Jesuit’s Social Justice Week begins Monday, March 15th. In previous years, this week would have been Multicultural week, but to better accommodate the new adjustments to hybrid learning, Melissa Lowery, head of Jesuit’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, thought this year would be perfect to introduce something new. 

“Every year in March we have a week dedicated to celebrating multiculturalism and we call it Multicultural Week,” Mrs. Lowery said. “During that week we’ll have brown bags, activities about culture, cultural dress-up day, and an awareness assembly. It is one of our favorite weeks as a school and as a community. It’s always been great, but I have always wanted to sort of transition from a multicultural week to more a social justice week because we should be celebrating multiculturalism throughout the year instead of just this one week in March.”

Mrs. Lowery and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office have organized the week of March 15th to be dedicated to Social Justice. 

“This is the week we are doing it, where we are actually making that transition into Social Justice week which will have similar activities,” Mrs. Lowery said. “The one difference is we will have a day dedicated to keynotes and workshops, and that’s going to be Wednesday, March 17th.”  

Jesuit’s first Day of Community and Action will occur on Wednesday, March 17th. Wednesday will be a mandatory school day where students can sign up for three different workshops to participate in via Zoom. 

“We are going to have the keynote at the beginning of that date. Mr. Anthony Ray-Hinton, who is going to be our keynote speaker, works for the EJI Center Brian Stevenson,” Mrs. Lowery said. “[Stevenson] is the author of Just Mercy and has done some amazing work in his career and working with folks on death row. [Hinton] spent 30 years on death row and so we are really excited to get to hear his story and have a Q&A with him and our community to kick off this day of community and action for everyone.” 

After Mr. Hinton’s keynote event, students will proceed to participate in the three different workshops that they had signed up for using a program called Sched. Sched allows students to build their own schedule by choosing between 20 different workshops.

 There are a variety of workshops to choose from this year. The workshop topics range from systemic racism, to climate justice, leadership seminars, immigration awareness, white privilege, and political discussions. 

Jesuit’s Day of Community and Action will close with a Celebration of Community assembly.

“We will have a celebration community assembly, which is similar to our performance assemblies in the past. We will have brown bags, we will have activities. I’m really really looking forward to it,” Mrs. Lowery said. 

Mrs. Lowery encourages the entire student body to participate in the Celebration of Community Assembly. 

“It is really an expression of yourself and your identity that you are willing to share,” Ms. Lowery said. “It could be through a song, it could be playing an instrument. I am hoping that we can, with some of our art students, create an art exhibit virtually that week. Whatever it is, it is just a way of celebrating all of our differences and expression of our identity.”

Students and faculty, check your email for an invitation to Jesuit’s Day of Community and Action 2021 to sign up for workshops on Wednesday, March 17th.