places for our faculty members, students and any stakeholder with a vested interest in maintaining the integrity of public education.”
In his 28 years as a student leading to his doctoral degree, Antos had two Black teachers and one Black guidance counselor, he said.
“I think that’s absolutely absurd and my educational experience would have been far more robust had I learned from people who did not look like me,” he said. “Hopefully with this bill we can move forward with a meaningful approach to combating racism in the classroom for once and for all.”
Lisa Thyer, a previous Teach Plus Senior Policy fellow, said instances of racial discrimination sometimes are subtle, such as a student making a derogatory remark about another student’s hair.
“When thinking about the ways students talk about race and address each other, something like a microaggression may not be something that is overtly racist,” said Thyer, an English teacher and assistant girls cross country coach at Stagg High School in Palos Hills.
Thyer agreed that when a student is harassed because of their race and they report it, they often believe nothing is really done about it. Often, the behavior is treated as simple bullying.
“It’s not bullying, it’s something different,” Thyer said.
Elmasry said the proposed legislation is important because it would help teachers and students identify racial harassment and give victims clear steps to take. She said the concept has received bipartisan support from a number of Springfield lawmakers.
It also would call for the creation of a database of racial incidents in schools throughout Illinois, which would be reported to the Illinois Department of Human Rights.
“We need this data to better understand the situation and see how we can address it,” Elmasry said.
Consequences would still be left up to individual school districts.
“What is more important here is that this bill will address racial harassment incidents with restorative practice, not punishment,” she said.
For Elmasry, helping remove racism from schools will help create an environment of empathy and understanding.
“I’m working on this for my personal belief that we are all one human race and we need to treat each other as such,” she said. “When I look to anyone, I just treat them as part of my family. Every race for me is a cousin or relative.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
