Great Barrington — In the wake of a violent threat made to an African-American student last week at Monument Mountain Regional High School, school and Berkshire Hills Regional School District officials will tackle the matter in an all-school assembly in the gymnasium tomorrow, Tuesday (October 3).
Meanwhile, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were at the school last Friday (September 30) after being somehow made aware of the incident in which the student reported he was threatened by another student with a “lynching in the woods,” a hanging and a beating. But FBI Boston division spokesperson Kristen Setera said she couldn’t confirm or deny that an investigation is in progress.
The FBI’s involvement would come under the realm of civil rights or hate crimes violations.
Monument Principal Marianne Young said that, at the assembly, school officials would deal with the incident in a general way. “We’re going to talk about what the school has experienced, and about how to address our own shortcomings and remain committed to one another,” she said.
Great Barrington Police Chief William Walsh said his department had been contacted by Assistant Principal Scott Annand last Tuesday (September 27) “asking for assistance in sorting through this incident.”
School officials are still investigating the report from the student who said a another student, who is white, told him Monday (September 26) that he was planning to “lynch” him.
Young told the Edge that, while she could not discuss student issues due to federal privacy laws governing students, administrators had indeed “received a report of a racist comment…a comment we classify as hate speech.”
Multicultural BRIDGE CEO/Director Gwendolyn VanSant had previously told the Edge that the organization, along with Railroad Street Youth Project, had been called in to support the student who said he had been threatened.
VanSant had said the incident was directly related to the student — a football player — having kneeled during the national anthem at a game in Athol the week before. The gesture is considered a protest against police violence and killings of African-Americans.
Another source familiar with some of the details of the incident, but who declined to be identified, said the student said he was told he would be “lynched in the woods.”
The threat mimics another made earlier this month to Ohio student Rodney Axson, the first high school football player to kneel during the national anthem. Threats of lynching were made in that incident as well.
“Taking a knee,” as the Monument student did at the Athol game, is football parlance with new political bite ever since NFL player Colin Kaepernick was the first to do it during the national anthem to protest police killings of black men. The gesture has spread and other players as well as college and high school teams have followed suit.
Young said that anytime a student makes serious allegations, the school “investigates and acts accordingly.” And Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon, while calling the threats “horrible,” said, given the national political climate and its local effects, a swelling of parallel behavior among students is to be expected.
News of the threats rocked the community, and social media was lit with incredulousness that they were made at all, let alone in the Berkshires.
Dillon said the assembly was one way for the district and school to work through the situation in a “thoughtful and deliberate way.”
