LIFE AFTER NEEDHAM’S NO PLACE FOR HATE PROGRAM ENDS
By Steven Ryan, sryan@cnc.com

Needham Times
March 26 2008
MA

Needham – Despite being dealt a blow last fall, when the town suspended
ties with the No Place for Hate program, student organizers didn’t
use it as an excuse for inaction, forging ahead with activities that
once flew under the program’s banner.

The town suspended ties with No Place for Hate after the
Anti-Defamation League, which co-sponsors the program, decided
against clarifying equivocal language about its stance on the Armenian
Genocide.

This year, the monthlong series of events on civic action have been
renamed Needham Takes Action. Without ADL resources on which to rely,
student organizers were forced to scale back activities, a decision
also made in light of MCAS testing this month. Organizers instead
relied more heavily on civic-minded clubs at the high school.

"Our concern was we wanted to do something that meets the needs of
the Needham High School community and helps students be more mindful
about themselves and others," said Dianne Yearwood, a Civil Rights
Team adviser at the high school. "The goal was to involve as many
clubs in the school who did civic-minded things."

Last year, No Place for Hate month had both a local and a global
scope, with each week dedicated to a particular theme, which isn’t
the case this year. There was a week focusing on "local injustices,"
but there was also a week dedicated to Darfur, the highlight of which
was a student assembly featuring Panther Alier, who escaped civil
war in Sudan.

With this year’s activities now even more localized, with an added
focus on respecting one’s self, the tenor of the activities slightly
changed. Although Make a Statement Day, in which students write
inspirational quotes on T-shirts, was again a part of this year’s
activities, there were also some new activities.

A sunrise yoga class took place the morning of March 25, and the
school’s Environmental Club started a campaign encouraging folks
to use less bottled water, citing the wastefulness of the plastic
bottles and noting the vast majority of the bottles aren’t recycled.

Nalgene bottles, which are meant to be refilled, were sold in the
school’s cafeteria.

Other activities include Random Acts of Kindness, in which students
wrote on a poster in the cafeteria things they would like to see
change or instances in which someone was kind to them. The school’s
Gay/Straight Alliance sponsored a photo exhibit on gay, straight
and trans-gendered youth, featuring photos of youths from across the
country and short essays that went along with each photo. Students
also visited Cradles to Crayons and the Great Boston Food Pantry,
bringing donations.

"The ADL had a lot of resources we used; we’d like to call this
a transition year from last year," said Josh Goldman, a senior at
Needham High School and one of the student organizers, who spoke of
this month’s activities at a recent School Committee meeting.

The aftermath of the town’s decision to suspend ties with No Place for
Hate also resulted in an educational event on the Armenian Genocide
sponsored by the town’s Human Rights Committee in April at the high
school’s Media Center.

The event will feature speakers from the town’s Armenian community
and academic experts on the Armenian Genocide. Paul Dellaripa of the
Human Rights Committee said the event was intentionally scheduled
near the events at the high school in March.

"The idea of the Armenian Genocide and its role in history is not
well understood," Dellaripa said. "The hope is that this will be a
strong educational event for people."

The Human Rights Committee recommended suspending ties with the
ADL-sponsored No Place for Hate program in November, after the ADL
decided against clarifying language about the Armenian Genocide,
which saw the death of 1.5 million Armenians in present-day Turkey
during the World War I era. The ADL’s national director, Abraham
Foxman, made a statement in August 2007 calling the "consequences"
of the mass killings "tantamount" to genocide.

The Board of Selectmen took up the Human Rights Committee’s
recommendation and voted to suspend ties.

"Events that involve human rights are current or maybe historical
come up in our town," Dellaripa said. "The Human Rights Committee is
prepared to deal with these issues, either historical or are issues
people are dealing with to this day.