Committee Backs Response to Stoughton HS Swastika Incidents

STOUGHTON, MA — Overall, the Stoughton School Committee is satisfied with a report on the response to three recently incidents at Stoughton High School involving swastikas.

Tuesday night, the committee briefly discussed the report written by attorney Joseph Emerson, which reviews how the administration addressed the incidents.

“I believe it was a pretty complete review. It was intended to be on how the administration handled the incident and I think it covered from beginning to end, the who, what, where types of things,” committee member Anita Hill said.

The first incident was reported on Nov. 22. The student involved was suspended for six days and placed on social probation for two months. On Dec. 1, a dimed-sized swastika which was scratched into a desk was discovered. The responsible student was not found. A third incident that took place in a private group text on Nov. 22 was reported on Dec. 2. The two students responsible were suspended for two days. The suspensions were extended to six days and social probation for one student and 10 days for the other.

Interviews with members of the administration shows that Principal Judith Miller had contacted the Anti-Defamation League following the reporting of the group text message to have them present an educational program to staff and students.

After contacting the principals of other schools that had similar incidents, Miller decided that it was not necessary to alert the community because the acts did not rise to the level of a hate crime.

“The Stoughton High School Administration responded to each of the incidents appropriately: the students were identified and disciplined; the parents of the students exposed to the swastikas were contacted and those students were offered counseling,” the report said.

The report called the issue of making the incidents public a matter of judgment to be made upon the totality of the facts at the time of each incident.

“I think we need to set to rest the idea that the administration did not respond very seriously to this incident,” committee member Molly Cochrane said.

Controversy arose when the public learned of the incidents in January and the fact that two teachers who spoke about the incidents with students reportedly received letters of reprimand and a third teacher who rescinded a college letter of recommendation for the student who made the swastika received a suspension that was served two days a week for 10 weeks.

"Hindsight is always 20/20, as for the facts I’m provided with and timeline, I don’t have any major issues with how it was handled,” Committee member Joseph McDonough said. “They handled the situation correctly. They may not have handled it publicly the way some people wanted it to but they handled the situation presented in front of them.”

Committee member Joaquin Soares said he believed the school would be more proactive if an incident happened again, with McDonough noting that parents were notified of incidents at O’Donnell Middle School and Stoughton High School in February.

“I think it was an experience and they handled everything the way they should have. When another incident had happened they knew the public wanted to be addressed. Now we need to close that part of the questions and move forward,” Pina-Enokian said.

Below is the full report:

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