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The Coat of Arms

Volume 50 Number 5

Menlo School, Atherton, California

April 26, 2024

serving Menlo’s upper school since 1973

Admin Reports Uptick in Bigoted Language Community Reflects on What Behavior is Tolerated at Menlo by GEOFFREY FRANC & SONIA DHOLAKIA

After multiple students were expelled for racist language and conduct in early March, Menlo administrators called attention to bigoted behavior. “What triggered [the expulsions] was more than one event where students acted so inappropriately, not just verbally but also physically, that it was just so clearly out of bounds,” Upper School Director John Schafer told The Coat of Arms.

A freshman girl, who will be referred to as Sheryl, said that the expulsions have impacted her class’ dynamic. “We just lost three kids in our grade,” she said. “It’s already not a big grade so that has a bigger effect than it might on some other schools.” Students have had mixed feelings about how the administration handled the reported uptick in bigotry. Some, like junior Ben Salama, say that the situation has improved

since the class meetings and expulsions. “Just being out on the quad and interacting with friends, I feel like I’ve seen a definite downtick in slurs,” Salama said. On the other hand, senior and president of the Black Student Union Aaliyah Sanders said that, while she approves of the punishments given out by the administration, she is skeptical that their punitive approach will be effective in ending bigotry at school. “Just because you crack down on it and give harder punishments [...] is not going to stop people from actually being racist, which I feel like is the bigger issue,” Sanders said. “It’s just gonna

make them be less open about it.” In addition, she expressed disappointment that the administration had yet to reach out to the BSU to discuss the recent incidents of racism targeting Black students and see how members are feeling. “I think we feel disrespected and unheard as a community,” Sanders said. She also voiced a general frustration with the administration that has been building for months. For one, she said the administration is enforcing a “double standard” in regard to disciplining students for using the N-word. She pointed to an example in a previous year where a Black student was allegedly punished for using the slur and a recent case where a nonBlack student allegedly uttered the slur without receiving as severe a punishment. Sanders also noted that the cancellation of the MLK assembly and the shortened Black History Month assembly compounded these frustrations. As a senior, Sanders added that the administration’s approach defers too much responsibility to the graduating grade. “[Head of School Than] Healy was

: ion trat s u l re ff il Sta er Mo b m A

Bigotry, pg. 2

New SEIA Grant Expands Student Summer Opportunities by ASHER DARLING

This year, Menlo expanded on its summer grant program, offering a new scholarship for student research called Social Entrepreneurship in Action. According to Community Engagement Coordinator Ava Petrash, SEIA developed after a Menlo family approached the school about funding grants for student opportunities focused on developing and implementing solutions to social, cultural or environmental issues. “[The family] wanted to support students who were interested in pursuing social entrepreneurship in various

What’s Inside?

forms, and who might not necessarily be able to dedicate time to it without an additional financial resource,” Petrash said. “I think the idea of social entrepreneurship is trying to find novel, unique, new, interesting ways to address social problems that are embedded or recalcitrant in our society,” she added. For years, Menlo has partnered with the HAND Foundation to enable student summer opportunities in the U.S. or abroad. Students who apply and are selected can be funded up to $4,000 to undertake an in-depth investigation in

scholarly research. Petrash said that while the SEIA grant program was designed to have a similar process and structure to the HAND grant program, SEIA grant projects are for scholarships within the U.S. Between the two, there is now upwards of $12,000 in total available funding, as opposed to half that in previous years. According to Petrash, there were around 20 applications submitted for the HAND grant and 20 for the SEIA grant this year. Because it was the first year, Petrash oversaw all of the students who

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