Group Says Hate Groups Targeting Valley Students : Education: Anti- Defamation Leage tells Las Virgenes board to fight racist flyers that are being put in student lockers.

Racist hate groups are trying harder to recruit San Fernando Valley schoolchildren, and officials should aggressively combat the vicious flyers that are continuing to show up in student lockers, according to the Valley Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL on Tuesday night took its concerns to the board of the Las Virgenes Unified School District, the site of the most recent incident, and plans to go tonight to the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita. A Santa Clarita junior high was targeted in March with hate leaflets.

“Whoever is doing this--it may be one person, it may be several--is making an attempt to lure young people into this movement,” said Valley ADL Director Mary Krasn. “We’re trying to turn something ugly into something positive. These (flyers) create an atmosphere where hatemongers can take it a step further, and that’s what we want to prevent.”

In addition to raising awareness about what the ADL says is an emerging pattern of racist groups targeting schoolchildren, Krasn said her group has suggested better prejudice-awareness training for teachers and students; increased campus security to prevent trespassers from distributing flyers; formation of an inter-ethnic coalition to fight hate campaigns; education and recruitment of Valley legislators; and educating law enforcement officers about the limits of First Amendment free speech rights.

In the most recent leaflet campaign, about 200 students at Calabasas High School last Friday found anti-Latino and anti-Jewish leaflets in their lockers. At the bottom of an epithet-filled poem maligning Latinos and their “Kosher Kop protectors,” is a number for the White Aryan Resistance.

Naomi Perl, office manager at Calabasas High School, said students brought the flyers to the principal’s office, and to teachers and counselors.

“They are outraged that someone would come on our campus and would say such things,” Perl said. “They are disgusting and vile. Nobody is interested in these kinds of messages here.”

In February, sets of four anti-Semitic flyers with demeaning caricatures and threats against Jewish people were put in about 70 lockers in La Canada High School and the Ability Plus School, also in the La Canada/Flintridge area.

In January, student lockers at Agoura Hills High School and Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks were stuffed with similar literature and racist cartoons.

Schools throughout Orange County have reported more incidents.

“I don’t know how successful the people who are distributing this racist materials have been,” Krasn said. “One thing we do know is that it has sparked a lot of concern.

“It was clearly time to act.”