San Marin High School - Reputation For Intolerance

Reputation For Intolerance

During the 1990s, San Marin received significant media coverage locally and nationally for the intolerant behavior of some students and parents.

Reports of racial and ethnic intolerance began as early as 1995, when an American-born Asian-American senior at the school was beaten by a group of teenagers shouting racial slurs and telling him to go back to China. The one assailant who took responsibility was sentenced to 20 hours of community service.

In early 1998, a student yelled racial epithets at members of the visiting Tamalpais High School basketball team. In reaction to the slurs and actions committed by the San Marin High student, parents of four of the black students from Tamalpais filed suit against the Novato Unified School District, charging that a "climate of intolerance" was allowed at San Marin. The Marin County Athletic League put San Marin on probation for more than a year, citing its "hostile environment".

In the 1998–99 school year, San Marin received widespread media coverage after repeated incidents of hate crimes committed against one of their openly gay students. He was beaten by three youths off campus on September 15, 1998, soon after forming the Gay-Straight Alliance at San Marin. The Novato Police offered a reward, but the attackers were never identified. Some students at the school, which had been stressing tolerance at a series of "respect days" that year, spoke out in support of the victim and 1000 students and faculty walked out of San Marin to show support for him and pride in their school. The next day, San Marin's principal was reassigned to a District office. Novato's city manager, Rod Wood, referred to "a small group of individuals who are fairly socially maladjusted", who identified themselves as white supremacists and called themselves "the hicks".

The school's behavior code was modified, outlining a range of punishments for racial/ethnic/sexual slurs including reprimand, parental notification, detention on Saturday afternoon, expulsion and police referral.

Misbehavior by parents of San Marin basketball player on February 2, 2008, in two games with Tam High teams led to drafting of the first code-of-conduct contracts for parents of athletes at a Marin County school. Following a girls junior varsity game at Tam, the mother of a San Marin player followed two referees, shouting obscene insults; later, at San Marin, two paren ts of San Marin players confronted Tam's coach after he made a gesture indicating that the home team had choked. Novato police were called and the parents were later asked not to attend the remainin g games of the season. The code of conduct put into place by Principal Robert Vieth models the importance of sportsmanship and respect.