Experience has shown that serious civil rights violations involving teenagers typically have two common denominators. First, where violence occurs, it is usually preceded by months of lower level harassment generally beginning with racial, ethnic, sexual, religious and homophobic slurs. Second, school administrators are often not aware of the earlier harassment because minority victims typically do not pass on the information to the appropriate school personnel. The Civil Rights Team Project attempts to create a structure whereby the culture of intolerance and potential for violence which exists in many of our schools can be changed. The Project also seeks to create a mechanism through which minority students (or the friends of minority students) can alert someone of harassment before it escalates to the level of serious violence.

     The civil rights team at each school consists of three students per grade, plus one or two faculty advisors. The teams attend an orientation program conducted by the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General's Office, and then work throughout the school year to provide education and awareness on issues of bias and prejudice. Additionally, the teams create a mechanism by which students can provide information about harassment directly to team members. The teams have no responsibility with respect to discipline. Rather, when the teams learn of harassment, their responsibility is to pass the information on to the appropriate school or law enforcement authorities.

     The Civil Rights Division also conducts an in-service training for the faculty and administrators of each of the participating schools. The three-hour training program is conducted by a two-person team which includes a staff attorney from the Civil Rights Division and an educator.

     The Civil Rights Team Project has been made possible by a grant from the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Community Grant by the United States Department of Education.