SHS students bolster human rights infrastructure
SANDPOINT — The human rights movement has driven its taproot even deeper into Bonner County, thanks to a group of high school students who have stepped up to take a stand.
Formed in January of 2013, the Sandpoint High School Human Rights Club already has made a difference, according to club founder and president Erik Bruhjell.
“The club has impacted the school in a positive way, because it discourages the problems that can happen,” he said.
Beyond raising awareness, the human rights club has affected change in student attitudes, Bruhjell explained. Part of the reason might be because the members actively work to enforce school policies on bullying and act as a bridge between the school and local law enforcement agencies to ensure that accountability doesn’t end at the school doors.
“We’re the sole entity that monitors both in-school and out-of-school bullying,” the club founder said.
It’s an important responsibility, especially since technology now has added a darker, more invasive face to what once was thought of as simply a schoolyard rite of passage. These days, what might get lumped into the category of bullying could, in fact, transcend the definition of hate crime.
“An aggressive situation like that was the reason this club was formed,” said Bruhjell, adding that the offense involved a student intruder who barged into a home at night and physically attacked another student.
School administrators would have little or no ability to prosecute such an attack. A club that had strong community connections, however, could do so.
Reactions to the club have run from positive to negative, with some parents asking whether the club itself might be a vehicle for belief system bullying.
“Some people think there’s a fine line between bullying and bullying other people because of their point of view,” said Bruhjell, who engaged in this very debate with a few concerned parents who met with him at the high school. “I told them that an important aspect of our club is to talk through things and find a common ground. Overall, that protects the most people’s rights.”
The spirit of lively debate and compromise has found a home in the club this year. Unlike 2013, the group has had no diversity related situations to face down in the current school year. They did, however, become involved when a group of self-proclaimed “abolitionists” parked itself at the street entrance to both SHS and Sandpoint Middle School every morning to greet pupils with grisly anti-abortion placards.
Bruhjell said the club members were in support of the group’s right to assemble and picket, but took the position that, while the blood-soaked photos on the signs might be considered marginally age-appropriate for high school students, thrusting them in the face of 12- and 13-year-olds was inappropriate. With that in mind, the club asked the picketers if they would move a few feet down the street, where older students would still be impacted, but youngsters might be spared the gore.
The “abolitionists” rejected the overture and insisted on their right to confront pre-teens with their message on their way to school.
As the situation played out, the human rights club — whose membership included students who agreed with the picketers’ anti-abortion views — came down on the side of the group’s right to express their opinion openly.
“There was one faction of the club that wanted to go out and protest the protestors,” said Bruhjell. “But we ended up supporting their right to free speech.
“Freedom of speech,” he went on, “is probably the human right we have had to deal with most as a club.”
In that same light, the club recently joined the fray with the Sandpoint Vegetarians and other state organizations in their legal battle to overturn Idaho’s “Ag-Gag” legislation that was signed into law by the governor in late February. The new law would prosecute whistle blowers who secretly film animal abuse at the state’s agricultural facilities, hitting them with fines and jail time for doing so.
According to Bruhjell, the way in which the law clamps down on free speech has drawn some powerful adversaries to the issue.
“It’s not just ‘those radical vegetarians’ who are concerned about this,” he said. “The ACLU Idaho has also gotten involved with this lawsuit, because it’s not just an animal rights issue, it’s now a human rights issue.”
Bonner County’s entry into the human rights movement began in earnest in the early 1990s, when several hundred community members met to take part in the successful effort to push back against white supremacists’ attempts to create what they called a “white homeland” in parts of North Idaho. Having consistently helped out when race-related rights issues arose, groups such as the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force and the Foundation for Human Rights Action & Advocacy more recently added their support for protection against intimidation and harassment associated with religion, gender and sexual orientation.
Reaching young people became a primary goal for such organizations and, when the SHS club was formed, it was seen as another positive step in the right direction.“We were thrilled,” said Laura Bry, a FHRAA board member and longtime human rights advocate. “We keep hearing from students that they don’t feel they’re learning enough about human rights. Something like this gives them an opportunity to affect how things happen at school and in the larger community. And that’s good for democracy.
“It doesn’t matter how many groups we form outside of the schools,” she added. “In the end, creating a culture of justice and respect among students really has to come from them.”
Bruhjell, a senior at SHS, said it has been a challenge to attract younger students to the club, since they are more likely to gravitate toward options that have a decidedly higher fun factor than protecting human rights. Still, with 15 members from a starting point of only couple of interested individuals, he remains hopeful that the club he founded will carry on after he leaves for college.
“It has been a cool experience for me, because I’ve seen how this all has grown over the past year,” the president said. “It will be interesting to see how many younger students get involved and how the club develops from here.”