On Friday, January 17, Outspoken! members attended the Students Together Opposing Prejudice (STOP) Conference at Siena College. STOP is an anti-bias conference sponsored by the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King Lecture Series and is facilitated by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute. This year’s conference focused on intersectionality, specifically how the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender impact individuals or groups of individuals within our communities and schools. Students attending included Liam Buckenroth, Zoey Cahill, Olivia Criscione, Winter Exley, Sadie Owens, Lindsay Tompkins, Sasha Truax.
The students attended workshops alongside other students from 36 other Capital District schools where they completed activities and engaged in discussions around prejudice and intersectionality, and how to address instances of bullying, intolerance and discrimination in their schools. Likewise, counselors and teachers participated in their own groups to recognize biases and discuss how to appropriately and effectively address injustices in both their schools and personal lives. The adults present included school counselor Meghan Evans, school psychologist Tricia White, school psychologist intern Jenna Cupp, and Social Studies teacher Aaron Kanofsky.
Outspoken! will meet in the coming weeks to discuss an action plan on how to combat discriminatory acts within our school and the world around us.