For years, I have been formed by the same language:
Cura personalis – care for the poor and vulnerable. The dignity of every person. To be men and women with and for others.
Jesuit education does not simply transfer knowledge. It demands examination, not just of individuals, but of institutions. The Ignatian Examen is a practice of conscience — a deliberate pause to ask whether our actions reflect the values we claim.
So here is the examination:
When Black students on a Jesuit campus are called slurs to their faces, what does cura personalis require?
When discrimination, hate, and violent rhetoric spread online cloaked in anonymity, what do we do to ensure the dignity of every person?
When students calculate what spaces feel safe to exist in and where they do not, what does solidarity look like?
At Gonzaga University, right now, what does it mean to be men and women with and for others?
Many were shocked by what surfaced on the social media app Fizz: racist posts, dehumanizing language, references to violenceall posted by Gonzaga University students.
But Fizz was not the disease. It was the X-ray. It did not create hostility at Gonzaga University. It revealed it.
Beneath polished mission statements and diversity banners, racism circulated comfortably enough to be joked about, minimized, and ignored. This was not an anomaly. It was a window into how often students are told, “We can and must do better than this” as a reassurance. This has been said before, including in communication from administration to students this past week — the only visible communication from leadership to the campus so far.
Jesuit institutions pride themselves on discernment, reflection, and action. But these require honesty.
Why were professors unaware of what was reported and circulating among students?
Why are members of this campus community still unaware of what has happened and continues to unfold?
Where is the immediate action to communicate and address potential threats to student safety?
This is not simply a student problem. It is a leadership problem.
There continues to be a failure to act. A failure to communicate clearly. A failure to protect students from predictable harm — the kind of harm institutions across the country have learned too late to take seriously.
There should be outrage that posts on Fizz — a social media platform that allows users to join university-specific communities using their Gonzaga student email addresses —referenced concealed weapons in campus spaces and were not addressed with visible urgency. Outrage that some students feel their safest option is to skip class or consider withdrawing from their education. Outrage that, to this day, new posts continue targeting students of color on campus.
Solidarity cannot stop at condemning perpetrators. It must demand institutional accountability.
So, I call on Gonzaga University to publicly acknowledge the institutional failures that allowed this environment to persist.
I call on Gonzaga University to implement new transparent crisis communication protocols so faculty, staff, and students are not left in the dark, especially when safety concerns arise.
I call on Gonzaga University to demonstrate, through action rather than messaging, that student safety is not conditional, and that students of color like me do belong here.
This should not be about optics. It is about trust. It is about cura personalis, the very values that a Jesuit university is built on.
There is panic among students — not hypothetical fear, but real anxiety about who sits next to them in class. About whether the anonymous hostility they read reflects the person beside them.
I hope the urgency within the University matches the urgency students are feeling. I hope that any alarm among leadership is rooted not in protecting reputation, but in protecting students.
If we truly believe in forming men and women with and for others, we cannot merely stand in solidarity with those targeted by racism.
We must demand justice. Demand accountability. Demand prevention. Demand leadership worthy of the Jesuit name.
It is disappointing that we must demand what our Jesuit mission already requires.