On January 15, 2024, following an entire day of MLK programming, students closed off the event by gathering in small groups for community conversations about the Statement on Self-Expression and Community Accountability, Cate’s new draft for the school’s stance relating to cancel culture and inclusivity. The introduction of this framework became the catalyst for an ongoing discussion, prompting many students to debate over its expected impacts. So what exactly is the importance of policy, and what are the consequences, both positive and negative, which students can expect to see with its official release?
According to Elana Stone, Cate’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, this policy was a product of the DEI Core Team. While “the creation of the document didn’t surface as a result of a particular event,” they noted, “we realized that we had an opportunity to clarify our approach to hate speech and differentiate how we respond to behavior that is inappropriate or harmful, but not hate speech.” As Mx. Stone explained, everyone comes to Cate with different backgrounds and opinions, and we don’t all have the same rulebook in our heads. The goal of the school has always been to figure out “how do we orient the community while also helping people to learn? The statement itself is a reflection of our current practices and a way to put them into writing.”
Simply put, Cate wanted to move towards making practices that already existed in the community unofficially, official. After the initial round of feedback from the community conversations, edits will be made with help from a group of student volunteers, and the team hopes to shave it down to a paragraph to go into next year's student handbook. Additionally, Mx. Stone emphasizes that crafting the final draft of the article is not the only purpose of this process. “It’s like we’re building a boat while we’re sailing,” they say, and that in many ways “the conversation is just as important.” The school, as Mx. Stone elaborates, has a unique advantage that makes it easier to address many of these issues. “We all have the benefit of knowing each other, and we can always assume positive intent,” and fostering a healthy discussion will pave paths towards continual growth and understanding in the long run.
Apart from the policy itself, definitions for calling in, calling out, cancel culture, and hate speech were all established. Calling out, as used in cancel culture, was specified as the practice of denouncing and shamefully targeting those for their supposed hate speech. Calling in was defined as the act of educating the perpetrator; instead of the usual aggressive response, calling in invites dialogue, understanding, and conversation for growth. The draft further specified hate speech as “the use of identity-based slurs or the intentional use of targeted, harmful language to question the humanity of another person.” From there, in bolded terms is this message: “We do not subscribe to cancel culture. Instead of calling out, we believe in calling in.” The statement strongly encourages the use of calling in as the preferred response to those who employ harmful language. Through this, Cate strives to cultivate an environment in which “the greatest growth is possible,” as Mx. Stone described, where the freedom of speech and self-expression would be promoted rather than compressed.
During the community conversations and afterward, the initial reactions from the student body were diverse. On one end, some expressed their support for Cate’s proactive approach, viewing it as a necessary step towards the promotion of accountability and understanding. More specifically, it was conveyed that students felt it was the standards put on ‘cancel culture’ that were the most impactful. The students most in favor of the new policy were predominantly ones who feel that cancel culture is currently a problem at Cate. Notably, the older students, primarily upperclassmen, appeared to be more concerned about this trend. For instance, after responding to a public outreach message, one anonymous student noted that “it feels like in the past, Cate has decided on freedom of self-expression and speech for those whom they wanted to speak, not everyone. Measures against cancel culture were a must and Cate is doing the right thing.” Elliott Paige ‘26 described the policy as “extremely important,” saying, “while cancel culture may be intended for positive effects, its impact has been, by large, extremely negative and undemocratic.” Additionally, some argue that the establishment of this policy, while not made official yet, demonstrates a shift in Cate’s culture; As Annie Chian ‘24 stated, “...making the statement was meant to put into words that Cate wants people to feel like they belong here. I think that addressing the issue of a cancel culture at Cate (which does exist) is a great first step.”
On the other end of the spectrum, numerous peers voiced their concerns about equivocalness to the need for a policy like this at all. Regardless of the intent of the document, many believe there are some potential issues surrounding the policy. For one, the wording of the paper was considered to be confusing to many, with some students unclear as to what stance it was actually taking. Concerns were expressed over the ambiguity in the language. “I just think it needs clarification about what 'appropriate response' actually means,” explained one student. To them, it wasn’t clear whether the document was supposed to be a rule, with a clear definition of both violations and punishments, or if it was more of a value statement, which aims to codify the values of the school. Either could be beneficial, but the reference to honor code violations (a punishment), and many uses of “we believe,” (an implication of values) made it difficult to understand.
There are two features of the document that failed to satisfy some people. The first being the aforementioned ambiguity - the feeling that there isn’t a clear and even-handed response to a given situation, having too much leniency. “Somebody could just use a slur or say something horrible,” one student explained, “but as long as they say ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ they can get away with whatever they want.”
The other point of contention is the role of the school to address and resolve conflicts. “It sounded to me like there was a lot of responsibility on the students harmed to educate the student who was being harmful when that should be the school's job,” explains Naomi Avalos ‘27. On the other hand, many believe that bringing issues to administrators is what in many cases causes them to escalate in the first place. By keeping the number of individuals to respond to a trivial incident under a certain threshold, people are less likely to overreact and have the situation exacerbate than what it actually is. “It takes more effort to think about how to tackle controversy than to just let it resolve itself, so I don't really think it's necessary to involve people that it doesn't concern,” says another freshman, in a stance that can be seen as both for and against the new policy. This to some degree highlights its fundamental incongruity. The new document makes official the methods the school has already been using unofficially, which are methods often marked with limited official punishment and a conversation-based solution.
In a society consumed by social media, the ever-growing trend of cancel culture is more prominent than ever. In fact, as seen in a Pew Research study, the percentage of Americans who’ve encountered the usage of the phrase ‘cancel culture’ rose from 44% in 2020 to 61% in 2022. All over the country, cancel culture has caused greater and greater rifts in socio-political fields. People take sides in light of current events relating to potentially sensitive topics, causing more anger and detachment and less common ground. This isn’t just found nationwide. The view that cancel culture is a perpetually developing issue within Cate is held by many students, four of the fifteen interviewed for this article, especially the upperclassmen who have seen the amount of discourse over difficult topics decrease even in the last few years. As Elliott Paige ‘26, explains, “simply, cancel culture is unfortunately used as a tool of censorship, which is something that Cate cannot stand for, and why the cancel culture policy is so extremely important.” Cate is special compared to many institutions in terms of the way it values unpacking unique and difficult subjects while placing value on all perspectives. - To learn from having one’s minor errors corrected so that they cannot make worse mistakes. To have real conversations involving hard topics. To quote Socrates’s Apology, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” As a result of the spreading cancel culture, some Cate students report hesitations in choosing to speak their minds, including discussing current events and politics, over fear of excessive response from others. In the last two years, two clubs meant to discuss controversies in a safe environment, We the People, and Not at the Dinner Table, have paused meetings because of this issue. The new policy is still in the works and the draft is undergoing corrections, but just the intent itself of bringing back comfort with public discourse is still considered by many to be venerable, with Oyin Opawumi ‘26 expressing that it is “a step in the right direction”. Whether it is in the school policy, or the community, or the ways of the students, and by working to create a position, the school is effectively taking initiative in a space where many other institutions have been treading water.
As of right now, any ideas from students who are interested are being welcomed, with several committees actively welcoming all and any input they can get in this next phase of modifications. The Board of Directors, faculty, and student committees were all involved in the initial writing process of policy, and it’s through these groups’ continued involvement that the ideas brought up in the community conversation will be worked to be addressed. For one, many have communicated a desire to make the language in the statement more transparent. In fact, when asked to define the policy in their own words, students struggled to come up with the same meaning—each interpretation varies.
Cate’s newest statement aims to take the initial steps toward fostering an inclusive and comfortable environment for all. “These are big, heavy, and important questions, but nobody should walk away feeling like they’re a bad person,” as Mx. Stone put it. “Accountability is about growth, and in this case, some of that accountability means acting differently in the future because now we know and can do better.”
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