The Bromfield School has joined a growing number of schools nationwide that have experienced racial incidents and hateful graffiti in the past few weeks. In fact, K–12 schools are the single most likely place for such incidents to occur, according to reports tabulated by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
School was closed for Thanksgiving vacation when Robert Curran first saw the vandalism to the Bromfield rock early Friday, Nov. 25, and reported it on Nextdoor Harvard. Superintendent Linda Dwight, who was out of town, saw the comments on Nextdoor and notified both Bromfield Principal Scott Hoffman and the police. (For more see “Town responds to threatening graffiti.”) By the time school reopened Monday, Dwight and Hoffman had prepared an all-school assembly in response. And the school’s diversity committee also discussed the incident at length Tuesday afternoon.
—Suraiya Suliman, parent
What students can do
Immediately after their homeroom period Monday morning, some 700 students filed into Cronin Auditorium, sitting in groups by grade and packing every row of seats. Members of the faculty and staff stood along the the walls.
“Recent events have violated our campus,” Hoffman said, emphasizing that he was talking about more than just the slurs and swastikas painted on the rock. In late October, school administrators reported “racially divisive incidents” to both the police and the School Committee, but said they were unable to be more specific because of legal protections for student privacy. Two other incidents of graffiti that targeted particular religious or ethnic groups have also been reported elsewhere in town.
Hoffman reminded students who felt threatened by these events that they are not alone and that many adults in the school and community stood with them. While he spoke, a slide displayed the school’s core value of a safe and inclusive environment for all.
That slide was then replaced by a picture of the defaced rock, marred by black swastikas and obscenities (some of which had been blurred out), as well as a range of incoherent words and phrases. “Trump,” “Trump 2016,” and “Class 2016” were also apparent on the rock. Dwight asked students how this slide made them feel, and the auditorium filled with a low buzz of conversation.
The next slide showed students covering the rock with white paint and then standing in front of their handiwork while community members looked on. Again Dwight asked students about their response to those images. She told the students that the senior class will meet to decide what message or design to repaint on the rock.
Schools seek outside guidance
The school district has reported the incident to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks hate speech and hate crimes, Dwight said, and has also asked the league for help. The league’s “Resolution of Respect” was displayed on the screen. Dwight asked students to read it silently and then, if they wished, to read it aloud with her.
Hoffman told of talking with students about hurtful remarks. Often they tell him it was just a joke, he said. Even someone who was targeted by the remark may say, “I don’t mind,” Hoffman said, but the remarks are still wrong. He offered guidelines, based on an article from the Southern Poverty Law Center, for how to respond to offensive remarks, beginning with nonaccusatory questions to support thoughtful discussion rather than defensiveness:
- What do you mean?
- Why did you say that?
- Do you know the history of that word?
- Tell me more.
- That is hurtful.
- I don’t like words like that.
Hoffman and Dwight encouraged students to use Post-it notes to put positive messages on blank pieces of poster board in hallways and rooms throughout the school.
“Believe that you can make a difference,” Hoffman told the students. “I know the power of this student body and faculty.”
In a short interview after the discussion, Dwight said that an article from the Teaching Tolerance program, produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had been passed out to the Bromfield faculty. And diversity trainer Rob Jones, who has run workshops for faculty in the past, was scheduled to make a presentation to Bromfield juniors Tuesday.
Other possibilities included speakers who could inform students about historical examples of times when intolerance went unchecked and culminated in genocide, both in Armenia in the early 1900s and in Germany during the 1930s, leading up to the Holocaust.
Beyond the schools
As an indication of the community’s strong reaction to the recent incidents, more than 30 people—parents, students, residents, teachers, and administrators—attended the school diversity committee meeting Tuesday afternoon. Usual attendance is five to 10 people, Dwight said at the meeting.
Both adults and students told the committee that many Bromfield students were not taking either the incidents or Monday’s assembly seriously. A teacher reported “a lot of joking and laughter” during discussion of the incidents. One student said the suggestions for ways to start a discussion were being used mockingly. Another student commented, “I don’t think it’s a secret that kids just roll their eyes at Roundtable [advisory discussion groups for eighth- through 12th-graders].” And a parent lamented “the snarkiness and cynicism of our kids.”
Dwight said she hoped attendance would continue high at the diversity committee, so that the group could work with other organizations in town. She suggested more community-building events and evening programs that families could attend together.
Many in the group agreed that the problem is bigger than the schools. “It’s way beyond the schools,” Chris Morrison said. “We ask our schools to do a lot.”
Ellen Leicher recalled a School Council survey of Bromfield graduates several years ago that had asked the former students how well their high school had prepared them for college and life beyond. About 250 students responded. Among many positive comments, many alums also noted that the lack of diversity here had made it more difficult for them to adapt to social situations with a broader mix of people from different backgrounds and cultures.
One mother, Suraiya Suliman, summed it up: “The world is out there, and the world is diverse. And if we don’t teach our children to handle diversity, we are not doing them a service.”
