The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • W2

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5609 Sq. Ft. 5 Bedrooms, 5.5 Baths Andy Beasley 615-429-5345 Other campaign and continues to hold listening sessions with students and alumni, Natwick said. Masters provide a comment, but Natwick said the school has in him. Kayla Williamson, a 2016 graduate, said she mostly looks back on her time at Brentwood Academy with fondness, characterized by the friendships she made.

But a few experiences muddy her memories. When she applied to Howard Univer- sity, a prestigious historically Black col- lege in Washington, D.C., she said a teacher held her after class to chastise her for applying. She tried to explain to him the heavy mental load she carried as a young Black woman in a predominantly white space but said he replied that students at Howard likely came from back- and struggle to in. very hard to speak up about ra- cial insensitivity where color blindness is the she said. Williamson, who works as a public speaking coach after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Cha- pel Hill, said love and pride for Brent- wood Academy prompting her and oth- er alumni to publicly demand the school administration live out its mission statement of and challeng- ing each whole person body, mind and is us saying publicly what tried to say she said.

issues cannot be Steven Widmaier, an educator who teaches a Christian life course at Brent- wood Academy, penned a 155-page the- sis in 2017 for his doctor of ministry de- gree at Fuller Theological Seminary ex- amining how the school should be more intentional about recruiting and serving its minority students. Widmaier declined to be interviewed for this article and said through email: know that I am very proud to be a part of Brentwood Academy and our ongoing work to ensure this is a wel- coming and supportive place for all stu- Natwick did not answer questions about the response to Wid- research. He found the school took a approach to its teachings, often overlooking the struggles and social pressures students of color face in a pre- dominantly white school. Natwick said the school condemns all forms of racism, prejudice and racial but did not answer questions about whether the school took a colorblind approach. The school lagged in its recruitment of Black teachers, who were nine of the 133 faculty members in 2015, Widmaier discovered.

That same year of the students were Black. For the 2020-2021 academic year, of students are non-white, Natwick said, but she did not provide a break- down by race or information about the faculty. issues cannot be Widmaier wrote. school needs to provide a culture of He wrote the school attempted to nore racial and there was a perception that Black students at Brent- wood Academy were only admitted to play sports. Natwick said the school athletic scholarships and that all students participate in sports.

of the criticisms leveled against the school is that the diversity they strive for is self-serving because they only allow Black students in that can help the athletic Widmaier wrote. Taylor McFarland, a 2012 graduate, played basketball during her time at Brentwood Academy until she quit the team because she found it was a toxic environment. When the team played against public school teams, especially those with a large Black student population, McFar- land said be warned by coaches to lock up their belongings so they be stolen. While Natwick did not provide infor- mation about how the school investi- gates complaints of racism, she said the school launched a community engage- ment department, through which privately follow up on issues. McFarland said her classmates would tell her she like the Black kids.

probably the one thing that I had a lot of trouble with when I was she said. cried all the time, and nobody McFarland still attends therapy to work through her experience. In 2019 she started a petition de- manding changes at the school, and about 300 alumni signed on. In the years since graduating, met with leadership to share her experience and how the school can be more welcoming to its Black students. Slow to integrate Brentwood Academy was founded in 1969, a time when new private schools were booming in the South.

Many of them were created to avoid desegrega- tion. Some Tennessee schools resisted in- tegration and were still segregated until the late 1960s despite the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional. During the civil rights era, private schools in the Nashville area were grow- ing and the white student population at public schools was decreasing. Jennifer Eaton Dyer Brent- wood Academy in her 2007 Vanderbilt University dissertation on Southern evangelicals as one of the schools in the Nashville area.

School in 1969 told The Ten- nessean Brentwood Academy opened to create a school with innovative curricu- lum and smaller classrooms, disavow- ing claims it formed to avoid integra- tion. School told The Tennessean the school would scholarships to ensure a diverse student body. The Black student enrolled in 1974, but it until 1980 Brentwood Academy had a Black graduate, Widmaier wrote. Today Brentwood Academy is a sixth grade through 12th grade college prep school where tuition costs nearly $28,000 a year per student. The classes are rigorous, and the students are ex- pected to complete nightly homework and be involved in school activities while encouraged to maintain strong re- lationships with Christ.

The school is known for producing notable alumni, including musician Dann and professional athletes such as Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, Eagles defensive end Derek Barnett and Cavaliers point guard Darius Garland. lot of hurt Lauren Williamson, sister and a 2018 graduate, said while enrolled at Brentwood Academy lot of hurt oc- The now 21-year-old felt like she was navigating two worlds: one where she was a Brentwood Academy student and the other where she was a young Black woman. would describe my life in high school as Hannah Montana with a dou- ble she said. Lauren Williamson was popular, nominated for homecoming court and asked by her classmates to speak at graduation. But she said she felt traumatized multiple times at the school, including after former President Donald election in 2016.

A group of students held a rally and stormed the school where they antagonized students of col- or with racist chants, alumni said. Masters told students the formal position on politics was is in In a Nov. 10, 2016, address to the stu- dent body, Masters said the pro-Trump students were but called charging through the hall with Trump of The was out of he said in a recording published publicly on SoundCloud. people behaved insensitively, meanly sometimes, Masters said in his address. He compared the election to a sports game and encour- aged good sportsmanship and forgive- ness.

He encouraged students to be sensi- tive to their classmates, but also sug- gested students simply choose not to be a big he said. choice to say will choose not to cling to the that given me. going to choose to let go of that, to forgive, to allow for the fact that not per- During homecoming week in 2018, Lauren Williamson said students wrote racist statements on the hallway walls, including not white, not Williamson also remembered her senior year when her teacher said he hoped no one got over spring break. Then the teacher turned to her, she said, the only Black student in the class- room. Lauren, you she re- called the teacher saying.

can just get out She said other students audibly gasped, and no one spoke up on her be- half. Later when her mother got involved, the teacher said it was a bad joke. me it just a poorly execut- ed Williamson said. carried During Kayla junior year, a teacher called the Ferguson, Mis- souri, protests that erupted after a po- lice shot and killed Michael Brown as a couple of minorities getting riled she said. She went to the department chairperson over the comment, explaining that it was an in- accurate and dismissive statement.

She said the department chairperson never followed up with her. There were a few faculty members she felt she could in, but Kayla Williamson said she felt most teachers were unwilling to intervene. In his thesis, Widmaier wrote: racism is seldom encountered among the at Brentwood Academy, either. However, there are many who adhere to an ideology that supports the that ex- ists Coming from a place of love often think of students like me who are still there or will be there in the fu- ture, and my main motivation is for them, that they can attend a school that can so many wonderful things and not have trauma or heart palpitations or double Lauren Wil- liamson said. The former students wanting change at the school became motivated by a school administration statement after George Floyd died in Minneapolis when a police knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes.

The statement address racism in the United States, calling death an example of of which cause and The Board of Trustees hosted listen- ing sessions over the summer, but alum- ni said action been taken by ad- ministration months later. The alumni group wants the school to acknowledge racism and its role in harming students of color. They also want a third party to investigate school leadership, including Masters. intention is for the school to be- come a better said 2005 graduate Andrew Bumbalough, who is the spokesman for the group of alumni. are doing this not because we want to break the school.

We want to disrupt the cycle that has caused things to stay the same for so long. We want the school to make meaningful change, and in order to do that, we feel there is some disrup- tion necessary to accomplish Alumni Continued from Page 1W Brentwood Academy alumni Kayla Williamson, Rachel Rose, Taylor McFarland, Emily Tripp, Marcos Harris and Andrew Bumbalough. SUBMITTED PHOTOS.