Is Regis Helping History Repeat Itself?


Lawrencia Ebong

For all of my elementary school experience, I went to a charter school. This school had a very diverse population, days to teach other people about our culture, and various other ways to learn about each other’s history. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be said for the curriculum. It was a government funded school, which meant that it’s a retelling of the country’s history was to only highlight the good parts. So, when I moved to a private school, it was rather shocking to find the same thing occurring.

But, with 80 percent of the student body being white and little to no education of the horrors that marginalized groups faced prior to high school, it seems like, with such brief classes of U.S. history, Regis is helping the country’s history of sweeping their growing pile of wrongdoings under the mat.

Prejudice against Asian Americans has been happening long before the rise of COVID-19, but the only thing taught Asian Americans is the bombing of America by Japan. I have yet to see any mention of following that, innocent Asian Americans, of any nationality, were put in camps. I haven’t seen any mention of The Chinese Exclusion Act, which incarceration of thousands of people of Japanese descent. The same thing would be said with black history. The lack of education on things like slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and other issues is concerning. Lack of education in history has been destructive to people, and will continue to do so if nothing is changed.

On top of that, most of the students at Regis that use derogatory and offensive slurs will go unpunished. As recently as last week, a person of color was called the n-word, but no action was taken. I’m pretty sure we are all aware of the incident that occurred over spring break,  a student being recorded saying the n-word, would have most likely have gone unpunished as well if proof hadn’t been recorded and spread around as much as it had.[LT1]  These instances don’t help with making students of color comfortable in school, and the fact that there are little to no consequences feel like the school has seemingly deemed the use of these slurs as okay[LT2] .

Unfortunately as well, this is not the only blatant disrespect for people for POC at Regis. There is constant racism. There is an Instagram page named ‘Black at Regis’ that helps students of color anonymously share their experiences of racism at the school. This is something I found all too late, as Regis’ image was that these things wouldn’t go unpunished, and had a large diversity rate, and it didn’t take long to figure out it wasn’t the case. With many white students claiming that there is no racism, and some going as far as leaving threats on the page to the point where it had to be addressed, what happened and what continues to happen is undeniable.

So what now? In wake of all these issues, will Regis rise to the occasion and make a change? Will they continue to hide the problem, or will they tackle it?