In July 2020, Stephanie Long, the principal of the school in Leland, Michigan, wrote a heartfelt letter to her students and their families after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Haunted by the images she has seen in the media, she writes: “Why be in a position of leadership, she wonders, and not lead?
“All people of color,” Ms. Long wrote, “need us to stand with them to make it clear that we condemn systematic and systemic acts of racism and intolerance.” She was considering profound pedagogical changes in her school; she imagined creating enlightening discussions in classrooms and seeking transformative conversations in the community beyond. She pressed send. A degree of support came in response. A letter of commendation signed by 200 Leland alumni was published in a newspaper on the peninsula.
But angry emails, phone calls and letters poured in from the district and, because Long’s message made local headlines and spread across the internet, from across the country. They called her a “shame”, “a Marxist”, “a traitor”.
Daniel Bergner, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, wrote about what happened when a superintendent in northern Michigan raised the issue of systemic racism.
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Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Emma Kehlbeck, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Elena Hecht, Saskia Solomon, Desiree Ibekwe, Tanya Pérez, Marion Lozano, Naomi Noury, Krish Seenivasan, Corey Schreppel, Margaret Willison, Kate Winslett and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Mike Benoist, Sam Dolnick, Laura Kim, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Blake Wilson and Ryan Wegner.