In 1945, Karl Popper wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies and in it, he articulated the idea of the paradox of tolerance. Simply put, an open society must retain the right to intolerant of intolerant ideas or run the risk of losing its tolerance – it’s openness – to being overrun with intolerant ideas. As he writes:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

Karl Popper – The Open Society and Its Enemies

For all kinds of reasons, I’ve been thinking about Popper a lot lately (both because of the Paradox of Tolerance and his ideas about science vs. pseudo-science, but that’s a separate post) — and I think the ideas of the Paradox of Tolerance have a great deal of import for us as we move forward in our schools. Much like after the 2016 election, schools are seeing an uptick in hate speech and hateful acts as the tenor and tone of our schools mimic the tone of the country at large. And for a school like SLA, which is built on the assumption of the ethic of care, it’s frighteningly easy to lose that sense of community and care if (and when) there is a deliberate attempt to destabilize it.

This winter, after the inauguration, we saw a sudden spate of hate graffiti on the walls in a few bathrooms. Kids did an incredible job of reporting it right away, and our custodian was wonderful about making sure it was gone as soon as it was reported. But for a period of about a week, we kept seeing it. We did what we could to try to figure out who it was, but as what often happens with bathroom graffiti, proof was hard to come by. And kids were coming into my office asking – if not demanding – what the school was going to do.

And as much as we could figure, the graffiti was being written by a (multi-racial, multi-ethic) group of 9th and 10th grade boys who, whatever their actual beliefs may or may not be, saw this as a chance to disrupt and destabilize. They thought that writing this stuff on the walls and then watching kids react to it was funny. It was, to use the language of the internet, for the lulz.

It short, they saw it as power, their way to assert themselves and make themselves feel big by making others feel unsafe and small. And in that, they were no different than thousands of teenaged boys who are getting seduced by the power of hate speech. But that didn’t make it any less dangerous to our school community.

So what could we do?

We did what you can imagine — we confronted the kids who we thought were responsible, and while we couldn’t really do much without proof, we could let them know what would happen should we find proof. We talked to their parents and let them know our suspicions, and we gave parents some tools about how they can talk to their kids about their actions. That’s the individual work, and I think that matters, because we cannot give up on a generation of young (mostly) men who are trying on dangerous and hateful ideas.

But schools can’t just react on an individual level, because everyone is watching. Every kid who wants to feel safe wants to know that schools will keep them safe. Every kid who might find it easier to withdraw and not commit themselves to making school a caring place is wondering how the school will respond. And – like Popper suggests – every kid who might look at the attention and power the kids who were writing the graffiti were getting and think, “Hey, I’d like to feel that kind of power too…” needs to know that the risk / reward that they’d be flirting with just isn’t worth it.

So I wrote this note to our community – and I didn’t pull punches:

Dear SLA families,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter. Over the past several days, we have discovered hateful graffiti targeting (in order of frequency) Jewish students, transgender students, women and African-American students in the stalls of several bathrooms. As of this writing, we have reason to believe these actions are confined to a small group of students who are looking to destabilize and disrupt our school community.

I want to be perfectly clear – that kind of hateful language has no place at Science Leadership Academy, and we will not tolerate it. Moreover, to the students who are doing it – know that what you are doing is an act of cowardice. You’re hiding in a bathroom stall and scrawling hate on a wall because you know that what you are doing and saying would never be tolerated in the light of day. And whatever you think you are accomplishing by doing it, let me assure you that you are not. The students in this building who believe in unity, not division… who believe in acceptance, not hate… are stronger and braver than you can imagine.

We are living in a moment when those who would engage in the language of hate feel emboldened, but I want to be clear – not here. To any student who had to see this graffiti and was shocked and disappointed, know that I share your feelings. And to everyone at SLA who values our community and the diversity it represents, let us all remember how these values must be fought for and never taken for granted.

– Mr. Lehmann

I think, sometimes, schools shy away from really strong language because they are afraid of the blowback. (And yes, someone above me read it before I sent it.) But parent email responses were 100% positive. Parents were relieved to know that their children were going to a school where hate speech would not be tolerated. And while sure, Philadelphia’s political alignment may not be indicative of the nation’s, I was still worried that writing a note that was – essentially – calling out students publicly was walking a bit of a tightrope. But for me, writing a “thoughts and prayers” email would have been emboldened those who were writing the graffiti and chilling to those who felt targeted by it, and not acknowledging it would have been even worse. Hatred, after all, thrives under the veil (or hood) of anonymity. And I couldn’t let that happen, so I wrote and sent the email.

And here’s the funny thing — the graffiti stopped. I’m not naive enough to think it’s gone for good or that we won’t have have to confront hate speech ever again, but we won that round.

Now I’m not suggesting that emails are the solution to hatred — not by a long shot. But neither is silence. And we have to be unequivocal in how we confront hatred and intolerance. And again, this isn’t all we did. Advisors had long conversations – both in Advisory and 1:1 – about what it means to go to a caring school. Conversations were had with kids who felt unsafe by the graffiti, kids who we suspect had been complicit in writing it, and with kids who may have been more likely to have written it off as a joke. There was hard work done by every adult and a whole lot of student leaders to ensure that every student at SLA understood why this could not happen here, and why every member of our community had to commit to creating an ethical and caring school community. It’s really hard work, but it might be the most important work we do, because without it, I don’t know how kids feel safe to learn in our schools.

And if the current climate tells us anything, I think this is going to get worse before it gets better. As school leaders, we’re going to have to have the courage and wisdom to combat intolerance and hate speech in our schools where ever and whenever we find it. And on some level, anonymous graffiti might be one of the easiest problems we have to confront. There are — and will continue to be — attempts to expand the window of discourse to include ideas that call into question the humanity of some of our students and attempts to restrict that same window to preclude ideas that teach us about our shared humanity. And how we handle that — especially in the face of the political pressure we are seeing placed on school administrators — will challenge us in ways I can barely conceive of right now.

This won’t be easy, and teachers and principals are being asked to walk a narrower and narrower tightrope as we strive to create schools where every child feels safe and cared for. But as we consider how we should act in the face of a less tolerant, less kind, less caring nation, let’s remember Karl Popper’s ideal, and remember kind is not a synonym for nice, that understanding does not mean permissive, and the only way to build and maintain a caring school is to be unshakable in our intolerance of intolerance.