Core Values: Respect & Responsibility

Joshua Neudel, Head of Upper School
The following remarks were delivered to The Middle and Upper School Community during Opening Convocation:

Most people were surprised when they first read the story of the unusual friendship between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. 
Justices Ginsburg and Scalia sat together on the Supreme Court bench for 23 years. 23 years that were filled with disagreements and debate on their perspective of how the law should be applied to cases. Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg were diametrically opposed in their opinions. This was never so evident than in Scalia’s scathing dissent in 2015 to the landmark case that gave same-sex couples in our country the fundamental right to marry.  
 
These two brilliant students of the law could not see eye to eye when it came to their interpretation of the Constitution. Scalia rooted in his conservative views and Ginsburg moving the country towards the more equitable future she envisioned at the start of her law career. 
 
Yet, despite their differences of opinion, they were close friends, connected through their love of the Opera. In 2015, Justice Ginsburg shared that when she first heard Scalia speak she thought, “I disagreed with most of what he said, but I loved the way he said it.” 
 
When learning of their New Year’s Eve celebrations, vacations, and outings to the opera, most Americans could not believe that these two people with such different views of the world could be friends. How could these two humans have such a special connection? The truth is that Ginsburg and Scalia left us a roadmap for civil discourse, for how to respectfully engage in debate with a person.  
 
Our School’s Core Values of Respect and Responsibility are two of the pillars that are essential to being our best selves and for creating community. To respect is to authentically see another person, hear what they are saying, and to value the contributions of each person. To be responsible for those around us means that we must make sure that they know we will protect them and keep them safe. 
 
When I think of how we see, hear, value, and protect, I think of the impact words have on those around us- the words we choose to use and the words we choose not to use.  I am drawn to the words shared by Elie Wiesel on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2009. Wiesel said: “I still cling to words, for it is we who decide whether [words] become spears or balm, carriers of bigotry or vehicles of understanding, whether they are used to curse or to heal, whether they are here to cause shame or to give comfort.” 
 
We each play an active role in creating our community and our world. We do this through our interactions and our words. We do this through the choices we make each day.  
 
How will you choose to live with respect and responsibility this year? How will you choose to live out the Core Values? Can you choose to be an upstander over a bystander; to help someone in need instead of choosing ignorance; to act as an anti-racist. Will you use your words and actions to be compassionate or to cause harm. 
 
This will no doubt be a challenging year. Safety precautions and months of separation has caused us all to turn inward. Yet here we are, together again as a community. I know that we will be able to overcome the individual and community challenges by using our Core Values to center us, by striving for our differences to be a way to learn about each other, and by embracing a community that sees, hears, and values each individual’s contribution. 
As an inclusive private school community, Brimmer welcomes students who will increase the diversity of our school. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, or any other characteristic protected from discrimination under state or federal law, in the administration of our educational policies, admissions practices, financial aid decisions, and athletic and other school-administered programs.