Bob Harmon spoke up. A good many of the black boys in the school played on the Chelsea basketball team—which he coached. “Let me speak frankly, Ted,” he said, his fair skin reddening as he continued. “I probably spend more time with more of the black kids here than any of the rest of you. I see how hard it is for some of them to fit in here. It’s a great chance for a boy coming here. But it’s not for everybody. I think we need to be very careful about who we recruit—so we don’t see the levels of academic difficulty that I’ve seen from some of the kids on my team. I just think we need to be careful.” He trailed off a little uncertainly.

“Careful?!” This, angrily, from Tom Kelly, perhaps our youngest faculty member, who taught Spanish. “If we were any more careful, there wouldn’t be any black students here at all. Is that the kind of care you want to take, Bob? Careful to keep them out of here unless they can help the team?”

Harmon sputtered, “That’s not what I meant …” And suddenly I heard my own voice chiming in.

“If I may be so bold, I think that Bob has something of a point. We all know that not every boy thrives in an environment like Chelsea’s. I think it is our duty to select young men who can truly profit from the experience.”

“And none of those young men are black?” Jana said, a little sarcastically. She was looking directly at me.

Fox jumped in. “Please, ladies and gentlemen. There is no point in us getting into some sort of turf war over this issue. For one thing, it’s not up for debate. As I’ve said, this is something that we as a school are going to do, not discuss. We are going to get to at least ten percent black students by 2005. It’s as simple—and difficult—as that.”

I heard Jana’s voice behind me again. “I’d like to add that I don’t think that getting to ten percent is even such great shakes—although it would be doing better than we’re doing now. I can’t believe there’s no one else in here who thinks that.” There were some nods and murmurs of assent from Kelly and a few others. Harmon crossed his arms across his chest, his mouth pulled down.