Symposium Seeks Methods to Ease Hate Crimes on Campus : Racism: A survey of racially motivated incidents has prompted educators to discuss ways to resolve widespread bigotry in L.A. schools.

The Jefferson High School student walked into a mom-and-pop market in her Central Los Angeles neighborhood just as an argument broke out between the proprietor and a customer.

When the two men, one black and the other Latino, started exchanging ethnic slurs, the young woman piped up: “Hey, you can settle this without bringing race into it.”

To the teacher of Jefferson’s Hands Across the Campus program, the incident proves that students can be taught to seek remedies to conflicts without resorting to ethnic or racial slurs.

The teacher, Jean Thomas, offered the anecdote as part of a symposium Thursday on ways to ease the widespread bigotry and intergroup tensions on campuses across rapidly changing Los Angeles County.

The symposium sprang from a benchmark survey by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission and the county Office of Education. Released in October, it is believed to be the first comprehensive study of intergroup hate crimes and related incidents in the public schools anywhere in the United States.

Survey results found such incidents at many schools throughout the county. While blacks and Latinos were the biggest targets of hate-laden slurs, graffiti and other incidents, the study found no group was immune, including whites. Incidents were reported against individuals based on race, ethnicity, immigrant status, religion and sexual preference.

Whites, once the overwhelmingly predominant group in the county, now represent 41% of its population, said Eugene S. Mornell, executive director of the Human Relations Commission. And with one of every 10 immigrants to the United States coming to Los Angeles County, Mornell said, much will be asked of the public schools.

He announced the formation of a task force to develop “model policies” for helping students learn to live equitably and harmoniously in a multicultural community.

Meantime, the 200 educators and other community leaders who attended the symposium heard from peers who have experimented with ways to tackle the job.

Jefferson High’s Thomas said the school began its human relations classes in 1982, as the school’s student population, once nearly all black, began to see dramatic increases in Latino enrollment. Hands Across the Campus, which also includes a club and other extracurricular activities, now operates on 12 campuses of the Los Angeles Unified School District and aims to teach students to respect differences and resolve conflicts without resorting to group hatred.

Virginia Uribe, a Fairfax High School counselor who formed a pioneering counseling service for gay students on campus, said the key to diffusing bigotry against any group is to deal swiftly and firmly with incidents as they occur.

Fairfax teachers are encouraged to be on the lookout for slurs and other incidents and have a method for handling them right away. To let an incident pass because the teacher either does not care to address it or does not know what to do “sends a message that it’s OK to hate someone” based on ethnicity, religion or sexual preference, Uribe said.

Esther Taira, a social science teacher and adviser with the Los Angeles district, warned that it takes time and constant effort to break down cultural stereotypes and build respect for others.

Noting that the district has just 22 human relations-type courses in a given semester, it can reach just 500 of its more than 600,000 students at one time.

“Clearly we need to mainstream” teaching about other groups into all aspects of school life, including updating textbooks and providing for more intergroup contact, Taira said.

Keynote speaker Joseph Giordano, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Center on Ethnicity, Behavior and Communications, showed excerpts from a television program he put on with students in the Dade County, Fla., schools. The Dade County district, which includes Miami, has--like Los Angeles--undergone rapid growth of immigrant and minority students.

To help youths discuss cultural differences and break down stereotypes, Giordano set up an “Oprah Winfrey-type” talk show and asked high school students to tell what they liked and disliked about belonging to their particular group.

One black student said she liked the strong sense of community but hated being considered “uneducated” by whites and others. An Anglo youth said he resented minority group members assuming that he was prejudiced just because he is white.

And a Cuban-American student told how she feels when she hears others saying spiteful things about her ethnic group. She related that she is especially hurt when people ask if she is related to Cuban President Fidel Castro, because she has the same last name.

In mid-sentence, she broke into tears. Giordano gave her hug. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked. She nodded.