A group of activists and City Council members yesterday blamed the Department of Education for an alleged hate crime at a Queens high school, citing a pattern of "turning a blind eye" to discrimination.
The latest case — a bathroom scrap that the Queens district attorney said ended with a 17-year-old Pakistani cutting his Sikh classmate's hair — should serve as a wakeup call, the group said. "The department is as guilty as those two boys in that bathroom," City Council Member John Liu said. "Heads have to roll."
A department spokeswoman, Dina Paul Parks, defended Newtown High School's handling of the incident, saying the school had no record of prior complaints from the alleged victim, Vacher Harpal. A Sikh community group, the Sikh Coalition, said Mr. Harpal wrote five complaints but did not receive a reply.
The executive director of a group that does youth programming in Queens, South Asian Youth Action, Annetta Seecharran, said complaints from Sikh students are typical. A survey released yesterday by the Sikh Coalition found that more than 77% of Sikh boys in Queens schools have been harassed about their faith.
Ms. Seecharran said she has been contacting Newtown administrators with offers to do tolerance work for six years but has been repeatedly refused, though her group volunteered to cover all costs.
Tolerance programs and enforcement of a 2004 city law intended to track school bullying are at the top of Mr. Liu's list of requests. The 2004 law requires the department to keep a list of all reported bullying and harassment complaints. But Mayor Bloomberg has refused to enforce the law, calling it a poor use of resources and illegal because it conflicts with state law.
In a letter yesterday, Mr. Liu and eight council members urged the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, to meet with Sikh leaders. Ms. Parks said Mr. Klein would attend such a meeting.
