Whoever tied the noose and hung it on his door knob was not ignorant of the symbol's meaning.




Unadilla Valley Central School officials have identified two students they believe are responsible for hanging a noose on a counselor's door last week.

School Superintendent Robert Mackey said Wednesday the students are being disciplined, but he would not release any specific information about who the students are or what disciplinary actions were being taken.

"I can tell you that the consequences will match the offensiveness of the act," Mackey said.

The students have not been attending school since they were identified, he said.

The noose tied from clothesline-type rope was found the morning of Feb. 6 on the door of the Liberty Partnership Program counselor's room while school was in session, troopers previously said.

The counselor was identified by the school as Mark Montgomery, who is black. He has been at the school for 11/2 years.

The incident remains under investigation by Norwich state police. Troopers on Wednesday said they were hoping to have closure in the case by Friday, but they would not indicate if that closure would involve criminal charges.

There are no other students involved, Mackey said.

"We are sure that this is it," Mackey said.

Mackey said school staff had heard from other students that the two suspected of hanging the noose may have learned how to tie it by watching a video on YouTube, the popular Internet video-sharing website.

Mackey said he couldn't speculate on a motive.

"We can't answer specifically what was going through the minds of the kids," Mackey said. "Many teenagers really act without ever thinking about the end result.

The school resource officer _ a state trooper _ was a huge help in bringing the incident to a quick resolution, Mackey said.

State police Bureau of Criminal Investigation officers were in the school within a few hours of the noose being found, he said.

Students began coming forward Sunday with information about who hung the noose, and by Tuesday, both students who participated were identified, Mackey said.

School officials are treating this as an isolated incident, he said, but as the school deals with the incident's aftermath, staff will be trying to gauge the depth of any racist sentiment that might exist at the school.

The school is planning an assembly for older elementary, middle and high school students after winter break next week, Mackey said.

Teachers will then "circle the desks" and talk with the students in a classroom setting about issues surrounding race and the noose incident.

"We're working on that phase now," Mackey said.

If there appears to be a need for a longer-term approach to any race or discrimination issues at the school, the district my opt to start an Alternatives to Violence program or participate in a course of study through Project Reach, which focuses on respecting ethnic and cultural heritage, Mackey said.

Ultimately, the noose incident could be an opportunity to educate students, he said.

"Our main goal is to facilitate learning every day," Mackey said.

Montgomery, a resident of Clayville in Oneida County, said Monday night he works with at-risk youth in his role with the Liberty Partnership program, which has a goal of reducing drop-out rates.

"I have sadly been exposed to racism my entire life," Montgomery said, but the hanging of a noose brought it to a new level.

Noose displays have garnered national media attention in recent months.

In late January, a federal grand jury indicted an 18-year-old Louisiana man on hate crime and conspiracy charges for allegedly fashioning nooses with a 16-year-old that were then displayed toward marchers traveling from a civil-rights rally in September.

Earlier in January, the editor of Golfweek magazine was fired for using a noose on the magazine's cover to illustrate coverage of controversy over comments regarding lynching and Tiger Woods made by a Golf Channel broadcaster.

President Bush spoke about the symbolism of the noose during an event Tuesday marking African-American History Month.

"The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice," Bush said. "Displaying one is not a harmless prank. Lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest."

Montgomery said that whoever tied the noose and hung it on his door knob was not ignorant of the symbol's meaning

Some Americans do not understand why the sight of a noose causes such a visceral reaction among so many people. Bush condemns racial provocations.




Honoring African American History Month, he says noose displays and lynching jokes 'have no place in America today.'

WASHINGTON -- Responding to a rash of racial incidents in the last year, President Bush on Tuesday denounced displays of nooses and jokes about lynching, and said that as past racial injustice fades in memory, the nation risked forgetting the suffering it brought.
The president's remarks, at a White House program marking African American History Month, were among his most pointed in recent years on the subject of racial tensions.

They grew out of concern, his spokeswoman said, that even as the nation made progress toward overcoming racial inequality, symbols of past injustice still flared up.

The president's focus on race coincides with the attention being devoted to the role of race in politics, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in contention to be the first African American candidate to receive a major political party's presidential nomination. He is drawing the support of a cross section of voters and is finding a deep well of votes in states with large white populations.

"The era of rampant lynching is a shameful chapter in American history. The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice. Displaying one is not a harmless prank. And lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest," Bush said.

"As a civil society, we must understand that noose displays and lynching jokes are deeply offensive," the president added. "They are wrong. And they have no place in America today."

Bush, who leaves on Friday for his second trip as president to sub-Saharan Africa, saluted four African Americans: Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was a leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s; former Transportation Secretary William T. Coleman Jr., the first black to clerk on the Supreme Court and the first to hold a Cabinet post in a Republican administration; Ernest Green, who with eight other African American students integrated Little Rock, Ark.'s Central High School in 1957; and Otis Williams of The Temptations, the singers who drew fans across racial lines.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, citing news accounts, said there had been more than 70 reports of nooses being displayed since December 2006.

The Justice Department said that the agency, along with state and local officials, had investigated "dozens" of noose displays and other racially motivated threats.

In perhaps the most infamous recent incident, the town of Jena, La., was roiled after three nooses were hung from a tree that had long been a gathering point of white students.

Bush said the reports of such activities had heightened racial tensions and "revealed that some Americans do not understand why the sight of a noose causes such a visceral reaction among so many people."

He noted that for decades it had been a tool of murder and intimidation directed at African Americans, when "summary executions were held by torchlight in front of hateful crowds," with law enforcement officers who were responsible for protecting the victims instead being "complicit in . . . their deaths

Al Sharpton Criticizes '08 Candidates For Weakness on Hate Crimes Law.


WASHINGTON — Civil rights activist Al Sharpton complained on Tuesday that the Democratic presidential candidates have been less than forceful in speaking out about recent hate crimes and the policies of President Bush's Justice Department.

The New York-based reverend was in Washington with Martin Luther King III and other activists to discuss a march next week at the headquarters of the Justice Department, which they contend has taken no serious action to prosecute a spate of recent noose-hanging incidents following the Jena 6 case.

Sharpton said he was upset those issues weren't discussed last month at a debate among the Democratic candidates.

"Hate crimes and racism and Jena never came up one time. Even the Democrats have not, in our judgment, raised their voices to the level they should," said Sharpton, who ran for president in 2004. "Don't come to us for our vote and then not speak about our needs when you're center stage."

Concern about noose-hanging incidents intensified after an uproar in the small town of Jena, La., surrounding three white teens who hung nooses outside a school and six black teens later charged in the beating of a white student. Five of the six were initially charged with attempted murder, but those charges were reduced.

Sharpton and others have criticized the federal government for declining to use existing hate crime laws to prosecute the teens who hung the nooses. Federal prosecutors say they typically do not file such charges against minors. Nooses are a reviled symbol of segregation-era violence.

Justice Department officials say they are aggressively investigating numerous noose-hanging reports around the country. On Tuesday, the march organizers said they knew of no criminal charges filed in any of the recent incidents.