The Yearbook That Wasn’t

On the 4th anniversary of the controversial Tabula saga, here's what I see

Four years ago, graduating seniors here in Oak Park and River Forest (on Chicago’s western border) seemed to have it so rough.

The high school board, of which I was a member, authorized the destruction of the first yearbook printing. It was a 4-2 vote; I was in the minority. It’s impossible to boil down the majority’s concern in only a few words, but here goes: a variation on the “OK” gesture displayed by students in some photos had racist, white supremacist undertones (though the students’ intent was likely innocent) and would therefore be harmful to minority students.

Except, as I noted along with other points at the time, minorities were among those making the gesture.

The entire saga was complicated, and confusing, and controversial.

The board’s decision led to a weekslong delay before students received their cherished keepsakes. By the time they got their hands on the Tabula, commencement was already in the rear-view mirror.

How many lost opportunities did this delay represent? No flipping through pages with pals in the school hallways, no writing notes in one another’s Tabula, and simply an all-around downer. But then again, according to the board majority’s perspective, these teens were spared the trauma of being slighted for their race — or the shame of being branded forevermore as a racist or white supremacist.

Like I said: complicated, confusing, controversial.

If only we knew what was to come only 10 months down the road…

My son’s copy of the 2019 Tabula, the yearbook of Oak Park and River Forest High.

That’s when the Class of 2020 got a much more bitter taste of just how drastically high school’s closing days could go off the rails. They were Pandemic Class #1, which lost its prom and other rites of passage while Zooming in from their bedrooms for class those last few months a Zoom commencement.

My twin children were in Pandemic Class #2 (Class of ’21), which had it even worse: their last 1 ¼ years were upended by restrictions brought on by the coronavirus. It took almost a full year before they could set foot (masked, distanced) for a small percentage of their classes.

The Woke Left vs. Alt-Right Cultural War

Of course, none of us had an inkling all of that was on the horizon. We had not yet begun to endure a once-in-a-century global upheaval. So, this yearbook imbroglio was received as a pretty disruptive moment.

More than a few folks lost their ever-loving minds. Regional media coverage abounded, and it got national attention, too, enlisted into the Woke Left vs. Alt-Right cultural war that rages ever stronger to this day.

As a June 2, 2019 Chicago Tribune story noted, OPRF wasn’t the only school grappling with this issue.

As noted above, I was one of two board members who voted to allow the release of the first edition. Four others backed Superintendent Dr. Joylynn Pruitt-Adams’ decision to destroy that first Tabula run of 1,750 copies and pay about $54,000 for a revised printing. The foursome agreed with Dr. Pruitt-Adams that an upside-down “OK” sign appearing in about 20 photos — because it had been co-opted by white supremacists and other hate groups/racists — would inflict emotional harm, particularly to Black students.  

“Regardless of intent, there is a real and negative impact,” Dr. Pruitt-Adams said in a statement. “Many students, not only our students of color, experience this gesture as a symbol of White supremacy. Potentially subjecting our students to this trauma is simply not acceptable.”

Exactly four years later, three observations from my experience:

1.  See it with your own eyes.

Before the board had seen the yearbook, Dr. Pruitt-Adams notified us of her decision to spike its distribution. I respected her leadership, but I also had a duty to see the yearbook before voting on whether to approve the revised reprinting.

The meeting was originally scheduled for early morning but was moved to the evening when it was unclear if I could return in time from New York City. While on that trip, I also asked for clarity on the board’s role — the agenda item had stated it was to “approve” the superintendent’s decision, but after my inquiry, the wording was revised to reflect it was to vote on her recommendation.

Now with an opportunity to actually see the Tabula myself, I arranged to go to Dr. Pruitt-Adams’ office seven hours before the meeting. To that point, most of my fellow board members had not yet seen it. At least a few did so later, although I know of one whose review consisted of cramming in a few minutes before our meeting and another didn’t attend our meeting.

So, what did I see?

Excerpting from a statement that I prepared and read at the meeting: 

“Before viewing the photos, I fully expected that a certain `type’ of student—specifically, white boys—would be overwhelmingly represented among those making the hand gesture. The actual situation encompasses a cross-section of about 50 students from throughout the entire student body – cutting across gender, race, grade, as well as activity or club type.

For me, the diversity of those making the hand gestures is a huge distinction.

The vast majority (if not all) of the gestures that I saw are the above-the-waist and/or traditional upright `OK’ version, rather than below-the-waist and / or upside-down `OK’ version, which I understand is seen more as something appropriated by white supremacists. Again, context is crucial.”

Further informing my decision was a statement that Dr. Pruitt-Adams provided the board before our meeting:

“Keep in mind that the photographs in question were taken in mid-October, before the gesture was widely known to have any association with white nationalism. It wasn’t until recent media events--the New Zealand shooter flashing the sign in court on March 16, the incident at Wrigley Field on May 7--that awareness of the symbol’s newer implications began to enter the public’s consciousness.”

2. Whatever we put under a magnifying glass is more likely to get our attention.

This is a literal statement, but with metaphorical implications.

Five days earlier, Dr. Pruitt-Adams had been informed of the yearbook concerns by a teacher. Now, as the meeting time neared, the yearbook came under more scrutiny.

Before the board meeting, I saw Dr. Pruitt-Adams closely inspecting the Tabula, a magnifying glass in hand. She had found additional instances of the hand gesture, she explained to me. To her credit, even after already having made the decision to halt the yearbook’s release, she was being thorough.

After a decades-long institutional history of not paying nearly enough attention to racial inequities, the leadership pendulum at OPRF High had swung dramatically in the other direction. With an emphasis among leaders to approach just about every decision or policy “with an equity lens,” the magnifying glass was out.

3.  Writing is an effective way to see what you really think.

That afternoon, a few hours after reviewing the yearbook and a few hours before our meeting, I set out to draft a statement. As the initial agenda phrasing indicated, there was little room for dissent. That surely influenced my plan to reverse-engineer my logic in support of Dr. Pruitt-Adams’ decision.

But as my thoughts crystallized, I could see that doing so would be intellectually dishonest. My life experience – personally, professionally, as a parent, as a journalist trained to question and follow facts where they led – brought me to the opposite conclusion.

Nixing the yearbook was, in the words that I used at the time, “playing right into the hands of all the haters whose evil is at the root of this corrosive and divisive angst—and worse—that we are experiencing.”

(My complete statement is here.)

There have been plenty of instances in my life where, with the benefit of hindsight, I would do things differently if given the chance. But four years after the Tabula yearbook meeting, I am at more peace with those words, and my decision, than ever before.

For those inclined to dig deeper, below is video of the May 20, 2019 meeting.