High Schools: Teen-Agers on the Rampage

HIGH SCHOOLS Teen-Agers on the RampageA rash of violence, most of it racial, is spreading among high schools from California to Maine. Last week police patrolled high schools in New Haven, Conn., to prevent a revival of fist-swing ing, china-shattering riots that had erupted in the cafeterias of two schools the week before, disrupting classes and causing 30 arrests. About the same time, most of the 2,372 students of Chicago’s predominantly Negro Dunbar Vocational High rallied in the streets, stopped traffic, threw rocks at cars; many abandoned classes for the day.

Last month 30 white students from Technical High in Springfield, Mass., brawled with ten Negroes from rival Classical High.

Those were only the latest clashes in a series that began last fall. In Newark, two Negro girls fought over a cafeteria seat at Barringer High last October, touching off two days of sporadic tray hurling and fights between Negro and white youths. Nearly 3,500 students from Philadelphia high schools cut classes one day in November for a rally at the board of education that turned into a melee, causing 22 injuries and leading to 57 arrests. Before the Christmas vacations, mass street fighting erupted among youths from Trenton’s Central High, and mob violence hit Chicago’s Waller and Englewood highs. An inexplicable dance-hall riot among 700 teen-agers in Lewiston, Me., was quickly quelled by police, who were conveniently on hand—the dance was sponsored by the local Police Athletic League.

Adult Agitators. There was no common pattern in the outbreaks. Three of the eruptions hinged partly on the impatient demand of Negro students that the schools introduce courses in Negro culture and history—something that the administrators were already planning to do. In other cases, adult agitators fanned disturbances. Philadelphia police charged the local leaders of CORE and the Black People’s Unity Movement, a small group promoting “black pride,” with inciting the riot there. Parents of Negro students at Los Angeles’ Manual Arts High sought the help of Ron Karenga, leader of the black separatist “Us” organization, in trying to dump a white principal. Soon adults were picketing the school. A rumor of police brutality spread when one demonstrator was arrested, and then students went on a rampage. In the end, the principal requested—and got—a transfer because of high blood pressure.

Other clashes seemed to be simpler cases of racial antagonism. The Springfield fight followed heckling by white students of Negro youths seeking service at a nearby cafe. In the Chicago suburb of Maywood, the failure of a student selection committee at Proviso East High to nominate a single Negro girl for homecoming queen set off a protest rally in which some 500 youths hurled bottles at police.

Defusing Emotions. The causes are inevitably complex and often irrational. Officials in some of the tense cities are simply trying to defuse emotions. Many superintendents find that one quick way to cool matters is to offer courses in Negro history or stress Negro cultural contributions in standard courses. In Philadelphia, some Negroes demanded that students be permitted to wear African dress to class; the administrators agreed, and that helped soothe the situation, although only three students actually donned the garb. Philadelphia now pays Negro youngsters and adult Negro leaders to attend suburban retreats, where they sound off their grievances to school officials. At Chicago’s

Waller High, a committee of eight teachers and eight students—all elected by students—is involved in a candid dialogue. The kids even advise the teachers on curriculum changes.

The schools also have a long way to go to convince their students that what they are teaching is really relevant to their lives. Even New Haven’s progressive new superintendent, John A. Santini, concedes that “what we do is waste kids’ time—we’ve got to make school make sense to them.” But the problem of high school violence reaches far beyond the classroom. It involves the rising frustration of life in the cities and the agitation of self-seeking adults demanding black (or white) power—compounded by the turmoil within teenagers as they grope toward maturity.