Voice of student civil disobedience & race

Uchechukwu Njoku • Cahn Fellow 2021

On December 23rd, 2021, two 10th grade students organized and led a student protest in an act of civil disobedience on the second-floor hallways of John Jay School for Law (LAW), a high school co-located on the John Jay Educational Campus in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. In the face of controversy that arouse from racially charged incidents between two female students, one white and the other black, a coalition of diverse students staged a walkout. It was a spirited protest to bring light to the racial discord that they had been experiencing with the school, on the John Jay Educational Campus and in the Park Slope community. The events that took place on the day before Christmas Eve started deep dialogue and the work of healing a student body still dealing with the COVID19 pandemic, the social unrest on the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement and the June 6th insurrection on the Capital building in Washington, DC. A student-centered and led equity team was established to ensure that students’ voices are heard, and action taken to address issues of both racial and non-racial inequity and bias.