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Inappropriate actions spur
school district diversity meetings.
DIANA LIEBERMAN
Staff Writer
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T
here are wars in the Middle
East, but there are no wars
at Andover High School.
Let's not make any."
Imam Mohamed El-Sayed of the
Unity Center in Bloomfield Township
made this plea Tuesday night as the
Bloomfield Hills School District held
the first of two sessions on community
and school diversity.
Held to counteract negative feelings,
negative behavior and misunderstand-
ings among Muslim and Jewish stu-
dents throughout the school district,
the community meeting attracted 110
people. Most were from the Jewish
and Arabic communities.
Mideast tensions have fueled these
concerns, speakers acknowledged.
On Dec. 8, two Jewish fifth-graders
at Bloomfield Township's Conant
Elementary School received two-day,
in-school suspensions for making
derogatory ethnic comments to a fel-
low fifth-grader of Muslim descent.
On Feb. 6, Andover's student news-
paper, the Shield, published an editori-
al by a Jewish student on the legitima-
cy of Muslim claims to Israel. Gary
Doyle, superintendent of the
Bloomfield Hills schools, characterized
this editorial as "hurtful, inflammatory
and inappropriate."
At the forum, Doyle said he had
advised John Toma, Andover principal,
not to publish the editorial, telling him,
"but if you do, you should check with
Dick Lobenthal." Toma could not be
reached for comment on Wednesday.
Richard Lobenthal is a former Anti-
Defamation League/Michigan Region
head who has worked as a diversity
consultant for the Bloomfield Hills
School District for about 15 years.
"Dick looked at it, said it was inap-
propriate, and gave some suggestions,"
Doyle said. "He did not edit it or help
the student rewrite it. He never saw
the final version that appeared in the
newspaper."
Lobenthal also suggested a rebuttal be
written by a Muslim student. While the
original editorial and the rebuttal
appeared in the same edition of the
Shield, "the student who wrote the coun-
terpoint did not have the opportunity to
see the original," Doyle said. "The result
was like apples and oranges."
The editorial contained these state-
ments: "The Palestinians have no lan-
guage, and there is no definitive
Palestinian culture" and "It was Arafat's
uncle who concluded for the first time
that Muhammed had gone into heaven
from the Dome of the Rock."
Finally, Muslim students at Andover
had complained about Jewish students
wearing Israel Defense Forces T-shirts
to school. Under investigation, this
proved to be true.
"There must be consequences to these
events, but punishment is not the
answer," Doyle said. "Much more effective
is re-education, teaching our students to
look at things in an entirely different way."
Tuesday's meeting was part of ongo-
ing work in this direction.
Imam El-Sayed and Rabbi Arnie
Sleutelberg of Congregation Shir
Tikvah in Troy explained the histories
and philosophies of the Muslim and
Jewish faiths.
Their presentations were followed by
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