News: ME School Update Ham Sandwich Is A Hate Crime

School Board Approves Birth Control Prescriptions at Maine Middle School

October 18, 2007

PORTLAND, Maine —? Pupils at a city middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal Wednesday evening.

The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

There are no national figures on how many middle schools, where most students range in age from 11 to 13, provide such services.

“It’s very rare that middle schools do this,” said Divya Mohan, a spokeswoman for the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care.

The Portland School Committee voted 5-2 for the measure.

Chairman John Coynie voted against it, saying he felt providing the birth control was a parental responsibility. The other no vote came from Ben Meiklejohn, who said the consent form does not clearly define the services being offered.

Opponents cited religious and health objections.

Diane Miller, who said she has worked as a school nurse in another district for eight years, called the proposal “tragic” and asked “What would God have us do?”

Miller said the plan gives children an adult responsibility they are not ready for, and puts them at risk from sexually transmitted disease and emotional problems.

“I just don’t know how we can even look at this and consider it,” she said.

Peter Doyle, a former middle school teacher, said the proposal violates the rights of parents, potentially ignoring their special knowledge of their children’s health, and puts young girls at risk of cancer from too early use of hormone-based contraceptives.

“You all are going to be responsible for the devastating effects on young women when this goes through,” he said.

Those who favored the plan said it isn’t about encouraging premature sex, but protecting kids who don’t have strong support from their parents.

“Unfortunately, not every child is getting the kind of parental involvement that is going to help keep them safe,” said Richard Verrier.

“If my daughter were not able to talk with me about something, if she couldn’t reach me for whatever reason, to keep her safe and healthy, I would want to make sure she had access to those resources from trusted adults,” Verrier said.

Condoms have been available since 2002 to King students who have parental permission to be treated at its student health center.

About one-fourth of student health centers that serve at least one grade of adolescents 11 and older dispense some form of contraception, said Mohan, whose Washington-based organization represents more than 1,700 school-based centers nationwide.

At King Middle School, birth control prescriptions will be given after a student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner, said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland’s student health centers.

Students treated at the centers must first get written parental permission, but under state law such treatment is confidential, and students decide for themselves whether to tell their parents about the services they receive.

Five of the 134 students who visited King’s health center during the 2006-07 school year reported having sexual intercourse, said Amanda Rowe, lead nurse in Portland’s school health centers.

A high school in Topeka, Kan., on Wednesday stopped providing free condoms to students after district officials learned of the month-old program. The district has a policy against providing contraceptives.

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Student Leaves Ham Sandwich on Lunch Table Near Muslims, Suspended for Hate Crime
Somali Muslim Students Highly Offended, Scarred for Life

April 23, 2007
By Nicholas Plagman

A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by the police for a possible hate crime after he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a table where Somali students eat lunch. According to the school’s superintendent, Leon Levesque, the student has been suspended, and more disciplinary action could follow pending the outcome of the investigation.

Muslims, who believe pork to be unclean and highly offensive, were reminded of a man who threw a pig’s head into a mosque located in Lewiston last summer. “That ham sandwich in a bag where we couldn’t even see might as well have been that pig’s head,” said one of the traumatized Somali students, “and that cafeteria might as well have been the most religious building for Muslims in the state of Maine.”

According to Superintendent Levesque, “the school incident is being treated seriously as a hate incident.” Police are currently investigating the matter alongside the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, who is also working with the school to create an anti-ham “response plan.”

“We’ve got some work to do to turn this around and bring the school community back together again.” Said Levesque, “These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy, and that there are consequences for being nonchalant about where you put your sandwich.”

“Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing,” said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. “It’s extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at. No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich.”

Wessler continued, “incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don’t live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities.”

“If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?”

Added Levesque, “the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs.”

According to Levesque, a letter has been sent home to parents to explain the incident and outline the school’s response. The next step will be for Wessler to meet with the students to address the school’s atmosphere, after which staff will discuss how to respond to future hate incidents, with emphasis on their prevention.

Said one of the students who witnessed the event, “I know the guy who put the sandwich there, he just wanted to be funny and see how those Somalis would react. I’m just glad that kid I beat up yesterday was white; I wouldn’t want to be in that mess.”

One of the victims, whose mother didn’t want his name released, said “we didn’t know what was in this bag. One of my friends reached inside it. It was a big ham steak. There were five of us at the table, all Somali. Right then, I could feel allah condemning me to burn for eternity for being within a 6.2 meter radius of ham, so yeah, it was a hate crime.”

The boy said that he felt better after several students apologized for the incident and said that the kids who did it were jerks, “but for the rest of my life when I remember middle school, this will pop up right away,” the boy said, “it’s like I’m back in Somalia being shot at all over again.”