Mixed Reactions to Affirmative Action

LEAD addresses feedback to their first conversation

By Hannah Salemy, Design Editor

December 15, 2025

Student LEADers direct an activity during their conversation.

Students and members of the Listen, Engage, Acknowledge, and Discuss (LEAD) program received a variety of reactions on the first conversation of the school year. Held on Nov. 19, the discussion focused on affirmative action in college admissions.

“There were some people who found the information we presented to be interesting,” junior and LEAD executive Ezra Kahn said. “But for every person who found the information to be interesting, there were about two people who said it confused them more.”

Sophomore and student LEADer Keylly Garcia, who ran a ninth-grade conversation, found the discussion challenging to direct because of students’ lack of comprehension of what affirmative action is.

“It was a difficult topic for freshmen to understand,” Garcia said. “Some of them didn’t really get what the topic was, and I think we didn’t do a good job of explaining it.”

Affirmative action is a set of procedures intended to stop discrimination among applicants. Because of the complex perspectives surrounding this topic, sophomore Teo Kiciman remembers the leaders of his discussion room extensively explaining affirmative action.

“They spent most of the time talking about, objectively, what it was, and the conversation was just lost,” Kiciman said.

Student LEADers direct their discussion. (Photo: Hannah Salemy)

In addition to difficulty understanding the topic, the relevance of the discussion came into question as well. In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in college admissions, meaning this practice will not affect students applying to college.

“This might have been a great conversation to have before 2023 because it was still kind of alive and active at that point,” DEIB Special Programs Coordinator Obse Dinsa said.

Dinsa also stresses that the program is mostly student-run, which can lead to learning opportunities like this one. Despite the challenges of discussing affirmative action, senior and LEAD executive Carmel Sedghi also received positive responses to the topic.

“A lot of people said that they had a good conversation and felt like they had a general understanding of what affirmative action was after the conversation,” Sedghi said.

In addition to learning more about affirmative action, junior and LEADer Natalie Naness appreciates that the topic is intricate compared to past conversations.

“I just think it’s really interesting, because it’s more fun to talk about stuff that’s complex,” Naness said. “We’ve been talking a lot about very vague topics, like polarization or political division, and I think those are good, but [with] affirmative action, there’s just more to talk about.”

To decide this semester’s conversation focus, LEAD executives provided student leaders with three topics to vote on. The winning topic was affirmative action.

Student LEADer Paige McAllister runs her conversation. (Photo: Hannah Salemy)

“It wasn’t really a surprise to me that people wanted to do affirmative action, because that’s been a topic that people have been wanting to do for a really long time,” senior and LEAD executive Chloe Kung said.

Moving forward, executives hope to improve their planning and preparation for future conversations.

“We’re going to work closely with Obse and ourselves to see what really is relevant and would be a good conversation,” Sedghi said. “And also continue to get a lot more feedback from the leaders throughout the process.”

Post-Discussion Challenges

Two days after the conversation, on Friday, Nov. 21, LEAD executives held a meeting with all student LEADers to address the conversations and the feedback they had received.

“We wanted to really be clear with the leaders of why we thought the conversation maybe went more poorly than we expected it to,” senior and LEAD executive Carmel Sedghi said.

Student LEADers received guidelines on the topic from the executives two days before the discussions, leaving them with little time to prepare for their conversations.

“We took some ownership, of course, for some of the things that happened,” senior and LEAD executive Chloe Kung said, “But we also were expressing some things that were not okay. Between disrespecting the execs, and also just not listening, just rude comments that are not appropriate.”

Despite the obstacles surrounding the first conversation of the year, DEIB Special Programs Coordinator Obse Dinsa understands that creating conversations is a process that involves some trial and error.

“It is very student-led, and it should, in that case, present its challenges, but I think it just makes for great learning opportunities,” Dinsa said.

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About the Contributor

Hannah Salemy, Design Editor

Hannah Salemy is the Design Editor for the Puma Press. She is a Junior and this is her third year on staff. Her favorite articles to write are Op-eds and stories where she can make fun and creative graphics. Her favorite part of Journalism is the people in the class who bring so much energy and love for writing. Outside of school, Hannah enjoys playing soccer, creative writing, and spending time with friends.