True Justice at Bolles

Students and teachers share open discussion in the classroom

Aisha Hasan Contributing Writer Teachers encouraged their classes to prepare for discussions that might pull up strong emotions.

Each of us is more than the “ “Mr. Stam taught us that stuff is worst thing we’ve ever done,” going to get real, like he already stated Bryan Stevenson in gave us a warning,” Anastasia the True Justice documentary McHayle (‘23) revealed when

Bolles presented on February talking about her pre-discussion. 16th. The documentary shows an overview of systemic racism in the Regarding her experiences with justice system as well as Bryan the pre-discussion, Avani Bansal

Stevenson’s career of fighting for (‘21) (full disclosure: Bansal is a equality. Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Bolles Bugle) shared, “It’s difficult feeling

The initiative was originally comfortable with certain people in proposed about a month earlier certain environments.” by DEI Director Mrs. Twyla Ashman.

Prior to the viewing, English One challenge most classrooms teachers were asked to have a faced involved our current hybrid pre-viewing conversation with their model. Bansal said, “Also having students. Laura Lane, a freshman half the kids virtual didn’t help

English teacher, immediately either.” started preparing, reading and researching. She explained, “The Bansal did feel that the prefirst thing I did was go ‘well, I viewing disucssion made her have to get educated, right?’ I more aware of her classmate’s didn’t think it was right of me as a experiences. “It was eye opening to teacher to not do my research.” hear a lot of people’s experiences. Because there was this question

Bryan Stevenson’s book on the challenges he faced in his career. Credit: Google The documentary highlights the horrors of the justice system and how we can make a change.

about personal experiences with bias or racism, I was able to hear multiple different perspectives.”

In a prolonged convocation, students and teachers watched True Justice with their second block classes. “For me, my main concern was the graphic imagery of the actual people that have been hanged, but that is because I am very sensitive visually, so I was kind of concerned that there might be some students who internalize that,” Lane said. “But this is high school, and I do think that the stark reality was kind of necessary in order to bring home the message of the documentary.”

Dr. Jeff Yeakel, a history and latin teacher, described his initial thoughts, “It was interesting. The history of the United States was especially interesting. I thought the lawyer who put the documentary together was a really interesting guy with a fascinating history to argue all those Supreme Court cases. He was impressive to me.”

While the documentary had a historical approach, the historical images underscored our country’s past history of violence and murder of people of color. “I was quite disturbed by some of the things that we saw. But I also felt satisfied in the sense that we at Bolles were required to watch something like that. We kind of had to understand the message behind it, which was racial bias in the criminal justice system,” Bansal expressed.

Similarly, McHayle described, “I felt the shock of this is what happens in America and people know that the justice system is not fair.”

History teachers held the postdiscussion for students to express their opinions on the documentary. “Lynching in general is not an easy thing to talk about, right? I don’t think any of the topics weren’t difficult to discuss,” Yeakel said.

elaborated. “I thought it was one of the better class discussions I’ve had after a convocation. I think having them in our history classes was a big positive for my group of students.”

Meanwhile, the seniors who do not take history had their discussion with their advisors. “I think out of 10 or 11 students only 6 or 7 showed, so I have no idea what the others who didn’t show are going to be doing,” Bansal said. The question of what is the future of Bolles convocations and the school’s support of diversity initiatives still remains.

“It’s just a shame that these things are just starting to happen as I am leaving the campus, but it’s a start. And generally, yes the school needs to continue bringing awareness to issues like these,” Bansal added.

“I think it’s really important that Bolles makes an effort to implement conversation like this for future years.”

Ms. Lane said that conversations about our violent past may just be the beginning, “I do think that the African American population, especially right now during this time period is hurting and we need to really focus on healing and trying to be better and more sensitive. What needs to happen is we need to reevaluate the textbooks that we’re teaching from.”

Just Mercy the movie adaptation of Bryan Stevenson’s book, won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Motion Picture Credit: Google

“I do think that the African American population, especially right now during this time period is hurting and we need to really focus on healing and trying to be better and more sensitive. What needs to happen is we need to reevaluate the textbooks that we’re teaching from.”

— Laura Lane

Walter McMillian was set free from death row in March of 1993. Credit: Google