Not in Our School and Youth Organizing | Not in Our Town

Not in Our School and Youth Organizing

Helping High Schoolers Take The Lead: Q & A with Noreen Likins, Principal of Gunn High School   Editor’s note: For the past six years, the students and staff at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, Calif. have been organizing workshops and activities against intolerance under the banner of Not In Our School week. Teachers, students and administrators came together Monday to kick off another week of discussions about safety, inclusion and diversity. Not In Our School week is something that Principal Noreen Likins has been part of from the start, so NIOT.org asked her why this annual tradition is an important part of campus life at Gunn High.  
Hate, Bullying and Intolerance: Not On Our Campus Five Ways to Move into Action     Not On Our Campus (NOOC) offers solutions-based strategies and tools for change to a network of colleges and universities working to create welcoming and inclusive climates.  Change begins with these five steps. Go to niot.org/project/notonourcampus to find out what others campuses have done.  
"Sshh, the University of Mississippi is being integrated," they said, and I remember glancing at the television set and seeing mean faces. I remember very, very angry people, and I simply remember saying to myself, "I would never go to a place like that.” —Dr. Donald Cole, Assistant Provost, University of Mississippi, on learning about the integration of the university in 1962. Here is an extended transcript of Not In Our Town's interview with Dr. Donald Cole, Assistant Provost, University of Mississippi. Watch snippets of this interview in the Class Actions web extra, "Dr. Cole: Ole Miss Legacy."  
“We felt like we were part of something bigger, sharing what we were doing, and the idea of being leaders was very inspiring.” — Becki Cohn Vargas, Ed.D. Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas is a veteran educator and longtime ally of Not In Our Town. In this piece, penned in 2008, Dr. Cohn-Vargas lays out the lessons from the Palo Alto Unified School District, which embraced Not In Our School activities in 2007. Although Dr. Cohn-Vargas is no longer with the district, she has been instrumental in developing Not In Our School programs and the Palo Alto district’s Not In Our Schools month continues to thrive. Since 2007, the Palo Alto Unified School District has sponsored Not In Our School Palo Alto, a districtwide annual month-long event where students, teachers, administrators and parents engage in activities and discussions about how to address hate, bullying, and harassment at school.
The message of NIOT is Reaching the Classrooms and Schools of Bloomington-Normal, IL By Marc Miller, NIOT Bloomington-Normal Member It’s parent night at at the neighborhood elementary school. Children, their parents in tow, rush from room to room, excited to show off their drawings and projects. Parents, anxious to know more about their children’s progress, take in the posters and decorations as they move from class to class.   But for some, a simple table in the corridor attracts their attention. The banner draped over it says: Take a Stand Against Racism! Sign The Pledge. “What’s this?” says a student, and a table volunteer cheerfully   describes the Not In Our Town program. There are No Racism stickers for notebooks and lockers; larger stickers for bumpers and windows; even temporary tatoos. For parents, there are refrigerator cards with talking points defining common terms: predjudice, stereotype, discrimination; and a simpler set of talking points aimed at the primary grades.
Lessons for Engaging Diverse Youth in Hate Crime Prevention By Willie Halbert, NIOT Bloomington-Normal Member
 How Staff and Students at UC Riverside Are Working To Build a Safer and More Inclusive Campus By Kate McLean, NIOT.org When uninvited guests began showing up at the University of California at Riverside campus engaging in what they call “confrontational evangelism,” university staff and students struggled with what to do with their disruptive and upsetting message.  “They carry big signs that basically say, ‘all of you are going to hell.’ Everyone, ‘Hindu, Christian, Catholic, all of you are going to hell,’” says Assistant Dean of Students Alfredo Figueroa. “They spew this stuff and it draws a crowd and our students start to react to it. They have video cameras, and I tell our students, ‘that’s their game. They’re hoping that one of you loses your cool and hits them, because then it becomes about our students being violent.’”
A Student Reflects On a Peer's Murder and His Community's Response By Jeff Bryant