It has been two weeks since my last post, and yet it feels like years given what our country has been through in that short time. The last post came a day after the murder of George Floyd by police officers but before public awareness and outrage over that crime led people to go into the streets in protest around the country and around the world.
In real time we lack the perspective to know when history is being made, but this feels historic. The protests have been more widespread and lasted longer than I remember in previous cases, and in my home town of Richmond, Virginia there is unprecedented momentum for removing the Confederate statues for which Monument Avenue is named.
A national nerve has been touched by the recent deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. They, and far too many of the more than 5400 people killed by police since 2015 according to a Washington Post database, lost their lives for alleged offenses in no way deserving of the death penalty. Even if we recognize the stress and danger faced by police on a daily basis, it is hard to understand how this happens again and again.
The outrage is real and deep, but the vehemence of the protests has been surprising. I wonder if that’s related to living through the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders over the past twelve weeks. That has deprived us of needed human connection, and it has made us feel powerless against an invisible enemy. Racism is an older, more entrenched, and just as mysterious disease as COVID-19, but it’s a disease we should be able to cure together without waiting for a vaccine.
I have struggled personally with how to respond. As a white male who doesn’t have to fear that any interaction with police may turn violent or even deadly, does my background and perspective disqualify me from contributing meaningfully, or does it impose an added obligation to speak out? I want to support my students, especially my students of color. I am filled with sadness and embarrassment that my generation has failed to heal America’s racial history and social and economic inequality. And I’m angry that some of our elected leaders are more concerned with “law and order” than justice.
This blog takes its beat as the intersection of ethics and college admissions, and this issue touches on both.
Ethics is about ideals, about how we should live. The killing of George Floyd reveals once again cognitive dissonance between the ideals that we as Americans claim to uphold and the reality faced by too many black Americans. Not only is their experience with the justice system different, their economic experience living in the wealthiest nation on earth is different, and this spring the data on COVID-19 suggests that black Americans are victimized by the coronavirus at higher levels.
For those of us in the college counseling and admissions profession, one of our ideals is promoting opportunity and equity for all young people. The Preamble to the NACAC Code of Ethics and Professional Practices (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I had a hand in writing) states that,
“We are committed to increasing the enrollment and success of historically underrepresented populations. We are dedicated to promoting college access and addressing systemic inequities to ensure that college campuses reflect our society’s many cultures, stimulate the exchange of ideas, value differences, and prepare our students to become global citizens and leaders.”
The events of the last couple of weeks are a clarion call not only for our country but also for us as professionals. Access to education should be transformational not only for individual students, but also for our country. How will we, individually and institutionally and as a profession, step up in this moment?