NORTHAMPTON — The district’s schools have a new tool to fight hate speech and culturally insensitive behavior after the School Committee voted unanimously Thursday to implement a new policy that calls for the use of restorative practices in the wake of “bias incidents.”
The 10-0 vote came three months after the American Civil Liberties Union’s Western Massachusetts chapter objected to the original policy, arguing in a letter to the School Committee that it would not withstand a First Amendment challenge in court. The new version was written with the assistance of the committee’s legal counsel, who called the new policy “legally defensible,” but the revisions do not adopt all of the ACLU’s suggestions.
After a bias incident — speech or conduct that is not protected and demonstrates “unfair and prejudicial distinctions” about people based on protected statuses such as race and gender — the offending party will be offered education about the impact of their action and why it was hurtful.
“While students will not be compelled to explain their reasons or the rationale or purpose for their speech, engaging in Restorative Practices will be one potential option for intervention for all involved, if all involved parties agree and are open to participating,” the policy reads. “Findings of a Bias Incident, alone, DO NOT result in discipline for students.”
Unlike the previous version, the new policy does not ban the display of swastikas and nooses. That language was removed based on the ACLU’s letter.
Other district policies are in place to address intentional acts of racism and bias, including the use of racial slurs. Violations of the student code of conduct can result in a wide variety of sanctions, from caregiver conferences and detention to out-of-school suspension, community service and police involvement. The severity of the punishment is determined by the nature of the incident and factors like the student’s age and the degree of danger posed to others.
Before Thursday’s vote, several JFK Middle School students testified about inappropriate comments, racial slurs, deadnaming (using a former name of a transgender person) and other acts of racial and gender bias they experienced at school.
City resident and educator Adrienne Wallace said the people who have testified to the committee should be commended, but that she wanted to “challenge” the committee members to act more boldly.
“Children have come to you and said they are hurting and in pain, and they’ve said that to you before, and you have not adequately solved the problem. That’s not acceptable,” Wallace said. “If you don’t have a good reason why, besides it was logistically difficult or challenging, then I urge you to resign.”
Wallace said she “submitted a private school application just because” the School Committee has not done enough to protect children of color and queer children.
Ward 5 committee member Dina Levi called the policy “a starting point. It’s necessary but not sufficient.”
Levi said she “strongly” objects to the opinions shared by the ACLU. The letter claimed students would be punished for bias incidents, but Levi said that’s not the purpose of restorative practices, which the original draft also called for.
“I don’t think educating students about the impact of their words or actions would be categorized as a sanction,” Levi said. “If somebody said to me, ‘2 plus 2 is 5,’ I would say to them, ‘Actually, let me teach you why that’s not correct.’ … That’s the purpose of education.”
Ward 2 member Laura Fallon said there is work to be done to examine “the culture in our schools and the education that’s going on.” The district, Fallon said, should also “put money into professional development and curriculum and counseling and support systems, and involve the community. It’s absolutely horrifying, the experiences our students are having.”
Layla Taylor, the committee’s legal counsel, noted in a letter that “historically marginalized students are not immunized from responsibility if they have engaged in a bias incident within the definition of the policy.”