Top Down and Bottom Up: Can There Be Real Progress Without Both?
A candid conversation with an Equity Sequence™️ learner
by Suhlle Ahn
Maybe it’s because of the Twitter trolls. Or because I’ve encountered enough of a certain mindset outside my admittedly liberal bubble that I’m well aware not everyone shares my views. Or because I keep up with U.S. politics and am continually galled by some of the more jaw-dropping pronouncements, like this recent zinger from former Senator and CNN Commentator Rick Santorum, who told a group of his supporters:
“We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans, but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture."
While not everyone who resists efforts to advance equity does so from a place of such extreme ideological belief, there is a familiar brick wall that DEI practitioners no doubt run into at some point – like a psychological fortress put up against even the language of inclusion.
This thought came to mind as I talked to Wendy Palladino and listened to her stories about implementing the Equity Sequence™ in her work context: the South Country Central School District in Suffolk Country on Long Island, where she teaches social studies to 9th and 10th graders and ENL (English as a New Language) students; and also her local and state school unions, the Bellport Teachers’ Association and NYSUT® (New York State United Teachers), where she’s a member of the Civil and Human Rights Group.
Wendy Palladino and Suhlle Ahn
As important as it is to spotlight wins and successes, I also remind myself (constantly, because I’m an expect the worst; hope for the best kind of person) that the challenges are all around us. And the wall of resistance is often just behind a veneer of open-mindedness and acceptance.
Even among people who believe they are racially sensitive, you can bump up against an edge of resistance. People can be touchy.
“There’s a lot of emotion and defensiveness,” Wendy acknowledged. “People don’t want to think of themselves as anything other than being in favor of equity.”
Her local union has been talking about implicit bias since 2019, and they already have an equity committee. And just weeks ago the New York State Board of Regents came out with a DEI framework draft, which it is encouraging school districts to take on.
But that doesn’t mean everyone is really and truly on board.
So what do we do about the resistors?
Luckily, in Wendy’s case, the enthusiasts seem to outnumber the detractors.
When, for instance, she recently shared her Equity Sequence™ learnings with her union president and colleagues, after discovering Tidal Equality and taking the training on her own, the idea of integrating the practice into their activities was met with enthusiasm.
But she could also recall a 30-minute video on microaggressions, shown two winters ago, that had caused some faculty members to, as she put it, lose their minds.
Wendy came upon Tidal Equality while researching different forms of DEI programs being adopted mostly by colleges, and she grew curious to know what the Sequence™ was.
“So I went through the training. And was so glad I did, because I thought it really hit a lot of the points I had wanted to hit at myself.”
She had felt that, before adopting any program, they needed to first reflect on basic questions, like Where are we starting from? Whom do we need? Whom do we need to consider?
“And the Equity Sequence™ had it all summed up in these five, neat, organized, very thoughtful questions. And I thought, “I love this!” And then the ideas started coming…”
Since then, Wendy has shared the Sequence™ with many colleagues at work – all to positive reception.
At the same time, knowing there are the resistors, she is simultaneously in favor of a top-down, policy-based approach, led by leaders like her superintendent, who is already supportive.
“I’m not trying to change the hearts and minds of all my colleagues,” she said, “Would I like to? Sure. But my vision is that those already inclined to agree will be on board first. And slowly it will trickle down.”
“As a social studies teacher,” she pointed out, “I know that’s the evolution of our country.”
“That’s what we do, right? We pass laws.”
Personally, this was music to my ears, in part because, from a broad angle, I continue to see America as a nation teetering on a cusp.
Even with a new Presidential administration at the helm – or especially in its wake – I feel an urgency to make hay (new laws) while the sun shines; to harness what feels like real momentum toward transformative political, economic, and social change, to propel the country forward, using policy.
I feel this urgency because the counterforce we are dealing with – a reactionary backlash; potentially violent; fueled by nativist sentiment and a desire to see America return to its pre-Civil Rights (or in some cases, pre-Civil War) form – is also potent and continues to gather steam in various quarters.
Under such circumstances, policy becomes a means not only of progress but of protection. And I can’t help but feel that without the push-pull of top-down, in combination with bottom-up, the forces determined to turn back the clock will gain traction faster than those of us trying to move forward can keep them at bay.
*
Discussing this top-down approach toward implementation, Wendy says she hopes leaders can use the Equity Sequence™ to be more inclusive in how they communicate their policies within the community – i.e., not just with students, but with their parents.
But she also thinks the Sequence™ can be a complementary tool to these initiatives – an on-the-ground way to help everyone stay focused and intentional; to not lose sight of what they’re doing or go off on tangents.
Finally, from the student angle, she hopes to use the Sequence™ in a more bottom-up way, to generate cultural change.
One area she’d like to try this with is the student government and Student Council, which at the moment are predominantly white and female, even though the ethnic breakdown of the student body in her district is about 40% white, 35% Latino, and 15-20% Black.
She wants to build a student government that is more inclusive.
Interestingly, Wendy attended the school herself as a student. So she’s familiar with the culture and has lived through some of the school’s history, as well as the town’s.
She is, she told me, an American-born daughter of immigrant parents from El Salvador. So she comes to the inclusion conversation from the perspective of having grown up Latina and female – but with individual experiences that shaped her outlook and gave them an idiosyncratic twist.
For example, when she was in school, there were no Central Americans. Most of her Latino friends were either Puerto Rican or Dominican. And she was the only one who actually knew how to speak Spanish fluently. She even learned salsa and merengue, which are more Puerto Rican/Caribbean, not Central American. It’s very different today, as the Central and South American populations have grown.
“I always was aware that I was Salvadoran,” she said. But people would say, “You don’t look Salvadoran.” Even now, some people think I’m Italian because of my married name Palladino.”
I asked if the elephant in room was that they thought she was white.
She mused on whether that was the implication.
“If you follow through with, “You don’t look it,” what does that mean? How does it matter? What role does it play in how you interact with me?”
There was also, she told me, a double standard in her family between the boys and girls. Her brother was allowed to do anything, while she was sheltered. It affected what she did in school, because she wasn’t allowed to stay after. And it infuriated her! At school she could clearly see the existence of a boys’ club. So sexism became a bigger issue for her.
I asked what she saw as some of the reasons for the current student government composition.
While naturally the factors are multiple, some are easy to recognize, and they start early.
Students tend to self-segregate along ethnic lines, for example. But they are also coming from a district that is itself quite segregated – literally by the proverbial railroad tracks, where anything south of the tracks is more prosperous.
Wendy mentioned The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein – a book that lays out the systematic way residential segregation was achieved in the U.S. She feels her town is like a microcosm of the same segregation patterns found in larger urban areas.
Students start out at different elementary schools, based on geography. By the time they come together, in the 4th and 5th grades, there are already gaps.
“Education does have a problem in terms of tracking, too,” she added. And this starts in middle school.
“If you’re in honors in middle school, then you go into AP. And these classes are mostly white and female, although this year, we have one African American student, a few Latino students, and maybe four males. But the more tracking you have, the worse it gets. And that part is not self-segregated.”
She’s tried to encourage her students of color to sign up to run for student government. But many of them shy away from the idea, as if they don’t see themselves in those roles.
“It’s not that the girls who are on the Council are trying to exclude,” she explains.
“God bless them!,” she said. “They are the most adorable kids, and I love them.”
Yet the inequity and lack of inclusion are there.
“And it’s not that the students of color wouldn’t be great on the Council, either,” she added. “It’s just that they’re not traditionally a part of that group.”
So Wendy tries to make it a point to show them that, no, this is a space for you. And you need to be there, and then you can invite your other friend to join, etc.
I was impressed with Wendy’s energy. And her resolve to effect change, which felt contagious.
“God bless her!,” I thought to myself. And teachers – who, when they’re good, can perform miracles.
*
Wendy’s next step will be to do a more rigorous experiment, using the Sequence™.
She’s volunteered to be a class officer for the freshman class next year. (Class officers are advisors to an entire class, who organize events like homecoming and prom, and who fundraise.)
As an officer, she’ll be able to follow the progress of the class all the way through senior year. And she’s hoping she can train her fellow class officers to use the Sequence™ in all their decision-making; to plan things for the student body in this spirit.
“How inclusive can we make the class of X?,” will be the question, surveying them at the beginning of every year and then after. “Do I feel my voice matters?”
We’ve agreed to connect again down the road to talk about her findings.
In the meantime, she plans to promote the Equity Sequence™ wherever she can, with the hope others might want to go through the training directly.
“It’s easy when you put the time and effort into it,” she said.
*
We circled back to the resistors. Wendy said she thinks a lot of it is just selling the idea to people who…she paused, asking me if I’d seen the recent Op Ed by Ben Carson.
“He’s such a set-back,” she lamented. “He basically said that equity is the new racism.”
“But,” she added, “I do believe that those of my colleagues who get hostile and defensive when we talk about it are going to say, “Yes, absolutely.””
I mentioned the recent letter by a disgruntled Brearley School parent, explaining why he was withdrawing his daughter from the exclusive private school after seven years – objecting, among a string of other grievances, “to Brearley's vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as "equity," "diversity" and "inclusiveness.””
My sense in reading these pieces is that the interpretation of terms these critics are putting forth is more caricature than an earnest attempt to define what proponents are trying to advocate. It reminds me how easily words and their meanings can be distorted.
But Wendy acknowledged – and I agree – that there are gray areas that should always be considered. That some actions taken in the name of ideas can go astray. You might follow the letter of the law in such a way that its spirit – fairness and justice as ultimate goals – is lost.
I thought Wendy’s take on this was simple and sensible.
She brought up an example of a series of homogeneous meetings that had been set up at school, with the purpose of gauging students’ sense of belonging. They chose not to do this in the elementary schools, because that age seemed too young. And you could argue whether this was the best way to go about things or whether this might be taking things too far.
“We all have to check ourselves,” she said.
“But if I felt something like that, I might want to voice my concern, and have it heard. And that’s something we would want. Because we want to hear those voices. Those people need to be included, too. But not take your child out of the school. What does that fix?”
“Well,” she summed up, in closing, “we’ll try to change the world one day at a time, right?”
Exactly.
From the bottom up. With help (we hope) from the top down.
