All the faces on this school catalog are white. Clovis Unified must do better in 2020
In any other year, I may not have noticed the cover of the Clovis Adult Education class catalog that recently arrived in the mail.
In 2020, it was impossible not to.
Taking up most of the front cover is a photograph of a smiling young woman cradling a book with both arms. The woman happens to be white, which didn’t raise my antennas whatsoever until I flipped the catalog over and saw a photo collage of faces on the back.
All 70 of the faces, minus a couple that are either obscured or cut off, are white.
The lack of melanin couldn’t be more glaring.
“There’s various shades of white. Maybe a person or two has slight pigmentation, but not very much,” said my friend Tom Bohigian, the former Fresno city councilmember, who had a similar reaction.
The lily-white image is made even more stark by the words printed above it: We’re Here to Serve You!
My brain couldn’t help but put text and pictures together: Is that supposed to mean Clovis Adult Education is here to serve a bunch of white people?
Clearly not. Clovis Adult Education is an extension of the Clovis Unified School District, which has 61% percent minority enrollment. (I’d imagine adult school courses have an equally large, or even larger, minority makeup.) But that’s the unfortunate impression.
To see any darker skin tones, one has to thumb through the 38-page catalog. Inside you’ll find numerous photos of Hispanics, Blacks and people of Asian descent.
Just not on the cover — even though somebody took the time to photoshop a collage of dozens of white faces. Which strikes me as a curious decision in any year, but especially one in which so much of the public discourse (besides COVID-19) has been about race.
Clovis Unified isn’t exactly a passive observer in this discourse, either. Not with its history, both recent and distant, of racist threats and hate speech. Of which only a fraction come to light.
With that backdrop, you’d think the cover design for a class catalog with 70 white people and zero minorities wouldn’t make it off the computer screen, let alone to the printer.
Unless, of course, it was intentional.
Cover ‘missed the mark’
Bohigian thought so, too, and called the phone number listed on the catalog. He left a message, and within a couple hours the call was returned by Ed Schmalzel, principal of Clovis Adult Education.
“He told me the cover ‘missed the mark,’” Bohigian said. “To me that’s an understatement, but at least it’s a statement. He called. I give him credit for that.”
I emailed Clovis Unified communications director Kelly Avants, who consulted with Schmalzel and sent back the district’s official reply.
“Staff members at the Adult School are deeply disappointed about the opportunity they missed to carry the great breadth of diversity represented in photos on the front and throughout their most recent course catalog onto its back cover,” the statement read, in part.
“With the typical proofing process disrupted by remote working conditions of COVID, staff members were grieved to learn after it was printed that one of 44 photos in the publication caused anyone to feel excluded from a student population that is quite diverse.”
Attached were photos of the Clovis Adult Education course catalog from last winter. The front cover featured a smiling young Black woman, and the back cover had a racially diverse mix of people.
That indicates the lily white cover of the fall 2020 edition is not a pattern. Which placated me, at least for a little while.
My senses are heightened
It wasn’t long, though, until the questions turned inward. The Clovis Adult Education course catalog hits mailboxes across Fresno and Clovis every four months. How come I noticed the most recent catalog, enough to object, but paid no mind last December when a Black woman was on the cover?
The answer has everything to do with the year we’re living in. In 2020, my senses are heightened. I’ve listened to and read the words of those who don’t have the benefit of being white in America. I’ve learned to pay better attention — not only to the large injustices perpetrated against people of color but also the subtle ones that typically go unnoticed.
Such as the total lack of minority representation on a public school district’s course catalog.
“It sends a really objectionable message,” Bohigian said. “We’re having a conversation in this country about how people of different races relate to one another, and our institutions should be leading the way.”
Perhaps I’m making too big a deal of a few pigment-challenged photos. Some of you who’ve made it this far will surely nod your heads. It was a simple oversight. Why make everything into a racial issue?
Here’s my answer: If nobody speaks up, Clovis Unified or some other public institution might get the idea no one cares if their marketing materials accurately represent the community they serve.
Well, I care. It’s 2020, after all. Not a year to stay silent.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 8:42 AM.
