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QUEENS WEEKLY, JUNE 14, 2020
Students and alumni call for justice after stories of
racism surface around Archbishop Molloy High School
BY ANDREINA RODRIGUEZ
As the Black Lives Matter
movement continues to surge
as a result of injustice following
the killing of George
Floyd, a Black man, by
white Minneapolis Police Officer
Derek Chauvin, voices
all around New York City —
and the country — are being
heard.
But as people are recognizing
that many organizations
and celebrities have
stayed silent throughout the
movement, many have also
noticed silence from local
entities, including their high
schools.
Archbishop Molloy High
School in Briarwood faced
backlash from alumni and
current students due to their
lack of an initial response
after Floyd’s death and the
several protests that have followed.
Shoma Nath, a 2016 alumna,
took to Facebook to encourage
students to reach out
to the school’s administration
and urge them to make a
statement.
“As you know our Molloy
dearest is a massive feeder
for the NYPD, and has a lot of
white alumni. You may have
also noticed that Molloy has
taken no action to denounce
any racism in the past week,
or in its history, yet capitalize
on black bodies as a diversity
number and also for their
sports, one of the highest donation
streamlines for the
school,” the post read.
Nath’s post continues
on to urge the school in addressing
the issues by emailing
school President Richard
Karsten and Principal
Darius Penikas.
The movement generated
a response from the school,
which on June 2 posted a
statement on their Instagram
page.
“Like you, all of us at
Archbishop Molloy High
School are distressed by current
events that reflect the
racism and bigotry that unfortunately
exist in our society,”
the post read.
The statement continued
on by expressing the Marist
Catholic values that the
school runs on. However, this
response wasn’t enough for
students and alumni alike,
as they flooded the comment
section with criticisms
and personal stories where
they’ve experienced racism
and bigotry by their own
teachers and peers that was
overlooked by the administration,
as first reported by
Queens Patch.
The comments ranged
from students who graduated
this year to as far back as
1990. Stories included those
expressing discomfort with
their teacher saying the Nword
while reading “To Kill
A Mockingbird” in class and
another teacher constantly
making homophobic jokes
that implied, “gay people
should die.” One story that
was widely circulated is that
of students who posted a
selfie in white hoods with the
caption, “clikkk.”
The school’s Instagram
post has since been deleted.
Alex Celedon, class of
2019, created a form for people
to write about their experiences,
and students and
alumni took further action by
creating an Instagram page
called humansofamhs, which
gives a platform for students
to share their experiences of
racial profiling and discrimination
at Molloy.
Sarah Rodriguez, class
of 2018, decided to create the
page after reading a thread
on Twitter by a fellow alum
who shared her experience.
“I soon started to see more
and more threads on experiences
and decided to ask my
best friends if they had any,”
Rodriguez said. “In a sudden
burst of anger I decided
to post it on my Snapchat. I
didn’t think much of it but
more students from my year
began coming to me with
their experiences and I felt
they needed to be seen out
and in the open.”
The Twitter thread was
created by Liliebel Pujols,
class of 2015. In response to
Floyd’s death and the Black
Lives Matter movement, Pujols
found it the appropriate
time to share a time she got
into a disagreement with a
classmate about the Michael
Brown case back in 2014.
Pujols explains that her
classmate believed Brown
disrespected authority, only
for the classmate to then get
intoxicated later that night
and steal a stop sign and express
profanity directly at a
police officer.
“It was obviously never
about authority because I
want to know where this socalled
respect he was going
on and on about went?” Pujol
tweeted.
By June 3, Molloy issued
a new statement addressing
their original response, along
with the comments.
“Our community’s response
humbled us. We realize
now that, although
well intentioned, our initial
statement missed the mark
and was not enough,” the revised
statement — signed by
Karsten and Penikas — read.
Addressing the critiques
received in which their words
are only words, the post continued.
“Now, Molloy is developing
a three-stage action plan
that will: address the issues
of racism and sexism; institute
a zero tolerance policy for
racial comments and attacks;
provide training for faculty
and staff; hold each person
accountable for their words
and actions; and assure equitable
discipline among all
students.”
“We genuinely want to
empower our students and
alumni and continue to listen.
In the past 48 hours we
have taken several concrete
steps to assemble a student
advisory board for inclusion
policies and action as
well as a group representing
our alumni perspective, all
designed to help us listen in
order to make meaningful
changes,” President Richard
Karsten said in an email.
The school also archived
its Facebook group for alumni,
which keeps members
from posting or commenting
inside the group. In response,
students of the 2016 class recreated
an Facebook alumni
group to allow members continue
to share their stories.
Multiple students and
alumni agreed to speak directly
with QNS and share
their stories.
Kirsten Erika Paulsen,
class of 2013, recalled a time
when a fellow classmate
stated that their right to free
speech allows them to use
derogatory terms, in which
her teacher did not choose
to prohibit in class. Paulsen
also said that her guidance
counselor didn’t realize
her classmate was using a
transphobic slur in her peer
groups class.
“I understand that Molloy,
as a Catholic school, probably
can’t promote LGBTQ rights,
but that doesn’t mean it needs
to tolerate bigotry against gay
and trans people,” Paulsen
said. “Like it or not, many
Stanners are part of the
LGBTQ community, just as
many Stanners come from
different faiths, countries,
and cultures.”
Kristen Allen, class of
2017, disclosed instances in
which she witnessed. These
included students calling
Trayvon Martin a “thug,”
chants of “Build the Wall”
and “Trump” occurred after
the 2016 elections and students
expressing excitement
for getting the “Mexicans
and rapists out.”
Taylor-Simone Frederick,
class of 2016, while not
on school grounds said that
they were at the beach on the
last day of their senior year
when her friend confronted a
fellow classmate for his hate
speech towards Black people
that was read during class.
The classmate then stalked
Frederick and her friend
around the block as he waved
a confederate flag.
“I had never felt true fear
for simply being black than
in that moment at seventeen
years old,” Frederick said.
The protest
In response, students and
alumni from Archbishop Molloy
hosted a “Not for School
But for Black Lives” protest
outside of the Briarwood
school on Saturday, June 6.
The protest was named
“Not for School But for Black
Lives,” a play on school’s motto:
“Non scholae sed vitae”
— not for school, but for life.
About 200 protesters gathered
at the school around 1
p.m., on June 6.
The group marched towards
the Queens Criminal
Courthouse – about a 10 minute
walk from the Catholic
school – where they took a
knee for eight minutes, the
amount of time Chauvin dug
his knee into Floyd’s neck as
he died.
The demonstrators then
began their march through
Forest Hills, where they met
up with a larger group of protesters.
Together, the group
was about 500 people strong.
— Additional reporting
by Jacob Kaye
Photo by Dean Moses