Letters They Wouldn't Publish
February 8, 2004
Letters to the Editor New York Times letters @nytimes.com Dear editor: Henry C. Moses, headmaster of the Trinity School, has promised to "take appropriate action" in response to the recent incident in which some Trinity students yelled antisemitic slurs at a Jewish player from a visiting basketball team. (Times news article, Feb. 7) Some may urge Mr. Moses to take a lenient view and treat the offense as the equivalent of child's play. As he weighs his decision, Mr. Moses may want to consider the example set sixty years ago this week by Ralph W. Haller, a German-American who was then principal of Andrew Jackson High School in Queens. After five of his students were caught painting antisemitic slogans in Queens Village, Haller announced what the New York Times described (Feb. 13, 1944) as "an unprecedented step"--a new policy that any student involved in antisemitic acts would not be permitted to graduate. Mr. Haller explained: "I consider such activities totally in contradiction to everything that the America of today or the America which we hope to have tomorrow stands for." Since he, as the principal, was authorized to deny a graduation diploma to any student who gave evidence of "poor American citizenship," he vowed to henceforth classify antisemitic activity as un-American. Noting that he had "counseled with many non-Jewish principals" and found them in agreement with his choice of punishment, Mr. Haller said that as a Protestant and a German-American, "I feel that I have the right and duty to speak out on this issue." Ralph W. Haller faced this issue in 1944, when high school principals in Nazi Germany openly encouraged antisemitism, and in an era in which levels of antisemitism reached their historic high in the United States (with the support of groups such as the German-American Bund). Should a high school principal in New York City in 2004 be any more tolerant of flagrant antisemitic behavior from his students? Cordially,
Rafael Medoff, Ph.D.
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