Dear Uxbridge Community:

 

I wish I were writing to you today under better circumstances. In the interest of both transparency and clarity, I tend to share the successes and challenges of our school and community, and today is, unfortunately, one of the latter.

 

Last night, I received a message from a district administrator indicating that one of our community members discovered a small swastika etched into a table in our school library. It was discovered well after hours, at a School Committee meeting, and the location is in a public space frequented by students from across the building and even multiple constituencies. While the likelihood is that a student committed this act, the time of discovery, location, and consistent use of the space makes it all but impossible to determine when this was done or by whom.

 

This is not the first time a swastika has appeared in our building, nor do I foresee it being the last. The prevalence of these symbols as both overt messages of hate, symbols of anti-Semitism or a rise in fascist ideologies, or even to criticize certain allies of the current federal government is not unique to Uxbridge. Last month, something showed up in Hingham, only a few weeks after an incident in Westfield, and only a few weeks after an incident in Lenox. A friend of mine sent me the letter that his children’s school district sent regarding an incident in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Just last night, news broke about the presence of a hate incident in nearby Leicester. Sometimes these are done just to be provocative, out of ignorance, without an understanding of the meaning, or an understanding of the impact - in fact, this tends to be the case more often than not, when we are able to identify perpetrators. On the other hand, these acts may very well be a sign of more troubling hate in the community, which is also something we have identified in the past. In short, these incidents are among us, we are not immune, and they are deeply troubling.

 

We recognize that the vast majority of our students are neither Jewish nor students of color, both of whom tend to be the primary victims of the hate ideology symbolized by Nazi symbolism. However, acts like this are acts against all of us; they run counter to what I truly believe our community stands for, who we are, and what we aspire to be. That said, rooting out hate does not happen in schools alone.

 

Given that we have now dealt with the presence of hate symbols on more than one occasion, I have contacted my colleagues at the Anti-Defamation League, and we are considering both parent and student events, adjustment to curricula, and adjustments across the district. We tend to be reluctant to assemblies - they long ago lost their impact, and students being lectured en masse does not solve a more perpetual or deep rooted problem. That said, there is no easy solution. Please know that our leadership team is working on a variety of different considerations.

 

We appreciate, as always, the support.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dr. Rubin