Early Racial Tensions

Welcoming different races into the Academy took place in the administration of the third principal, Gideon Lane Soule, who must have liked his job because he served for half a century. In 1864 he admitted an African-American student named Emanuel Sullavou, who came to the Academy from New Bedford, MA. Sullavou had a fine career: from PEA, he went on to Harvard and Harvard Law School. Note the date-1864. Civil War tensions around race must surely have been high. Four boys from Kentucky marched into Principal Soule's office after they discovered that they had a fellow student who was African American. They demanded Emanuel Sullavou be sent home, or they would tell their fathers and go home themselves. According to the Cunningham history of the Academy, Dr. Soule replied, "The colored student will stay; you can do as you please." The students from Kentucky withdrew.

Not all stories from the past regarding race are as positive, however. Edouard Desrochers, the Academy archivist, uncovered a letter this summer dated July 15, 1904. The author, representing the Academy, informs the recipient that a room has provisionally been reserved for him in Abbot Hall, but (and I quote) "there seems to be an impression at the office that you are a colored boy. If this is true, kindly notify us at once. You will readily understand that we cannot assign you to a room with a white boy." In fact, as late as 1938 an African-American student was denied a place in a dormitory and lived instead with the track coach, Ralph Lovshin, for whom our track is named. Mr. Lovshin was somewhat marginalized himself since at that time, as a Catholic, he was unable to hold a faculty appointment.

Thus, despite the courageous decision of Principal Soule, progress toward racial inclusion has come with some difficult moments. Today the Academy has the greatest number of African-American students in its history and the greatest diversity of races and places of national origin. This is an educational strength as well as a practical achievement. All of us should recognize that this diversity is but a foreshadowing of the diversity the United States is headed toward in your lifetime. It is our future, and a good one.

Modeling the World

The history of religious diversification at PEA has not been well documented as yet. Clearly the first significant non-Christian group were Jewish students. In 1963 a clash arose between the administration and Jewish students over the school's refusal to excuse them from Saturday classes to attend Yom Kippur services, this at a time when the football team had been excused to attend an away game. Catholic students also felt left out, a feeling which began to change in 1969 when Daniel J. M. Morrissey, a Catholic priest, was appointed as school minister.

Today it only takes a casual stroll through Phillips Church to see the religious diversity that exists at PEA. I have said many times to Reverend Robert Thompson that the assemblage of faiths which worship together in Phillips Church seems a model to me of what we could hope for the world at large. There is, however, work to be done. We are engaged in efforts to renovate the church to provide better space for the faiths that worship there. Our support of many faiths is not as complete as it could be.

In the very interesting volume entitled Transitions, published by the Academy Press in 1990, Kelly Dermody, class of 1985, wrote a reflection entitled "My Closet at Lamont," describing what it was like to be a gay student at Exeter in the '80s. She recounts:

Homophobic attitudes and antigay comments were often present and obvious in my Exeter experience. However, as I tried to navigate through my developing gay identity, the more subtle oppression of heterosexual assumptions pained me as much as, if not more than, explicit hostility. . . . Everyone at Exeter-teachers, dorm heads, coaches and students-assumed heterosexuality in their speech and comments as a given for all Exonians. . . . There wasn't any institutional understanding of the particular minority experience of nonheterosexual students.