Livermore Falls middle school students learned some important lessons Thursday.
LIVERMORE FALLS – Middle-schoolers learned Thursday that they have the power to stop bias-motivated conduct. All they have to do is to think before they speak or act in an inappropriate manner.
Maine Assistant Attorney General Thomas Harnett of the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Division and Detective Margie Berkovich, who works for the Attorney General’s Office to investigate hate crimes, visited the school to teach students about the Maine Civil Rights Act.
When Harnett asked students if they have seen friends picked on, many raised their hands. He asked if they themselves had ever been picked on. Again, many raised their hands.
“You have the power to change that,” Harnett said. “We adults can help, but you can change your words to make it acceptable to all people.”
Harnett said that a recent study of kindergarten through 12th-grade students showed that 20 percent of the students don’t feel safe in Maine schools.
That means one out of five students don’t feel safe, he said.
“If you don’t feel safe, you don’t get a good education,” he said. That is unacceptable, he added.
Berkovich gets involved in civil rights violations when a situation goes beyond words. She said that she and others have come to the conclusion that kids are getting into trouble because they don’t understand that what they are doing could get them in trouble.
She broke the students into several groups with an adult in each group and a student acting as a teacher to review the Maine Civil Rights Act.
She noted that there are two parts of the law – conduct and bias motivation. The conduct part could include violence, the threat of violence, property damage and the threat of property damage.
Bias motivations could be based on biases such as: race, color, religion, gender, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability, and sexual orientation.
The break-out session taught students that pushing someone or spitting on someone could be considered violence. They also talked about these topics:
• A threat of violence would be saying “You’re dead” or “I’ll kill you.”
• Property damage could include writing on someone’s backpack or homework.
• Race is white, black, Asian and so forth.
• Religion is Christian, Jewish, Muslim and so forth.
• Ancestry is Irish, Italian, French-Canadian, etc.
• Sexual orientation means straight, gay and so forth.
The session also showed that a person could indicate their bias and their motivation through their own words.
Harnett told students to check their own language, to think before they speak and, if they hear someone using inappropriate words to another person, tell them it is unacceptable.
Silence often means you condone the conduct, Harnett said.
“Speak up and do something,” he told them.
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