Providing accurate and timely information about what matters in Franklin, MA since 2007. * Working in collaboration with Franklin TV and Radio (wfpr.fm) since October 2019 *
Sunday, August 20, 2023
Watch "When Hate Tried a Small Town" on YouTube
Sunday, May 8, 2022
Boston Globe: "answers will be forthcoming pending the outcome of the investigation”
School officials are investigating after Franklin High School fans heckled an opposing team’s players during a varsity baseball game with homophobic, racist, and antisemitic slurs.
Joshua Hanna, the principal of Franklin High School, said in a letter to families Friday that officials “denounce such behavior and are outraged” about the heckling, which had happened the night before and was directed at a team from Sharon.
“Our hearts go out to the Sharon community,” Hanna said. “There is no place for such behavior in our schools and at school events.”
The slurs were yelled by a group of Franklin fans gathered near a fence along the left-field outfield area during the night game held in Franklin, according to Hanna.
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Pantherbook: "Response to Hate Crimes - A Student Perspective"
"As the start of the ’21-’22 school year kicked off with the return of fully in-person classes, it has also brought many disruptive challenges: hate crimes, discriminatory actions, and destructive behaviors. To combat these harmful actions, the administration has partnered with many students to form an organization called “No Place for Hate,” collecting signatures to declare Franklin High School as intolerant to any form of hate.
We interviewed two members of ADL’s ‘No Place for Hate,’ Lily Eattimo and Nihara Lijan, in order to receive more information about the goals of this organization."
The recent Tik Tok trend ‘devious licks’ has motivated the vandalism of many FHS boys’ bathrooms. (Bella DeCrescenzo) |
Sunday, December 29, 2019
"focus on engaging students in conversations about how unchecked hate can proliferate"
Massachusetts recorded the fourth-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents of any state in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, prompting lawmakers to propose that all schools teach students about the Holocaust and other genocides.Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
Jewish students throughout the commonwealth have repeatedly encountered anti-Semitic slurs, been told their families should have died in the Holocaust and discovered swastikas scrawled on the bathroom walls of their schools, the ADL reports.
In just the last two months, a middle school student in Great Barrington threatened Jewish students with an alleged kill list and two students at Framingham’s Christa McAuliffe Charter School circulated a “Kill the Jews” Snapchat group.
Recognizing schools as hotbeds for anti-Semitism, state Rep. Jeffrey Roy, D-Franklin, and Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues, D-Westport, filed the Genocide Education Act, which would require every school district to adopt genocide curriculum that addresses “the notion that national, ethnic, racial or religious hatred can overtake any nation or society, leading to calamitous consequences.”
https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20191228/local-anti-semitism-spike-prompts-push-for-state-genocide-education-mandate
Senator Rodrigues' bill https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/S327
Representative Roy's bill https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/H566
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Choices, choices
or
Go to the production of "The Laramie Project" at 7:00 PM at Franklin High School's lecture hall.
or
Go to the auditorium at King Philip High School, Rte. 140, Wrentham, for a forum which will address both substance abuse by teens and parental strategies associated with substance use, at 7:00 PM
Monday, December 15, 2008
"hate is wrong, it still exists and people need to end it"
As Madalyn Murtha watched "The Laramie Project," a play about one of the most notorious hate crimes in recent history, the normally stoic Franklin High student was so moved, she decided the work had to be performed at her school.
In the play by Moises Kaufman, characters react to the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Wayne Shepard, an openly gay college student from Casper, Wyo., who was killed in a hate crime in Oct. 1998.
Two men kidnapped, robbed and pistol-whipped him in Laramie, Wyo. They tied him to a fence where he remained for 18 hours in near freezing temperatures before he was found and taken to a hospital. He died as a result of his injuries from the brutal beating.
The compelling story inspired Murtha and Marushka Waters, theater teacher and director of "The Laramie Project," to perform the play in Franklin.
Franklin High School theater will present "The Laramie Project" at 7 p.m. at Franklin High School's lecture hall on Wed., Dec. 17, and Thursday, Dec. 18.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here