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IMPORTANT PRESS RELEASES/STATEMENTS
Update on South Philly High
It’s been six months since Asian American immigrant youth at South Philadelphia High stood up against bias violence at their school. We’ve seen the removal of the school’s divisive principal, after it was reported she lacked certification, and new leadership step in. However, to date, the School District of Philadelphia has yet to take substantive steps to address the nature of the problems at the school and calm the worries of students, parents, and concerned community members.
As Board Member Helen Gym wrote for the Public School Notebook on June 8:
What we seek from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is not to resolve this problem among children and families. The problem of not only school violence in general, but targeted racial and ethnic harassment, requires institutional acknowledgment of the existence of a problem as well as institutional response to the remedy. The School District of Philadelphia and South Philadelphia High School bear the responsibility to ensure a promise that every child – no matter their race, ethnicity, or how well they speak English – deserves the opportunity to attend a safe school.
Six months later, Asian Americans United and our partners in a new consortium called SASA (South Philadelphia High Asian Student Advocates) continue to raise the following issues:
- Ongoing physical and verbal harassment of Asian immigrant students: SASA, along with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund has documented more than a dozen incidents of harassment and physical assault with almost uniformly poor response from school and District leadership.
- Lack of clear written protocol to develop appropriate responses to bias and harassment: What we’ve found is that the District lacks options. They only know two things – suspend or ignore. And we’ve seen that in full force at Southern, where students have been suspended without any investigation or, in other cases, told to hug when they’ve had food thrown at them or racial slurs cast in their face.
- Lack of significant dialogue and training to address race and race relations: To date there have been only two half-day professional development sessions for staff on cultural diversity, and nothing for the broader student body, although a subset of students participated in a two-day dialogue session in December. Dialogue and healing must occur between and among students, staff and the broader school community.
- Failure to comply with language access mandates: Flagrant violations abound for students and families who don’t speak English. Interpretation is inconsistent and frequently inaccurate. Parents who don’t speak English have been turned away by the school.
- Lack of communication and follow through with students and families: Once incidents are filed, the district and school rarely investigates the complaint and does little, if any, follow-up. In one case, a parent whose son was injured in March to date has not received a report on what happened to her son to this date. To date, SASA members have not met with District personnel despite making repeated requests since April.
Asian Americans United remains committed to following through on the complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. If you are interested in supporting that effort with an organizational letter of support, please contact Ellen Somekawa at 215.925.1538 or aau @ aaunited.org.
Statement on the resignation of
S. Phila. High School Principal LaGreta Brown
from the
South Philadelphia High School Asian Student Advocates (SASA)
– AAU is a member of SASA
As a coalition of adult advocates and youth organizers, we have felt strongly that administrative change was a necessary first step to begin the process of healing and the work of positive change towards racial and cultural learning, respect, and community building within the school. Under Ms. Brown’s leadership, language access policies have been deliberately violated. Even post-Dec. 3rd, there is ongoing harassment and violence and a hostile environment that has exacerbated existing racial tensions in the school.
While we are hopeful about Mr. Hackney’s appointment, we believe the District has missed an important opportunity to engage the broader community in an important dialogue on finding the best leader for South Philadelphia High School at this time. We have been in this position before. The problems at the school are serious, there is ongoing violence and harassment of students, there is a basic lack of policy and procedure, and what is needed is a real change in the way that the District has been approaching the problems at S. Philly High.
In spite of this missed opportunity, we intend to continue our work with the District on finding real and lasting solutions. We hope for the sake of students, staff and community of South Philadelphia that this change in the administration will signal a renewed effort to address the real and deeply rooted problems which plague this learning community
Anti-Asian Violence at South Philadelphia High School
Statement by Wei Chen, president, South Philadelphia High School Chinese-American Student Association
It is our opinion that South Philadelphia High School is still not a safe place for us. Because we are Asian immigrants, we are targeted. We have been working with the school a long time, but still the school has failed to provide a concrete plan to address our safety inside and outside the building.
We remain very upset with some staff members who are unresponsive to our concerns. We have been saying repeatedly that the security team has problems, but the School District still has not responded to our concerns. One staff person even slept through our meeting last Friday.
Because of that we will not return to South Philadelphia High School this week. Instead, we are going to meet in our community to figure out some real solutions of our own. Dozens of students have already committed to meeting during school hours. We ask the police and school district to recognize what we’re doing and respect our ability to travel between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
We invite concerned students from all races to contact us if you want to join.
Dec. 11th : AALDEF Intention to file Civil Rights Complaint Press Release
District’s failure to remedy rampant anti-Asian violence at South Philadelphia High School prompts action
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) announced today its intention to file a complaint for civil rights violations with the U.S. Department of Justice against the Philadelphia School District for failing to address the rampant violence against Asian immigrant students at South Philadelphia High School (SPHS).
Read the full press release here along with news from AALDEF.
Dec. 15th: Public Statement by Students of the SPHS Boycott
Through our trials and struggles, we pushed the school to hear us. We have made change by standing together. We are proud of what we have done. If something happens again after all this, we know that we have strong wills and we will stand together again.
We have came back to stand with more students. We want to start a dialogue with other student organizations. We will continue to work with the community organizations. The struggle will go on until all the demands are met. We won’t give up. We ask everyone to continue to pay attention to what’s going on at South Philadelphia High School. We hope that school can change their attitude for the benefits of all students. We thank our supporters. Without the support of everyone we could not go this far. We are excited for the future. We now believe in hope and change like president Obama.
We want a safe school for everyone. We want everyone to have a good education. This is not the end, but just the beginning of the fight for better futures and better educations for all races of students.
— Students of the South Philly High boycott —
Jan 19th: AALDEF files Civil Rights Complaint against the School District of Philadelphia
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) filed a complaint on January 19, 2010 for civil rights violations with the U.S. Department of Justice charging the School District of Philadelphia and South Philadelphia High School (SPHS) with discrimination against Asian students on the basis of race and national origin in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint charges that the District and School acted with “deliberate indifference” to the harassment against Asian students and “intentional disregard for the welfare of Asian students” at SPHS. The complaint cites numerous instances in which school officials were notified by teachers and Asian students about the increasingly hostile environment towards Asian students but failed to take any steps to prevent the widespread attacks on Asian students on December 3, 2009.
On December 3, 2009, large numbers of Asian immigrant students from SPHS were assaulted in and around the school throughout the day. Thirteen Asian students were sent to the hospital due to their injuries. For over a year before the December 3rd attacks, AALDEF in collaboration with local community groups – Asian Americans United, Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, Boat People SOS, Victim/Witness Services of South Philadelphia, Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, and Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition, Inc. – urged school and district officials to address in the increasingly hostile environment for Asian students at SPHS without success.
AALDEF Staff Attorney Cecilia Chen said: “The failure of the Philadelphia School District and South Philadelphia High School to acknowledge and address the severe harassment of Asian students at SPHS led to the December 3rd attacks. The School and District must be held accountable for failing to protect Asian students at SPHS.”
Following the attacks on December 3rd, over sixty Asian students from SPHS boycotted the school for eight days citing fear for their safety and concern at the District’s repeated failure to address the widespread anti-Asian violence at the school.
Chen continued: “The students have gone back to school but that does not mean that the school is now safe. Asian immigrant students are still being targeted and threatened. We want to ensure that Asian immigrant students can go to school in a safe environment.”
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The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), founded in 1974, is a national organization that protects and promotes the civil rights of Asian Americans. By combining litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, AALDEF works with Asian American communities across the country to secure human rights for all.