ICCSD Instagram Accounts

@to report sexism and misogyny, but it ers comment about experiencing or seekind of turned into an account to report ing a similar instance happen to them,” sexual harassment,” Violet Whiting ‘25, Taylor said. an eighth-grader at South East Junior While Taylor was upset by the stories High and the original creator of the @ about racist students, what hurt them girlsaticcsd account, said. the most was the stories about students

Astrid Carlson ‘24, who identifies as who would report incidents of discriminon-binary, describes their friend reach- nation to staff members and not see any ing out to them about creating the @ action be taken. lgbtaticcsd account. “After talking with the other ac-

“As an LGBTQ person in the counts I realized that many of the teachICCSD, I have personally dealt with ers being named for racist actions are harassment and bullying because of that also showing up in stories of sexism, and I felt that it was important for us homophobia, or unequal disciplinary to have a space where we could share actions,” Taylor said. “Whenever there those stories and bring awareness to the is a story with a teacher, I always keep fact that this is still happening, even in the name in so that other students could a school district that is slightly more lib- comment if they have something simeral,” Carlson said. ilar; usually there are multiple similar

They’re one of the six owners of the stories from the same teachers.” @lgbtaticcsd account and described the However, Taylor does blur out the six of them getting together as a group names of students who come up in subto create the account. missions because they are not employees “It was more of a thing of like we of the school district. ICCSD were just all LGBT people at ICCSD and so we thought it would be better if we did it together, even if there wasn’t enough work for six people to do,” Carlson said. “Then it got bigger and then all of a sudden there was enough work for six people to do.” “It is tougher for the district to take action against a student, whether that student has graduated, left the school, already been punished, in case the story isn’t true, etc., so student names are always blurred out, for that student’s safety, and also due to the lack of action the Students have created Instagram acMegan Fields ‘21 underestimated how many incidents of harassment district is allowed to enact, or they will enact,” Taylor said. counts to share stories of race, gender, and sexuality based discrimination or discrimination would show up on the accounts and was surprised by the stories that she saw, but is glad the acCity High principal John Bacon explained how if a student reports an incident that occurred with a specific teachcounts were created. er, then there would be an investigation. By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown “My first reaction to the ICCSD “I have not read transcripts of everyaccounts was really positive because I thing that was posted on [the Instagram

For months, well-designed, color-coordinated, thought it was a really good idea for peo- accounts] so I’m not aware of a great patterned squares flooded City High students’ ple who feel like they can’t or don’t have deal of specifics,” Bacon said. “I would Instagram feeds; however, the content of these a voice in the district,” Fields said. “I tell you in general, that if there was a boxes was less pleasing than their aesthetic ex- thought it was really important because specific concern brought that warrantterior. All under similar handles, these Instagram accounts, most created in late July and early August, call I know in my experience as a “I felt like we needed a place for ed an investigation, we would out discrimination faced by students and teachers in the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD). The first of these accounts to be created was the young woman who’s grown up in this disgirls to report sexism and misogyny, but it kind of turned into an account investigate. And there’s a procedure for that in @blackaticcsd Instagram account, whose first post is dated July 19, 2020. trict, that there have definitely to report sexual harassment.” the school dis trict.” “I started the @blackaticcsd page after seeing Ivy League universities create similar social media acbeen many cases where womVIOLET WHITING CITY HIGH FRESHMAN Moreover, Bacon describes counts,” Taylor*, a high school student in the ICCSD, en don’t get the two equity comsaid. “I wanted it to be a safe space for students of col- chance to speak of their experiences.” mittees at City High: one, a staff equity or to share their stories… I don’t consider myself an Taylor describes how they quickly team that met weekly during the spring activist— I’m just doing what should have been done noticed similar things in the submis- and the first part of the summer, and the by the district.” sions they received: the same teachers, other, a student diversity, equity, and in-

Within a week of the account being created, @ the same experiences, and the same clusion team. blackaticcsd had posted nearly 50 submissions and problems. “[We want to] really invest in that received many more. Soon after, the @lgtbaticcsd and “I have received some horrible sto- student equity team and make sure @girlsaticcsd accounts were created, first posting on ries, but none of which were surprising; that the student body knows about that July 22 and 30, respectively. many people comment on the shock group,” Bacon said.

“I saw the other two accounts, @lgbtaticcsd and @ they had reading it, these tend to be Whiting would like to see the district blackaticcsd, and I felt like we needed a place for girls white students and teachers, whilst oth- take more action and do more to help

students who come forward with stories of misogyny.

“Obviously there [are] so many stories; these are just the people who are brave enough to share their story, and if there’s all this obviously going around and in our community, we need to take action because most of the stories were saying that they were just asked to apologize or just forced to apologize,” Whiting said.

Carlson and the other owners of the @lgbtaticcsd account have been talking to other students who have faced homophobia or transphobia at school to gather information before bringing specific complaints to the district.

“For ones [with] specific teachers we are collecting information and records, especially video records, and compiling information so that we can then bring it to the district [because] we want to have a strong case before we go to rush in there,” Carlson said.

After facing discrimination at South East, Carlson is hopeful that the attitudes in the school district towards the LGTBQ+ community will change in the future. When talking about their experience at South East as a non-binary person, Carlson described it as “not great” citing instances when the administration would refuse to put students’ correct names and pronouns in PowerSchool.

“Some teachers would go as far as intentionally using the given names as much as possible, which was really not cool. In the halls, the hall monitors were often more likely to stop LGBTQ couples for public displays of affection than they ever were for straight couples,” Carlson said.

To combat these issues, another plan that the City High administration is working on is a way to incorporate students in staff professional development.

“We want to take half of our in-service days and designate them for student-led professional development so we can hear directly from students,” Bacon said.

There will be a system where students can make a proposal about what they want to present and a staff equity team will choose which proposal they want to hear more about in a staff professional development meeting.

“Then we would actually have student-led professional development so we can just hear directly from students,” Bacon said. “And that was one example, and there are many other steps, other steps included like special lessons that the teacher teams were working on to address racial equity issues, to address treating each other with respect, and just all of those types of things that we’re building some lessons that would fit into our advisory structure that we’re going to be delivered during advisory.”

Matt Degner, the interim superintendent, explained that the work they need to do is twofold; they need to create a system where discrimination doesn’t occur, but when incidents do happen, students and staff know how to handle them.

“That’s where we need own some responsibility,” Degner said. “They haven’t felt like things have changed or when they shared those stories before, that nothings different or nothing’s changed. We need to reflect as a system about why that’s occurring and what we can do to improve on that.”

Additionally, the owners of these accounts have faced backlash on social media.

“One day, over the span of five or so hours, I received about a hundred submissions. Most, if not all, were from one person. A troll. Some were racist slurs and others were pushing his political ideologies,” Taylor said.

Whiting has had to delete sexist comments and block trolls from seeing the @girlsaticcsd account. Carlson described one friend group trolling the @lgbtaticcsd account, submitting fake stories, and harassing one of the other admins of the accounts.

Other accounts also surfaced, some positive, like @mentalhealthaticcsd and @latinosaticcsd, and some that seemed to be troll accounts, like @boysaticcsd and @conservativesaticcsd.

“I enjoyed seeing the other aticcsd accounts being started: the lgbtaticcsd, girlsaticcsd, and latinosaticcsd as well as the mental health and bullying accounts. Other accounts such as the boysaticcsd and conservativesaticcsd, not as much, especially considering they don’t post,” Taylor said.

At the end of the day, the owners of all of these accounts want to see the school district take action to prevent discrimination in the furture.

“[We want] to talk [to the school board] about discrimination and incidents that really prove that there is serious discrimination going on in the school discrict, because administration has a way of twisting themselves around it and pretending that it’s not really happening,” Carlson said. “We want to make sure that that can happen because change needs to happen.” @mentalhealthaticcsd first post: 496August 2 followers @latinosaticcsd first post: August 6 246 followers @lgbtaticcsd first post: July 22 896 followers @girlsaticcsd 1,087first post: July 30 followers @blackaticcsd first post: July 19 1,951 followers