The National Association of Independent Schools’ People of Color Conference (PoCC) and Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) made national news recently after two speakers were accused of antisemitism.
The events, which took place December 4-7 in Denver, were attended by 17 Lakeside faculty and staff members. Lakeside typically sends students to SDLC but was not selected in this year’s lottery.
According to its website, PoCC’s mission is “to provide a safe space for leadership, professional development, and networking for people of color and allies of all backgrounds in independent schools.”
The speakers reportedly accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing, downplayed the October 7 terrorist attack, and characterized “the establishment of the state of Israel as a racist project.”
Tatler reviewed transcripts of the speakers’ remarks and interviewed several faculty about their experiences attending this year’s conference. Director of Equity and Inclusion Profe Debbie Bensadon and Assistant Director of Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Mr. Omar Rachid Zaim declined to provide Tatler a full list of faculty attendees to contact for interviews, with Profe Bensadon citing privacy concerns.
The controversy surrounded keynote speeches by Dr. Ruha Benjamin — a Princeton professor who is being investigated by the university for her involvement in a pro-Palestine student building occupation — and Dr. Suzanne Barakat, a physician and “prominent advocate for inclusion and social justice.”
Barakat spoke to adults at the PoCC, while Benjamin spoke to 8000 students and educators at a shared closing ceremony.
Tatler obtained a transcript of Barakat’s full speech but was able to access only a portion of Benjamin’s remarks posted by the professor on Medium.
In her speech, Barakat described Israel as “a state founded on ethnocentric superiority as an inherently systemically racist framework.” She later suggested it is “crazy” to consider comparing Israeli policies with those “carried out by the Nazi regime” to be antisemitic and described Jews as “colonists” who “decided that the solution to antisemitism in Europe and Russia was the establishment of a state for Jews in Palestine.”
Benjamin referred to dead Palestinians as “martyrs” and read a tribute to Refaat Alareer, a professor and writer who told BBC that the October 7 terrorist attack was “legitimate and moral” and “exactly like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.” Benjamin described the professor as “beloved” and encouraged teachers to take inspiration from his work.
She also discussed a Gaza VR exhibit she said was “created by and for Palestinians and those who believe in the seemingly radical notion that all life is sacred,” which some felt implied Israelis do not hold this belief.
After facing criticism from groups including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Jewish Committee (AJC), NAIS President Debra Wilson issued an apology on December 12 which stated that the organization had “already begun implementing meaningful changes to our speaker selection and content review processes,” including requiring keynote speakers to submit materials in advance. Wilson also said NAIS would work with Jewish groups that had submitted the letter.
Sarah Shulkind, head of the Milken Community School, a Jewish school in Los Angeles, told The New York Times that four of her students “stood up and left” Benjamin’s talk, hiding their Jewish stars because they felt “threatened.”
Others supported the speakers, with some arguing for free speech or stating they were not antisemitic.
“The conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israeli policy is wrong on many fronts and only used to silence critics,” wrote Harvard professor Alice Rothchild under a petition created by The Zinn Education Project, a left-leaning organization that creates history curricula. The group’s petition urging the NAIS to apologize to the speakers, who it says “have been subjected to a ruthless smear campaign,” has been signed by over 430 people and organizations.
Shulkind told the New York Post she found it “horrifying” that Barakat’s speech was met with cheers and a standing ovation from thousands of educators. The Zinn Education Project claims that Wilson was among those who “stood up in applause.”
Lakeside Middle School history teacher Emily VanOs did not attend Barakat’s talk, but said Benjamin’s speech also received lots of cheers, though she said the crowd reacted most fervently when Benjamin discussed rebuilding bombed places in Gaza.
When asked about the reaction of Lakeside faculty members, she said, “ I don’t remember any Lakeside teachers being, like, raucous and all that.” She said that Benjamin’s keynote “was similar to the opening speaker where she left everybody in the room with trying to leave a hopeful perspective of, ‘We are surrounded by people who want to do the work, who believed in affirmative action’ and ‘Look at all these people that are looking to do the work and now we’re going to go back to our schools and do it.’”
Ms. VanOs said she would need to read a transcript of Benjamin’s speech before saying whether the professor made antisemitic statements. “ I don’t really remember it. Also, it was the last day…we were also racing for a flight. My brain was not entirely, fully on.”
Head of School Dr. Kai Bynum attended the conference but said he was not present for either speech because he was attending meetings for administrators. He described the way the Israel-Hamas war was referenced at the conference as a “harmful, triggering issue for many people, however they identify.”
Following the conference and prior to Wilson’s apology, Dr. Bynum said he called NAIS and “had a candid conversation with a member of the leadership team…to share our team’s experiences and frustrations with what happened.”
He declined to comment on the organization’s response to the speakers.
“I leave their decision-making up to their leaders, and try not to comment on whether I think what they did was right or wrong. I thought it was unfortunate that that event happened, and I voiced my displeasure with how the space was created.”
Dr. Bynum said Lakeside condemns “any and all acts of antisemitism.” He said Lakeside is a place where people “are very clearly aware of and mindful of things that are antisemitic.” This fall, he said, Lakeside’s first faculty meeting was focused on “recognizing and combating antisemitism.”
“It’s important for us to do the work to recognize antisemitism in the world so we can be active in shutting it down,” he said. “And I think more places should do that…it’s our work to encourage many schools around the country to do similar work and learn from us as we learn from them. And I think NAIS could possibly do a better job of helping, to be honest.”
Dr. Bynum said Lakeside will continue sending employees to NAIS conferences, including the February 2025 Thrive leadership conference and PoCC, though he said he is unsure if he will attend Thrive this year for reasons including “what happened this fall [at PoCC]” and having responsibilities at Lakeside.
Other schools and organizations responded differently.
Administrators at the Wise School in Los Angeles are skipping the Thrive conference, and the New York Post reports that the group Online Education Strategies for Independent Schools (OESIS) is “calling for the POCC to be canceled.” Lakeside is an OESIS “Network School,” which the group’s website defines as a school that has “attended our [OESIS’] conferences or participated in our PD [Professional Development].”
“ We’re not in a position to boycott at this time,” said Dr. Bynum. “ With all due respect, I understand where other schools and other people are with it. And I know we share some of those sentiments. It’s just the actions taken as a result of that are just different. You can share the opinions of those who are boycotting and choose differently.”
The PoCC controversy comes at a time when Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs face mounting criticism across the nation, prompting organizations from the University of Michigan to McDonalds to scale back DEI initiatives. President Trump has also issued several executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI from the federal government.
The anti-DEI backlash may have affected PoCC.
Ms. Chiantee Rosete, Recruitment and Hiring Manager, attends the conference in part to recruit for Lakeside (she said she was not present at either controversial keynote). She said she heard there were threats made toward the conference. She was unsure about the details but suspects there was heightened tension because the conference was held shortly after the election. “I went outside and there were just like, police people everywhere,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Denver Police Department wrote to Tatler, “After doing a search, I was not able to locate any calls for service or reports related to threats during that timeframe” at the main conference locations.
Myra McGovern, NAIS Vice President of External Relations, declined to confirm whether there were threats but wrote in an email to Tatler, “The safety of our conference attendees is our top priority, and NAIS has significant security measures in place across all of our events.”
Still, all three faculty members remain supportive of PoCC and said they had positive experiences at this year’s conference.
“It was awesome,” Ms. VanOs said, later describing seminars she attended about bringing joy back to classrooms and having restorative conversations with students. “I think people like to pick the piece that’s going to be the most controversial or the soundbite that’s going to get them the most curious glances. But overall, the conference is wonderful and the people there are wonderful and it’s just a beautiful representation of what we could be as an educational system in this country.”
She described the conference as “magical,” saying, “ I wish we also to counteract the negative also had some of the positive stories that come out of that [conference] because they’re both very valid viewpoints, they’re both very important to talk about. They’re both important for everybody to know about the whole conference.”
Ms. Rosete said she learned new ideas about utilizing data in HR and that participating in an affinity group was a “real treat.” She particularly enjoyed a subgroup for neurodiverse Asian Americans.
“ I felt very vulnerable in having to express, like, my internal shame that I had to deal with and getting diagnosed with certain things. And a lot of it had to do with, like, cultural backgrounds and just the stigmas involved in very specific contexts,” she said. “The people I was with around there shared that same experience. And I came out of that feeling more confident about myself… that really sat with me and I think I’ve become a different person really because of that,” she said.
Dr. Bynum, who has attended 18 PoCC conferences, said he enjoys reconnecting with fellow administrators of color each year and described the conference as “an important fabric in the life of independent schools.”
“I think for this to be the only thing that’s captured national news for a conference that’s given so many people of color who have been marginalized in independent schools for so many years a place of comfort and collegiality…is unfortunate,” he said.
“Having said that, they [NAIS] made a really unfortunate decision. So, I hope that NAIS and the speakers can come to a solution.”
