Addressing Racial Harassment and Bullying
Q & A with Joyce Harris
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” wrote celebrated author James Baldwin. Those words serve as a guidepost for the Region X Equity Center, which works with schools and districts to face critical issues of educational equity. The center, located at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, provides training and technical assistance on topics like cultural bias, persistence of stereotyping, and “tracking” that isolates students on the basis of race, sex, or national origin. Center Director Joyce Harris spoke to Northwest Education about the issue of racial harassment and bullying.
Q: There’s been a lot of news coverage lately about race-fueled violence in places like Jena (Louisiana) High School and Ft. Vancouver High. Why do you think we’re seeing these tensions flaring?
I think huge demographic shifts are occurring in our nation and interracial conflicts have started to rise. The other day I was at a meeting where someone made a comment I’m going to hold onto for awhile. He said, “When there’s less food, people’s table manners change.” I think when we look at the shift in demographics, at people who are losing their jobs, at some of the noise around English-only programs’that gets translated into not just behavior against one particular group. It becomes broader. It becomes, “Because of this group, my daddy doesn’t have a job” or resentment within dominant culture students when they see what they perceive to be preferential treatment given to children of other ethnic groups.
So, I think there are a lot of things that our country is going through that remind you of the 1950s and 1960s. And, what we see in schools is a reflection of what we see in the wider adult world: intolerance, blaming other people for a lack of jobs, or just things that are changing.
The other thing that’s interesting is that with the release of all these No Child Left Behind data, kids are beginning to point the finger at some students who may not be performing well and blaming those kids. “If we didn’t have the Latino kids here, our school would be better. If we didn’t have the special ed kids…” The disaggregated data are out there, and unfortunately kids can be very cruel. They begin to act out their frustration at their school being labeled as low performing and they act it out on the kids who they feel are responsible. That’s another piece of this puzzle.
Are some school leaders apt to ignore bad behavior that has racial overtones or try to attribute it to other causes?
I think bad behavior should not be tolerated. But, we need to look at, if we tolerate bad behavior that’s based on race, gender, and national origin, it’s crossed the line. It’s no longer bad behavior, it’s discriminatory behavior and it’s illegal behavior’particularly in a school setting. It’s harassment and it can be bullying. If the nature of that harassment or bullying is race, gender, or national origin, then that changes the entire discussion because schools have a legal obligation to respond to those situations and more important, they have a responsibility to create an environment where that doesn’t even occur. And that’s why we offer the publication Preventing and Countering School-Based Harassment: A Resource Guide for K-12 Educators (PDF).
I strongly believe that school districts that begin to look at how to create a school climate that is prevents behaviors that are harassing or bullying have found a lot more success in addressing the issue when it does come up. The first step is to acknowledge that this is important. And, whether it is a problem or not, to be proactive so it doesn’t become a problem. If it already exists, then you need to begin to look at how you begin to address this so you can turn the tide and create a climate where all of our students feel safe and included. In situations where racial or sexual harassment occur, that becomes a toxic environment: Kids can’t learn effectively and it creates a bad climate even for teachers’particularly if a teacher doesn’t know how to address conflict. That’s one of the areas school administrators need to look at in creating an environment that’s safe and free of conflict. You have to make sure that all the adults in that environment clearly understand their responsibilities.
What happens when the Equity Center is called in to help a school or district?
There are a number of steps. We’ll get calls from districts that want to develop the capacity of their classroom teachers or staff to begin to recognize discriminatory behavior or racial/sexual harassment. They want us to help teachers understand what their response should be, because there are some responses that they need to have, based on the law. They need to document it; each district is required to have someone who is the point person. We have gone into districts where we’ve asked “who is your Title IX person, who does a teacher go to if they suspect harassment behavior is occurring between students or among students,” and we’ve been in districts where they don’t know who the person was. They look around and someone says, “I guess it’s me.” That’s not the way to do it.
It’s also important for everyone in the school environment to know what the law is, and I’m talking students as well. Students need to know when you harass someone it is illegal. It’s illegal but more important it’s something that if we’re trying to socialize children to be respectful to each other, it’s inappropriate.
We’ve worked with districts on school climate surveys. Those are interesting because you’re able to disaggregate information by race and ethnicity, so you can begin to look at how different students are feeling in that school environment. And there’ve been a few times when the district has been surprised because they thought everything was going okay, that kids were getting along, and they found out that wasn’t the case from the perspective of the students who attended those particular schools.
Are we seeing more kids stepping up to the plate and willing to shoulder some of the burden for creating safe and respectful school climates?
I think so. The nice thing about where we are now in the 21st century is that kids have friends across lots of racial and cultural lines. They don’t want to see their friends hurt. They don’t want to be mad at their friends because they may not look like them. I think in spite of some of the tensions that are out there, we’ve tried to teach kids to respect other people, regardless of their race, regardless of their gender. And I think we have young people out there who have really internalized that. Plus, they have access to a lot more information; they’ve got the Internet and they’ve seen the benefits of positive interactions. So, it’s not all gloom and despair.
I work with a lot of young people. They’re questioning what’s going on. And I guess the other thing is, even though we don’t often see it, they have role models within their generation. They have some of the hip hop artists, some of the actors’people who are closer in age to them’who will step up and make a statement, which is good because it gives them the energy and motivation to say “hey, I can do this, too.” Many of them will speak out about issues. Sometimes adults don’t always like to hear what young people are saying, but a lot of times they’re right on target.
Why is it important to have these difficult conversations?
Because that’s the only way you can begin to develop relationships. That’s the only way that you can begin to try to understand what someone else is saying and maybe come to some meeting of the minds. In the adult world we’ll say we agree to disagree. I think kids are going through that, too.
Can anyone take advantage of Equity Center services?
There are two ways to access our services: You can call us (at 800-547-6339) or do a service request online (at www.nwrel.org/cnorse/). Our services are available at no cost to public schools and public charter schools in Region X, which includes Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the Republic of Palau. If you are not a public school, you can also access our services through fee for service. 