Teaching While Black: Exposing Institutional Racism at Claremont Middle School

Claremont Middle School is nestled in the affluent and predominantly white neighborhood known as Rockridge, Oakland. It is an open enrollment public institution consisting of a diverse socioeconomic population of students from all over the East Bay. Many parents send their children to Claremont in hopes of a better education, but something is amiss behind its school walls. There are talks of Claremont becoming a neighborhood school-welcome only to students found in the school’s backyard. To achieve this vision, the current administration is actively working to push out black students and teachers. In this year alone, the school has instituted inequitable student tracking, transferred and fired several black teachers, and eliminated a popular  Ethnic Studies program. “The school will be all white in 3-4 years,” states History and former Ethnic Studies teacher Kurt Kaakuahiuu.

It’s becoming increasingly evident that the school administration is feasting off of a culture of exclusion…