Update May 8, 11 a.m.: This story has been updated to include additional context for a parent’s opinion.
The new institutional neutrality policy dictating how teachers should approach topics in the classroom has provoked mixed feelings from Lab parents, where some parents see the policy as an effort to realign the school with the University of Chicago, while others are concerned by its goals.
An April 13 meeting between parents and Interim Director of Schools Ethan Bueno de Mesquita attempted to clarify the policy’s intent but left many attendees with more questions than answers. Some parents are concerned that the policy’s vague terminology could limit teachers’ ability to teach.
“First and foremost, I think that the teachers at the Lab School are excellent and were hired because they were trusted to run a classroom appropriately,” Jennifer Davis, a parent of an early childhood student said. “The administration that created the viewpoint neutrality standards really doesn’t have experience, especially in an early childhood classroom.”
Because of his disagreement with the report’s goals, Rahul Sekhar, a Lab alumnus and lower school parent, has decided to move his child to Francis W. Parker School for the next school year. He said that he felt disrespected by the lack of communication from the school and felt excluded from the review process.
“I’m an alum, I have two kids who graduated, went basically all the way through. So I’ve been affiliated with the university, the Lab school, since 1980,” Mr. Sekhar said. “The fact of getting an auto responder and then no response for somebody who has had almost 50 years of affiliation seems at least a bit disingenuous.”
Furthermore, these parents are concerned by the possibility that the policy could be enforced in a way that would alienate certain students based on their race, gender or sexual orientation.
One parent, who agreed to speak anonymously with the Midway and is here referred to as Parent A, said that one of the reasons she chose Lab was because of the school’s open commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and to social-emotional learning.
“During the whole process, it was very clear even in the application the essay questions were very clear that DEI and SEL were very core parts of the school,” Parent A said. “This is not what many parents signed up for, and for those of us from marginalized communities or identities, this is harmful.”
However, some parents see the policy as a positive change. Jens Ludwig, parent to a middle school student, said that he had long been concerned by what he perceived as a drift from the university’s stated policies and mission.
“I think the most important implication of this was to make sure that every part of the University of Chicago is aligned with University of Chicago policies,” Dr. Ludwig said. “One of the big attractions of the Lab Schools is that it is at the University of Chicago. I can tell you that I was surprised myself to learn the degree to which Lab was operating in a way that was quite different from the rest of the university.”
Furthermore, he emphasized that, even though Lab is an institution that includes students from nursery school to grade 12, it should still follow the standards of the Kalven Report, a policy document that outlined the principle of institutional neutrality on political and social issues.
“The university has a range of students at different developmental stages, and nobody is saying that we should exempt, that we should have different rules for different parts of the university based on developmental stage,” Dr. Ludwig said. “And so, looking at Lab, I can see that the implementation might be different, but the idea that the Kalven Report applies to the Lab School is hard to argue with.”
Another lower school parent, William Baude, also felt that the policy is a well-intentioned attempt to realign Lab with the standards of the Kalven Report.
“A big part of school is figuring out how to put the facts together and figuring out what inferences to make from them,” Mr. Baude said. “For me, this is a matter of principle. I think there’s still a lot of room for debate about how to implement these things … fundamentally, the university as a whole is a good-faith institution that believes in knowledge and free inquiry.”
Despite differences in opinion, some parents just want to find a compromise, and have expressed dismay about how heated the issue has become.
Parent A said, “I just wish that parents would talk with one another, or at least be able to hear the other side.”
