Black at Harvard-Westlake. Dear Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy. Black at Oakwood School. Oaks Christian Stories. Dear Polytechnic School. These are among the Instagram accounts linked to some of L.A.’s most elite private schools — but created by students and alumni who are going public with personal stories of racism that have otherwise gone unheard.
In an outpouring born of the national Black Lives Matter movement, these private school letter-writers talk of their encounters with bias, exclusion and microaggressions at schools where annual tuition can run as high as $40,000, and class sizes can be as low as 15 students.
Their comments offer an unsparing counterpoint to the guarded reputations and carefully curated images of diversity and inclusion that independent schools display on websites and marketing brochures and have forced rare public apologies from top school leaders who pledge to make changes.
“These pages are the most authentic racial data and racial audit that a school would ever receive,” said Ralinda Watts, a private Los Angeles diversity practitioner who works with schools. “Now, a school can’t say they don’t know.”
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