Racial Incidents

Howard County schools no longer employ "a head-in-the-sand approach" in handling racial incidents, according to a long-awaited report on alleged discrimination in the school system.The report, released this month by the Maryland Commission on Human Relations, gives the schools high marks for changes since 1992, when the commission began a four-month investigation of complaints of racial incidents.Since that investigation, the school system has required all school employees -- even bus drivers -- to undergo multicultural communication training, the report said.

The Baltimore trial of brothers Avi and Eliyahu Werdesheim, who are charged with assault and false imprisonment — accused of beating a black teenager last year while members of a Jewish patrol group — has been postponed for a fifth time. The racially charged case, which has strained relations between some black and Jewish city residents, was set for trial Monday. But defense attorneys asked for an advance postponement last week, according to Mark Cheshire, a spokesman for the Baltimore state's attorney's office.

The Maryland Commission on Human Relations, which had considered scheduling a public hearing on the handling of racial incidents in the Howard County schools, decided yesterday that it will solicit only written comments as it prepares a final report.The decision came during a commission meeting in Baltimore attended by Superintendent Michael E. Hickey and school board Vice Chairman Dana F. Hanna. The commission last month released a draft report criticizing the schools for adopting a "head in the sand" approach to hate and bias incidents.

As detectives continue to search for burglars who vandalized a Brooklyn Park hair salon with racist messages and symbols, the shop's owner said she expects not to reopen for two months. Investigators from the Anne Arundel County Fire Department were there Monday, asked by county police to identify what may be gasoline or other flammable liquid used to soak the Heavenly Hands Unisex Salon over the weekend. "Everything is so saturated. The chairs are saturated with the gasoline," owner Sharanda Brown said Monday, noting it would take at least a week to begin figuring out what in the salon is too soaked or fume-laden to be salvaged.

The Maryland Commission on Human Relations will investigate county schools to determine whether minority students' rights were violated in several recent racial incidents, it announced yesterday.Jennifer Burdick, state commission executive director, said a four-member committee will review the schools' responses to the incidents to determine whether they were appropriate and sufficient."We don't dispute these incidents did happen," Burdick said. "They're well documented. The question is: What exactly did the school system do in response?

Vandals defaced four schools and businesses with racial epithets in Howard County in a series of hate incidents over the weekend.The incidents are the most recent to occur in a county whose reputation for racial harmony has been tarnished by a string of such events recently.Since the beginning of this year, police have recorded more than 25 hate incidents. There were 53 racial, religious and ethnic incidents reported last year. The incidents range from a fight involving racial slurs at Glenelg High School to mailing of hate literature to graffiti on school walls.

A series of racial incidents at South Carroll High put state police on alert last week and have left students and staff members uneasy at the Winfield school.On Friday, about 20 white students came to school waving Confederate flags from their pickup trucks or wearing T-shirts with the flag and the words, "You wear your X, I'll wear mine," referring to Malcolm X and the crossed bars of the flag. About 25 of South Carroll's 1,338 students are black."I think the crisis is over," said Principal David Booz, as he watched over a peaceful lunch period yesterday.

An internal investigation into a series of racial incidents at a Baltimore police station is nearly complete, and one of the officers targeted is scheduled to be promoted today. Officer Sonia Young, a 12-year veteran, served a one-day suspension after an argument with a colleague at the Southwestern District in which she was accused of labeling him a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Young is also involved in a case in which a white lieutenant remains under investigation for allegedly giving a speech with racial overtones.

A Bowie State University professor has been named the school system's new human relations coordinator, a redefined job that entails greater vigilance of hate-bias incidents.Jacqueline F. Brown, associate professor of counseling psychology in the university's Adler-Dreikurs Institute of Human Relations, will start Sept. 14.The announcement follows the Aug. 18 release of a Maryland Commission on Human Relations report, which criticized Howard County schools for taking a "head in the sand" approach to dealing with racial incidents.

More than 80 students staged an hour-long sit-in at Western Maryland College yesterday, protesting racial incidents on campus and urging administrators to beef up security and to give students a greater voice.The students told college president Robert H. Chambers that they should have the power to implement their ideas."We need more than representation," said Gerard Millan, a freshman who is black. "We could express ourselves all we want, but if we have no power, it's useless. To be a productive student, you need to take charge of the school and make it your own."

A note with racial overtones and a knotted rope found in an East Baltimore firehouse early yesterday triggered a probe by the city's fire and police departments, and the FBI has begun its own preliminary investigation into possible civil rights violations. The note and the rope were discovered by two Fire Department employees -- one black, one white -- at the Herman Williams Jr. fire station at East 25th Street and Kirk Avenue. It was the second time in five months that the station has been hit with racial allegations.

JENA, La. -- The trouble in Jena started with the nooses. Then it rumbled along the town's racial fault lines. Finally, it exploded into months of violence between blacks and whites. Now the 3,000 residents of this small lumber and oil town deep in the heart of central Louisiana are confronting Old South racial demons many thought had long ago been put to rest. One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.

SO THIS week's lesson in civics, history and brazen stupidity comes to us from Baltimore County's Perry Hall High School, scene of the now infamous 2004 yearbook incident. It started when some self-styled witty fellow thought it would be a hoot to type the dreaded N-word beside the name of a biracial schoolmate in the yearbook. The biracial student and the witty fellow, according to news reports, are friends. Word of advice to the biracial student: Choose friends who have some sense. It's a good thing Mr. Funny Man decided to stop when he did. There's no telling what he may have typed beside the names of Perry Hall High's Asian-American or Jewish or Italian-American or fill-in-any-ethnic-religious-racial-group-here students.

Paul Vandenberg was a middle school principal in northern Anne Arundel County in the spring of 2000 when he heard that trouble was brewing at the south county school where he began his teaching career. A white student at Southern High School had performed a song during a school assembly that made crude references to lynching - and tensions were high. So when Vandenberg learned that Southern High's principal was going to retire, he immediately put in for the job. "I wanted to come back and build up the self-confidence of the kids and the school's reputation," he said.

One morning last month - a few days after someone spray-painted a message threatening the lives of black students on a stairwell at South River High School - Ashley Scott decided not to get out of bed. The 17-year-old African-American student told her mother that she wasn't returning to the school. She was tired of being where she felt unwelcome and, lately, afraid. "Obviously, they don't want our presence there," said Ashley, a junior. "You can't get more blunt than that. ... I'm a black person, and they want me to die."

A series of racial disturbances at South River High School has prompted Anne Arundel County school officials to suspend more than a dozen students during the past year and provide sensitivity training schoolwide, school system officials said at a briefing yesterday. Two recent incidents involving graffiti prompted county police to investigate several students and offer a $500 reward for information leading to arrests and convictions, officials said. In the first incident, in the middle of last month, someone spray-painted graffiti on a school stairwell threatening the lives of black students.

Members of the local NAACP branch say county officials have responded inadequately to several recent racial incidents in the county, including the distribution of white supremacist literature, vandalism of a black church and an attack on a black student riding a school bus.At a news conference Saturday, Bowyer G. Freeman, president of thecounty NAACP chapter, called for aggressive prosecution of those involved in racist crimes and a public condemnation of...

As the county schools' new human relations coordinator, Jacqueline Brown is responsible for achieving the schools' top goal this year: improving the human relations climate.It's a task she believes that she is more than ready to tackle."It's a matter of hitting the ground triple-running," she said of her new responsibilities that encompass a greater vigilance of hate-bias incidents.Before joining Howard County schools, Ms. Brown was an associate professor of counseling psychology at Bowie State University.

THE CRIME was bad enough. Thugs attacked a waitress leaving her job at a downtown Annapolis restaurant late at night three weeks ago, hitting her with a rock, breaking her nose and causing a severe cut on her hand. What's worse is that her attackers may have singled her out because of her race. A witness told police that the group's motivation for the assault was race - that they didn't like whites and Mexicans. If prosecutors determine race was a factor, they should make sure that the hate-crime charges lodged against the three teen-agers stick, along with armed robbery and assault charges.