Diversity and Inclusion: Bo Young Lee Speaks at Stuyvesant

Bo Young Lee (’93), the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for Uber, spoke to English teacher Annie Thoms’s Writing to Make Change class on March 9. Lee discussed the role of writing in her line of work and her personal experiences that ultimately shaped her writing.

Writing to Make Change is an English elective that focuses on generating and crafting public writing for a larger audience beyond the classroom. The class studies public writing in a variety of genres and forms, such as memoirs and poetry. Students then identify pressing issues they wish to write about and conduct an independent study. The writing culminates into a final piece that will be released into the world through a variety of mediums, such as performance, contest submission, or publication.

Thoms, who was in the same graduating class as Lee, first reached out to her through the Stuyvesant Facebook Alumni Page, where they reconnected over the SHSAT controversies. “Some people responded to some of the postings about the SHSAT with very racist responses, and [Lee] was one of the people who was very clearly and factually pointing that out and dismantling the racism. I was really impressed with how articulate and thoughtful she was on those issues,” Thoms said.

A considerable part of Lee’s job involves Op-Ed and Speechwriting. An Op-Ed, or opposite the editorial page, is a written prose piece or column for a publication that expresses a writer’s strong opinion on a relevant issue. Lee publishes two to three Op-Eds and delivers 20 to 40 keynote speeches per year. Because her work often entails public writing, Thoms thought that she would be an appropriate speaker for the class. “I thought she would be a terrific speaker. We were doing an Op-Ed unit, and […] thinking of speeches as a form,” Thoms said.

As Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Lee analyzes the social and systemic obstacles that prevent historically underrepresented groups, such as women and people of color, from succeeding at the same rates as more historically represented groups. From there, she builds solutions to help combat those obstacles. “If I’m successful, I build organizations that are more equitable, inclusive, engaging, psychologically safe, and meritocratic for all people,” Lee said in an e-mail interview.

Lee first immersed herself in writing through a creative writing class in high school. “It was here at Stuyvesant, with the encouragement of Mrs. [Judith] Kocela, that I learned I had a talent for writing. Once I started writing at Stuy, I never stopped,” Lee said.

In her lecture, Lee discussed her approaches to the writing process, focusing on writing about diversity, racism, sexism, homophobia, and oppression. She elaborated on a particular Op-Ed she wrote a few years ago that discussed the psychological harm students endure when attending a school as non-diverse as Stuyvesant. “Lots of Op-Eds has already been written [about specialized high schools], but no one was writing about the consequences to the students and kids who attend these deeply segregated schools,” Lee said. “I felt this point needed to be injected into the broader dialogue.”

Lee’s cultural background serves as a major motivation for her work. Born in South Korea, she came from a family of North Korean refugees. Her parents were very committed to the idea of their children receiving a full education and opportunity, which led them to move to the United States. The transition presented a series of difficulties: her family moved from being in the upper-middle class in South Korea to being small business owners in America, residing in a one-bedroom apartment with seven relatives and no health insurance.

Growing up in a politically-dissonant immigrant family has contributed to Lee’s outlook on life. “One thing she spoke very directly to the students in the class was the experience of being from an immigrant family that really had to struggle, […] knowing that her major job goals were to have a job that paid her really well so she would not be poor,” Thoms said. “But at the same time […] [she] was raised to know that it was important to speak for the people who weren’t being heard.”

Lee’s background has influenced her to choose a career that involved social and organizational diversity. “My interest [...] came from my own experience [...] trying to succeed in corporate spaces,” she said. “Where I was put at a huge disadvantage compared to people who were less competent and capable than [me] but who were demographically more similar to the people who were in power.”

As one of the highest-ranking and most visible Asian-American executives in the United States, Lee often uses her platform and writing to uplift those who are struggling as she did. “Everything I do, from my career to my writing, is informed by the fact that I’ve seen both sides of America’s socioeconomic ladder. I’m one of the few lucky people who climbed the ladder. My writing and my work [focus] on making it easier for people like me to climb this ladder,” Lee said.

The students who attended the talk responded positively to her lecture. “Lee said [...] that one works harder when interacting with people who aren’t like them. She verbalized that which I both knew and didn’t know I was doing, which was a huge WHOA moment for me. The lecture was [also] beneficial in helping me sort out my own thoughts concerning my stances on solving the diversity issue,” senior Jacqueline Thom said in an e-mail interview. “Hearing the thoughts of someone who has [...] gone to college to learn how to solve such a prevailing issue of colorism was truly insightful.”

Many students have formed a personal connection to Lee’s story. “I share a surprisingly similar backstory with [Lee]. We are both Korean-American, first-generation immigrants, with parents who sacrificed so much for us,” senior Chris Choi said in an e-mail interview. “She talked a lot about the problems with the lack of racial diversity in a way that someone like me, who is often skeptical of a lot of this identity politics and diversity stuff, was able to understand and actually embrace.”

The talk has also opened students’ minds to the importance of writing in shifting the public narrative. “I was honestly really skeptical about this whole Writing to Make Change thing because I was convinced that only a special few [...] are able to say anything worthwhile. However, I’ve learned that this is not true,” Thom said. “The things we have to say, at the root, come from how we feel. Then those emotions come right off the page when people read your work. I think that such feelings are what finally [convince] others that change is real, possible, or needed.”

Other students also expressed how Thoms’s Writing to Make Change class has changed their mindset. “This class has been monumental in my understanding of the different ways opinions can be voiced, what types of opinions are even able to be voiced, and how to voice them,” Choi said.

Thoms hopes that Lee’s talk inspired the students in her class and demonstrated the impact of writing outside the classroom. “The whole idea is that you can write to make change in the world, and that is something [Lee] does with her Op-Ed and her speeches all the time. She has a change she wants to see in the world, and so she uses writing to do that in a real-world kind of way. I find [Lee] personally inspiring, and I hope that the students did as well,” Thoms said.