Reports of racially charged incidents indicative of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric have reached schools in Northwest Indiana.
Tri-Creek School Corp. Superintendent Debra Howe sent an email to parents Thursday indicating that teachers and administrators have seen an uptick in inflammatory language that was used on the campaign trail. Trump won the presidential election Tuesday. Since then, there have been more than 20 reports of these types of encounters around the country, according to The Associated Press.
At the University of New Mexico, for example, a Muslim engineering student said a man attempted to snatch off her hijab Tuesday while she was studying, and school administrators in Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s hometown of Columbus called for respect after reports of Hispanic students being taunted with chants of “build that wall,” including on Election Day.
While the Tri-Creek schools’ incidents haven’t reached violent proportions, Howe said parents have called and are understandably upset, and she wants to nip any sort of nastiness in the bud before it has a chance to get worse.
“No one has been disciplined severely yet, and I think we’ve caught it early,” Howe said Friday. “We’ve been working hard on diversity in our schools, and we made sure faculty, staff and employees weren’t making statements about any one candidate.
“We want our students to be comfortable, and we want everyone to be able to come together like a family.”
But anyone who continues to harass any Tri-Creek student will be dealt with, Howe said, up to and including suspension and expulsion as the situation warrants.
Richard Weigel, superintendent of Portage Township schools, said he hasn’t heard about bullying or other issues at his schools since the election, though he hasn’t checked in with all of the building principals.
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“We have such wonderful diversity here at Portage to begin with,” he said, adding that both teachers and students treat each other with kindness.
The principal at the high school told him things were quiet and that the students there were doing great, Weigel said, adding that he talked to five juniors and seniors.
“It was as much of a diverse group as you can imagine, and we had a great conversation” that focused on their futures and how things were going, Weigel said, with no mention of the election.
Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League office that monitors extremism, said young people “were watching and observing this presidential campaign as closely as anyone else.” Now that the campaign is over, “the impact of what they have seen is not just going to go away.”
A racial backlash also unfolded after the election of Barack Obama, America’s first black president, in 2008. At the time, police documented alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts were delivered by adults, college students and even children.
Barbara Dahl, director of counseling services for Indiana University Northwest in Gary, said Friday that it’s “appropriate and right” for schools that are dealing with high emotions and distress among their students to let them be heard, especially children. Dahl said she and her colleagues ended up changing their on-campus schedules to accommodate students concerned by the election results.
“We all have to move toward the success of a democracy, so we have the discussion about the election in a meaningful way,” Dahl said. “This election is unprecedented, in my time and certainly in the time of our current students, and with so much negative rhetoric from this candidate, some of this fear is based on the reality of this campaign. It’s not about a partisan win-or-lose anymore, and our humanity doesn’t change.
“To not address it is to do your students a real disservice.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune. Freelancer Amy Lavalley and The Associated Press contributed.