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A Joint Statement by Westwood Select Board and Westwood School Committee condemns hate speech and calls for broad community action.
6-15-2026 11:15pm
Westwood Select Board, School Committee Condemn Hate Speech, Back Community Coalition
Darlene Cancell
Editor
Image by Westwood Minute/Darlene Wong Cancell, with inset image (top right, modified with background removed) of Westwood Town Hall by John Phelan via Wikimedia Commons
In a remotely held joint meeting of Westwood Select Board and Westwood School Committee on June 10, the two bodies unanimously approved a recommendation from the Westwood Human Rights Task Force to issue a joint statement condemning hate speech, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and other incidents of bigotry and to raise a call to action.
The Joint Statement calls on residents, families, students, educators, faith leaders, and community organizations to act and participate in the activities of the recently established Westwood Community Coalition to Combat Hate Speech.
The vote came just a few weeks after students at Thurston Middle School reported vandalism in a first-floor boys' bathroom. On May 21, students described seeing a resealable plastic bag of urine hanging from a ceiling tile over one bathroom stall. Inside that stall, graffiti that included hate speech was written in pencil. The writing reportedly included the N-word, multiple expletives, and several sexually explicit words and phrases.
The Joint Statement notes that at least five separate incidents of hate speech have occurred within the Westwood Public Schools district over the past school year. Antisemitic symbols, including swastikas, along with racist and anti-Black slurs, homophobic language, and misogynistic messages, have been discovered at Westwood High School and Thurston Middle School, according to the statement.
“Two of the incidents of racist and antisemitic vandalism appeared following Holocaust survivors who spoke with students at the middle school, which is especially concerning,” the statement reads.
“The Westwood Select Board and the Westwood School Committee, in their roles as elected representatives of the people of Westwood, unequivocally condemn these acts. Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, sexism, and hate in any form have no place in Westwood – not in our schools, not in our neighborhoods, and not in our community. We recognize the deep harm these incidents cause to students, families, educators, staff, and every member of our community, and we will not minimize that harm or allow it to be normalized,” reads the Joint Statement.
The statement follows earlier efforts by Westwood Public Schools Superintendent Timothy Piwowar to establish a formal community coalition to “move our efforts beyond conversation” to address prejudice, antisemitism, and hate in the school district. As Mr. Piwowar noted when he announced the idea on February 12, and as School Committee members have since echoed, a unified effort is needed beyond the school community to address the current school culture in which these incidents have continued to recur. Mr. Piwowar called on school administrators, faculty, staff, families, students, community members, and town leaders to participate in the coalition.
“Addressing these complex issues requires a unified effort and collaborative partnerships across our community,” he wrote in a message to the community.
In March, Mr. Piwowar announced the official formation of the Westwood Community Coalition to Combat Hate Speech. The coalition held its first official meeting on May 4.
At a School Committee meeting on May 14, Lateefa Franck, WPS Director of Equity, Integration, and Community Partnerships, summarized the coalition’s first meeting for School Committee members with a PowerPoint slide at the committee’s May 14 meeting. The slide bluntly stated the problem faced by the school community:
“There is an underlying culture within the Westwood Public Schools community that allows racist and antisemitic hate speech and graffiti to be perpetuated characterized by the following:
- Dehumanizing Expression
- Amplification via Social Media
- Normalization and Minimization
While Westwood Public Schools has implemented proactive educational measures such as guest speakers and direct classroom instruction, these current responses have not yet been sufficient to fully shift school culture or modify underlying student behaviors. The persistence of racist and antisemitic incidents indicates a critical need for future work to ensure that the values of inclusion and safety are fully integrated into every student’s daily experience.”
The coalition’s second meeting, which was open to the community, attracted around 60 participants, so that it had to be split into two dates – an evening meeting on June 2 and a morning meeting on June 4, according to Ms. Franck.
The coalition now has four subcommittees. As described by Mr. Piwowar, the education and learning subcommittee will tackle how to educate both inside and outside of the school district. The community partnerships and culture subcommittee will bring initiatives more broadly to the community and increase community engagement. An accountability, reporting, and response subcommittee will examine into how to identify, track, and learn from incidents. The student subcommittee will give students an opportunity to bring their voices and leadership to the table.
Members of the subcommittees are planning to meet steadily over this summer, to enable the district to act promptly when school begins in the fall, said Ms. Franck.
Ms. Franck, along with members of the School Committee, and Superintendent Piwowar acknowledged that the Joint Statement itself is only a small step in the right direction, and that there is much more work to do. They continue to invite members from the larger community to join or get involved. Interested community members can email WestwoodCoalition@westwood.k12.ma.us to get involved.
“It is a very important statement for us to make jointly as a reaffirmation of our values,” said Select Board Chair Cummings, in voting to approve the Joint Statement. “Also, as the statement indicates, we are committed to the work of building a safer, more welcoming and more inclusive Westwood. I fully support the statement, as does the town administration.”
Although the incidents that have necessitated the Joint Statement and the formation of the Westwood Community Coalition to Combat Hate Speech have occurred at Westwood High School and Thurston Middle School, School Committee member Katie Willette noted that elementary school parents may soon face similar concerns and it would be prudent to be proactive.
Ms. Willette noted that Ms. Franck’s recent visit to the Sheehan School and conversation with parents opened parents’ eyes to the need to act on the issue now.
“We’re [in] elementary right now. You know – we’re just getting into this [ ] idea of belonging for our kids. We’re like, ‘Of course they belong, they’re eight years old!’ So, we don’t necessarily always have those touch points of what’s going on at the middle school and the high school,” said Ms. Willette. “And I think when you came in and spoke to us, it really lit a fire in a lot of parents to say, ‘We need to start being proactive now, and building that culture of acceptance and awareness for our kids.”
Editor's note: A copy of the Joint Statement is attached, below this article.
