Wealth and economic inequality can be awkward topics to discuss and confront, especially when their contribution to creating a diverse school community is celebrated but their impact on students’ experiences at Riverdale can often be an afterthought. People don’t necessarily walk around with their family’s yearly income plastered across their foreheads, but that isn’t necessary for students to understand the differences between themselves and other classmates. I spoke with Ms. Phyllis Dugan, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), Ms. Blair Parker, Assistant Head of Upper School and Director of Financial Aid, and Mr. Jean-Pierre (JP) Jacquet, Assistant Director of Middle and Upper School Admission and Assistant Director of Financial Aid, who all gave their input on this issue in order to paint a more complete picture of economic inequality and how that intersects with performative diversity at Riverdale and other predominantly white institutions (PWIs).
Ms. Dugan
Riverdale Review: How would you describe “performative diversity” as opposed to diversity in layman’s terms? Why is this distinction important?
I think performative diversity has to do with the impact of a person’s or organization’s actions. I think someone can have the intention of trying to display a diverse community, but in reality present an image that’s not necessarily representative of the truth. For example, my undergraduate institution, Northwestern University, posted a picture on their Instagram. The picture was of myself and three friends laughing with each other. The caption read something like “freshmen moving out their dorms preparing for summer.” When this picture was posted, we had not been freshmen at Northwestern for several years. I remember feeling very disappointed. However, for a prospective student, seeing that post could have made them excited about becoming a wildcat and joining the community. Schools will always present an ideal version of the school community, but it is important to consider the impact of those actions.
Riverdale Review: How do you account for the differences in socioeconomic status between students in your DEIB work?
In any of the work that I do in regards to DEIB, there can be multiple entry points and my approach differs with the context of the situation. For example, I was a chaperone on a field trip, and when I brought up the possibility that students might not have money to buy lunch, I was told to pay for anyone who might not be able to get lunch and that I'd be reimbursed. I had to explain that withdrawing money for several students' lunches at once wouldn't be something I could afford to do. I had to get in touch with another teacher to resolve the situation. So when dealing with something like differences in socioeconomic status, communication matters. You have to ask a lot of questions and have discussions and not make assumptions, and especially think about the smaller details that often get overlooked in the face of the bigger picture. The impact of being the only student that doesn’t have enough money to buy lunch on a field trip and needs to ask a friend or teacher to buy it for them could feel isolating. Putting students in these really uncomfortable situations works against having an equitable experience at Riverdale.
RR: How much, and in what specific ways, do you think economic inequality works against a supportive and inclusive environment at Riverdale and similar PWI’s?
My answer is different from what one might think in that I don't think that economic inequality necessarily works against a supportive and inclusive environment at a school with ample resources. Riverdale has a vast amount of resources that can be used to support having an economically diverse community, unlike some schools that may have economic diversity, but don’t have the resources to offer equitable support. Riverdale has the privilege to be able to use its resources equitably. A problem I think is that sometimes schools wait for families to say that there's a need. This puts the burden on those who need support rather than creating a process or procedure to help remove potential barriers like embarrassment, shame, pride and other emotions. In terms of its impact on creating community, it often has to do with students’ experiences in their social circles. One student might just go to the movies for their birthday, while another might be able to throw a giant party (obviously pre-pandemic). One student could wear a few pairs of shoes in a school year and see someone else wearing different shoes every week that each cost thousands of dollars. Uniforms are used by some schools to combat economic inequality and establish sameness among students, but I personally don't agree with that approach. I think what works against us having a supportive and inclusive environment is that at times we avoid engaging in real and honest conversations with each other. Having a supportive and inclusive environment means that we can have difficult conversations and accountability.
Ms. Parker
RR: As director of FA, how would you define performative diversity as opposed to diversity at PWIs? Why is this distinction important? How do you think your work helps contribute to actual diversity at Riverdale?
So when I think of performative diversity, I think about tokenism and about institutions trying to demonstrate diversity in a way that doesn’t actually reflect true diversity. And what we do at Riverdale with financial aid is to ensure equity. Mr. Jacquet and I have spent a lot of time doing two things: one is to make sure that all of our students here at Riverdale can access the entire Riverdale program. So, for example, we actually provide SAT and ACT Prep to our students that cannot afford it to make sure that everyone can get that. If students want to go on a trip, we provide financial aid for the trip and there’s no distinguishing between financial aid students or even the number of financial aid students on a trip. If people want to do it, we make sure that they have the resources to be able to do it because it's part of our program. The other thing Mr. Jacquet and I have really worked on this year is to make sure that there’s no distinctions between students based on their families’ contributions to tuition. So there’s nowhere in handbooks, invitations for trips, athletics, anything else where we distinguish students based on their socioeconomic status. And this is all because we value all of our students. We value having a diverse group of students at Riverdale and financial aid is determined based on socioeconomic status, not any other type of identity. Because of our well-resourced financial aid pool, we are able to promote true diversity in our student body.
Mr. Jacquet
Riverdale Review: How would you define performative diversity as opposed to diversity at PWI’s? Why is this distinction important?
Great question. So in my opinion, performative diversity focuses on the benefits and the feelings of the actor, the person performing the act, versus the impact of whatever action we’re talking about on the traditionally marginalized group. Note a group could be marginalized for different reasons. I also think that performative diversity tends to focus on individual actions, versus making systemic changes and trying to change the system itself. I know this wasn’t actually part of your question, but I also think it’s important to think about the difference and relationships between terms like diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Those four ideas are related to each other but they’re not exact synonyms. So I think diversity is a good thing to be aiming for, but we should also be having a conversation about diversity’s relationship to equity, inclusion, and justice.
RR: How does your role at Riverdale affect your perspective on performative diversity and how its existence is connected to differences in socioeconomic status?
I would say first, I think you have to bring your full self into the work you do. I bring my own lived experiences as BIPOC and as an alum of an independent school in Boston into my work in schools. Those two things, being BIPOC and being an alum at an independent school, impact my desire to work and partner with the DEIB work being done through the admissions and financial aid office. I’m happy that I get to work with colleagues and between these two offices. I think I’m working to make some structural and procedural changes to impact DEIB. I think there is a clear understanding that we’ve made a lot of gains and a lot of improvement, but there’s still work ahead that needs to be done and that also excites me. I’m excited to be part of a team that wants to continue to improve and make things better, particularly across socioeconomic status and diversity here at the school. I think when it comes to our work in admissions and financial aid, ideally [those] two offices are partnering with the school and talking about curricular things that are happening, along with things that are happening community-wise too. I’m a ninth-grade advisor, so as a part of this job, I question: What are the conversations we’re having in our advisory program; what are the conversations we are having in affinity groups; and what are the conversations that we’re having in our classrooms? I think that ideally there’s a partnership there so that some of the work that we are doing in admissions and financial aid to bring in a very diverse class, each and every year at the different entry points, can be supported by the work that’s being done curricularly and across the community.
RR: How do you think PWIs like Riverdale can make a shift from performative diversity to true diversity?
I think that the more schools focus on systemic changes, the greater gains that we’ll see in DEIB work and initiatives. I think it’s about structural changes versus focusing on individual things. Ms. Parker and I have already tried to change a couple of structural things to improve socioeconomic diversity and people’s lived experience. It’s important to make people feel more comfortable across socioeconomic status (SES) groups. For example, this year, we switched to a more user-friendly software for families applying for financial aid. For better and for worse, I think finances can be something awkward for people to speak about etc., so by making the application process easier, and easier to update it makes the whole process less intimidating. We enjoy sitting on the phone and talking to someone and explaining the form, and we still do that; however, from a process standpoint, by having new software, we make it easier for everyone who’s going through it, as opposed to having a system where they can only get help when Ms. Parker and I can talk to an individual family. Another area of improvement is we are in the midst of streamlining the process for how students get financial aid support for things like trips, spring break classes, or etc. I think in the future, what we want to have happen is that basically, if a student [on financial aid] wants to take advantage of a spring break class, or a summer opportunity, or a trip, we want their process to be the same as a student who’s not on financial aid. If non-financial-aid students have to go to a meeting, great, then financial aid students should go to the meeting. We’re trying to not add something else that students on financial aid have to do. So by streamlining that, we’re making what the family or student has to do the same as a student who’s not on financial aid, and on the back end, we’re making sure that we connect with whomever the faculty running the program is. If a student applies for a program, Ms. Parker and I can look, and if let’s say the opportunity costs $200 for this particular student on financial aid, the program might cost $50 and then they can get the updated information. They won’t need to reach out to us because sometimes even adding that extra hurdle can impact things. And I say that partly from my own lived experience. I went to an independent school in Boston, and I was on financial aid there. I definitely got interested in several wonderful opportunities, and I felt supported by the school. But either I or my parents had to take an extra step for everything. I sang in the choir, and a great memory I had of my senior year was going to Arizona, and parts of Phoenix, and looking at the Grand Canyon with the Glee Club. It was a wonderful trip, but when it first rolled around, I just assumed I couldn’t go because I had not gone to any of the previous ones. However, it was the director of the Glee Club who said I should apply and that there was aid to help out if the cost of the trip was a problem for me. That was that extra step versus knowing right off the bat that I could apply and that I should because I was a senior and had been in Glee Club for four years and should get to be a part of that.
RR: In conclusion, economic inequality is what allows exclusive, elite PWIs like Riverdale to exist and often result in unequal experiences for students at Riverdale, allowing concepts like performative diversity to come into play. According to the interviewees, performative diversity can be defined as the act of displaying an image of diversity that is not representative of true diversity and focuses on the benefits to the people “performing” as opposed to the negative impact of such action on the marginalized group. Despite that drawback, Riverdale’s economic privilege makes it possible to fund the DEIB program and admissions and financial aid offices that all work towards creating a genuinely diverse community, where all students can learn in an equitable and supportive environment regardless of their socioeconomic status. In fact, they are in the process of implementing more structural changes, such as streamlining the financial aid application process and ensuring that financial aid students do not need to undergo extra steps to pursue extracurricular opportunities like school trips. Even though the administration through these programs might acknowledge Riverdale’s privilege, the Riverdale community might not interpersonally, as evidenced by Ms. Dugan’s lunch example. By having conversations about economic inequality and performative diversity casually or in spaces like assemblies and advisories, we can become conscious and comfortable about the idea that people in the Riverdale community come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and that there is nothing wrong with this diversity as well as identify changes that need to increase equality. Through this ongoing work, I hope that one day there will never be a need to perform what is already a reality.
