By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Mayor Liz Lempert, reacting Thursday to a racial and anti-Semitic incident at a local public school, joined police and local clergy to declare “hate has no home” in Princeton.
Mayor Lempert, who is Jewish, issued a joint statement with police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter, the Rev. David Davis of Nassau Presbyterian Church and Rabbi Adam Feldman of the Jewish Center in response to a Google spreadsheet, created by two teachers at John Witherspoon Middle School for a science lab and then made available to eighth-graders, being marked up with racist, anti-Semitic and sexual messages.
“We have once again been reminded in the town of Princeton that racism, anti-Semitism, and hate speech can be closer to home than we wish,” their statement read. “We see too many examples in other parts of our country and our world and we must not tolerate it here at home.”
The school district, through its ongoing investigation, said this week it had determined that a JW student uploaded the spreadsheet to an online platform. Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane, addressing the issue earlier in the week, said the district could not determine if any of its students put the messages there and might never know who was responsible for the offensive material.
Cochrane has not specified the content of the messages, but news reports said they had included a swastika.
The joint statement by Lempert and the three others did not mention the middle school by name or actually condemn whoever wrote the offensive material. Mayor Lempert, who had spent most of the week in Atlantic City for the New Jersey State League of Municipalities convention, could not be reached for additional comment.
“In support of all who work in our schools to educate our children and youth, we are issuing a joint call to all community leaders, institutions, and organizations to speak up and speak out against hatred, racism, Anti-Semitism, sexism and all acts of hate in our community,” the statement read. “We all must be very clear that hate has no home here in Princeton – in our conversations, in our offices and schools and in our social media. Let us model for others what it means to be upstanders and not bystanders.”
“They are a call to action for our entire community, and I am grateful to our moral and municipal leaders for amplifying that call through their joint statement,” Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said Friday. “Our children need to see the adults in their lives stand against hate. It is when we, as adults, actively advocate for social justice that we empower our children to do the same. The positive and caring culture of our community depends on that.”
As of Friday afternoon, the statement was not posted on the municipal website, as the town has done when reacting to other national issues, including the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.
“Please join us as we recommit ourselves to speak out against acts of bigotry of any kind,” the statement read. “As we move into the winter holiday season, let’s all strive to be that light in the midst of darkness that can provide hope and strength and comfort and light, to begin to remove hatred from our community. We call on everyone in our community to take the time to have the difficult conversations on this topic, to talk at home and in school, in the office, the church and the synagogue, with friends, family, teachers and clergy so that we can unite against hatred. There may be no more important conversations we can have.”
