Woman is targeted by hate e-mails

The mother whose questioning of a Thanksgiving kindergarten tradition in Claremont resulted in the elimination of the children’s handmade pilgrim and Native American costumes last month has received more than 250 hate e-mails, filled with misogynistic epithets, racist jeers and other abuse.

One hoped that her daughter, a kindergartner, would get beaten up at school. Another celebrated genocide of Native Americans. Police are providing extra patrols at her home. And Michelle Raheja is at a loss.

“It’s terrifying because it’s easy to find out where people live,” she said. “I’ve gotten phone calls starting as early as 5:30 in the morning.”

Meanwhile, Claremont Unified School District Supt. David Cash has said he hopes to turn the controversy into a learning experience for the future.

“Trust me, this will be an extraordinary opportunity for our community to have an important conversation about what we do when we disagree with each other regarding what’s good for kids,” he said.

For four decades, children at Condit and Mountain View elementary schools have taken annual turns dressing up and visiting each other to share a Thanksgiving feast. Controversy erupted after school officials last month decided to eliminate the Native American and pilgrim costumes from this year’s event after Raheja, whose mother is a Seneca, wrote a letter to her daughter’s teacher questioning the event.

“It’s demeaning,” she wrote. “I’m sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation’s history.”

Many parents were infuriated, saying school officials’ decision to eliminate the handmade construction paper bonnets and headdresses was bowing to political correctness.

Local media reports of the controversy boomeranged around the Internet and attracted national attention to this typically quiet town of 34,000.

The event took place as scheduled on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Many parents disregarded the decision and dressed their children in costumes. School officials did not remove them. Parents on both sides of the issue protested outside Condit Elementary, and their discussions grew so heated that school employees called the police.

Raheja, an English professor at UC Riverside, said her inbox overflowed with e-mails from around the world, hundreds from supporters, and more than 250 that she described as “hateful” that have been turned over to police.

“It’s appalling, the level of incivility,” she said. “We’re parents. We have our children’s best interest in mind.”

She said she was angry that an e-mail that she considered a “draft” that she wrote to her daughter’s teacher was leaked to other parents and the media, along with her name.

“What it does is it effectively silences any parent in the future who has legitimate concerns with the school because who would want to be the target of this much hate over something that was actually so small,” she said. “It could have easily been taken care of within the confines of the school.”

Cash, who said he does not know who leaked the letter, said a face-to-face meeting might have been a better way to broach the topic.

“I think it’s fairly common that once you put something in writing, it’s available for just about anyone to have access to,” he said. “That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have an expectation of privacy. It just means that’s the world in which we live.”

Cash, who also received hate mail and stepped-up police patrols at his home, said he was amazed that a decision on children’s costumes resulted in such an outcry. He wants to have a larger conversation about cultural concerns in early 2009, possibly by hosting a community forum or by creating a district advisory committee that could develop a policy proposal for the school board.

“I represent every child, and the parents of every child should have an opportunity to express themselves about what we’re doing and not doing in our schools. That’s an important part of a democratic society,” he said. “What we need to develop, what we don’t have in Claremont, is a process . . . so that in the future, instead of people feeling the need to scream and yell, we’ll have a process by which people can sit down and have a conversation.”

--

seema.mehta@latimes.com