2007
MARCH’S
KEY TO CHARACTER
Definitions
Elementary:
Secondary:
Toleration in Action
Willingness to accept behavior and
beliefs which are different from your
own.
The ability to be fair towards and
accepting of other people’s differences,
especially their religious and political
beliefs or opinions.
Related Words
tolerate
intolerance
violence
diversity
compromise
feelings
self-esteem
racism
prejudice
bully
stereotype
culture
A tolerant person:
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keeps an open mind.
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tries to understand others who are different.
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can agree to disagree when cultural practices of someone
else conflicts with their own.
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is patient with those who do not understand.
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is not violent and never injures another person.
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is kind, even if others are not.
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is not led by peer pressure.
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does not tell hurtful jokes.
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includes newcomers and those less skillful in their groups.
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treats others as he or she would want to be treated.
Websites
The following websites have many activities and additional stories that are helpful in teaching tolerance:
www.diversitycouncilors/eActivities.shtml – This site has pre-school and early elementary multi-cultural lesson plans and
links to other sites to spotlight selected special activities. There are many more, but some examples are:
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The Sneetches – A simulation to help students stand up against discrimination.
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Arthur’s World Neighborhood – The focus is on grades 2 and 3 but activities can easily be adapted to older or younger
students.
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Why Frogs and Snakes Never Play Together – An easy to produce play with a focus on prejudice.
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Making Cents of Privilege – An activity Exchange for grades 3-5 that helps students understand socio-economic
issues.
•
Everyone is Different – Three lessons for Kindergarten using puppets to demonstrate that differences (such as
disabilities) can be okay.
•
Anti-bullying Activities – A bullying survey for early grades and a quiz for upper grades decrease instances of bullying.
•
Family Ties and Fabric Tales – Explores family roots and immigration.
www.tolerance.org/teach/activities/activity.jsp?ar=499 – Includes activities that teach social skills and respect using
storybooks and art.
www.educationworld.com – A March coloring page and word search is available.
www.mixitup.org – A free copy of the Mix It Up Handbook, which has great ideas and activities to get students in a school
or class relating better to one another, is available. Mix It Up at lunch is a popular activity.
A Chinese Proverb
TOLERANCE
“If there is right in the soul,
there will be beauty in the person;
if there is beauty in the person,
there will be harmony in the home;
if there is harmony in the home,
there will be peace in the world.”
WAYS TO FIGHT HATE AND SHOW TOLERANCE
Parent
Connection
Give Your Child Tools for Tolerance
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Invite someone of a different background to join
your family for a meal or holiday.
Give a multicultural doll, toy or game as a gift.
Assess the cultural diversity reflected in your home’s
artwork, music and literature. Add something new.
Don’t buy playthings that promote or glorify violence.
Establish a high “comfort level” for open dialogue
about social issues. Let children know that no
subject is taboo.
Bookmark equity and diversity websites on your
home computer.
Point out stereotypes and cultural misinformation
depicted in movies, TV shows, computer games and
other media.
Take the family to an ethnic restaurant. Learn about
more than just the food.
Involve all members of the family in selecting
organizations to support with charitable gifts.
Gather information about local volunteer
opportunities and let your children select projects
for family participation.
Play “action hero” with your children. Are the heroes
all aggressive males? Help your children see the
heroic qualities in those whose contributions often
go unrecognized (e.g., nurses, bridge builders,
volunteers in homeless shelters).
Affirm your children’s curiosity about race and
ethnicity. Point out that people come in many shades.
Help young children make an illustrated list of what
friends do or what friendship means.
Read books with multicultural and tolerance themes
to your children.
Watch what you say in front of children when you’re
angry. Curb your road rage.
Watch how you handle emotional issues with girls
and boys. Do you attempt to distract crying boys
but reassure crying girls?
Examine the “diversity profile” for your children’s
friends. Expand the circle by helping your children
develop new relationships.
Enroll your children in schools, daycare centers,
after-school programs and camps that reflect and
celebrate differences.
Participate in a Big Brother or Big Sister program.
Live in an integrated and economically diverse
neighborhood.
Talk with students about the stigma of mental
illness.
Talk with students about aging adults and
sometimes how they are stereotyped and looked
upon negatively by others, simply because they are
aging.
Talk with students about women’s rights.
Talk with students about how language diversity is
to be appreciated not mocked.
Talk with students and offer tips for choosing
Halloween costumes that don’t promote negative
stereotypes.
Source: tolerance.org
SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA:
Every hour... someone commits a hate crime.
Every day... at least eight blacks, three whites, three gays, three
Jews and one Latino become hate crime victims.
Every week... a cross is burned.
Hate in America is a dreadful, daily constant. The dragging death
of a black man in Jasper, Texas; the crucifixion of a gay man in
Laramie, Wyo.; and post-9.11 hate crimes against hundreds of
Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and Sikhs are not “isolated
incidents.” They are eruptions of a nation’s intolerance.
Bias is a human condition, and American history is rife with
prejudice against groups and individuals because of their race,
religion, disability, sexual orientation or other differences. The
20th century saw major progress in outlawing discrimination,
and most Americans today support integrated schools and
neighborhoods. But stereotypes and unequal treatment persist,
an atmosphere often exploited by hate groups.
When bias motivates an unlawful act, it is considered a hate
crime. Race and religion inspire most hate crimes, but hate today
wears many faces. Bias incidents (eruptions of hate where no
crime is committed) also tear communities apart — and threaten
to escalate into actual crimes.
According to FBI statistics, the greatest growth in hate
crimes in recent years is against Asian Americans and the
gay and lesbian community. Once considered a Southern
phenomenon, today most hate crimes are reported in the
North and West.
These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. Law enforcement
officials acknowledge that hate crimes — similar to rape and
family violence crimes — go under-reported, with many victims
reluctant to go to the police, and some police agencies not fully
trained in recognizing or investigating hate crimes.
The good news is...
All over the country people are fighting hate, standing up to
promote tolerance and inclusion. More often than not, when
hate flares up, good people rise up against it — often in greater
numbers and with stronger voices.
Our experience shows that one person, acting from conscience
and love, is able to neutralize bigotry. Imagine, then, what an
entire community, working together, might do.
www.tolerance.org/10
FCAT Writing Prompts
Ask students to think about the situation, and then write the
assigned number of paragraphs.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Have you observed people making fun of someone who looks
or acts differently? What was your reaction? Describe the
event or persuade them to apologize.
Describe a time when you felt excluded from a group.
Everyone loves a good joke until it hurts someone’s feelings
or is targeted at them. Write about a time when a joke was
not “funny”.
Discuss hate crimes. Write about the cause of hate crimes
and what we, individually or as a society, can do about them.
Have you ever been a part of a group that rejected others?
Was it due to academic ability, athletic ability, beliefs,
ethnicity, family income, gender, hobbies, home
neighborhood, language, or personal appearance? Write
about your feelings and the reaction of the person that was
rejected. How could you have acted differently?
Teacher’s Corner
LESSON PLAN... Grade Level: K-12
Content Area: Social Studies
Getting To Know Each Other...
Tolerance Activity for Grades K-3
Learning Objective: Students will be able to experience first hand
racial indifference.
The game centers on a question: “Could you
be friends with someone who...?”
Lesson Title: Cultural Acceptance / Tolerance
Options include: Could you be friends with someone who is
older than you? Could you be friends with someone who
lies? Could you be friends with someone who is in jail? Could
you be friends with someone who has different colored hair?
Could you be friends with a bully? Could you be friends
with...?
Summary: Randomly select 4-5 students in the room that are in
similar clothing. Put these students in one area of the room,
like computer area, and let them do whatever they like for 5
minutes or so. Give the remainder of the class a huge
assignment. Watch and observe how students react. This could
lead to a class discussion on how minorities are treated.
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/sst/sst66.txt
LESSON PLAN... Any Grade Level
Learning Objective: Students will be able to experience fairness.
Lesson Title: That’s Not Fair! / Tolerance
Art
Provide half the class with cover stock, a good box of crayons
and quality scissors. Give the other half of the class notebook
paper, poor quality scissors and one crayon each. Have students
cut out and design any realistic item to create a realistic object.
Repeat the activity swapping resources so all students get to
experience the activity with low-quality and high-quality
resources. Display the artwork. Quickly go around the room
asking the students to respond to the following questions
(response should be optional).
After hearing each question, students go to a designated
spot in the room. If they answer “no,” for example, they go
to the left. If they answer “yes,” they go to the right. If they
aren’t sure, they stay in the middle of the room. I make it
clear from the outset that there are no right or wrong answers
and that they can move to a new spot if the discussion
prompts them to change their mind.
The 3rd-graders answered the jail question in a particularly
intriguing way because they wanted to know why the person
was in jail; in their minds, a tax-evader was a better option
for a friend than someone who committed a violent crime.
Since they judged violence so harshly, this activity served
as a beautiful illustration of the Golden Rule, which
challenges us to treat others the way we want to be treated.
After the discussion, we recite a poem together, often with
special hand motions:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
You gotta give it, to get it,
Yeah, that’s the key!
We live by the Golden Rule, you see,
At Westwood Elementary.
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Did the scissors, paper and crayons make a difference in
the activity?
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Which person’s art do you like better?
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How did you feel when you were trying to complete the
project using notebook paper, one crayon and scissors that
didn’t work well?
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Is it fair for some students to have better materials than
others?
Last of all, I give each student a gold-colored bracelet
embossed with the word “Respect” to remind them to respect
differences and live by the Golden Rule. After the lesson,
one 1st-grader made it a point to tell me he was “wearing
the Golden Rule.”
Discussion Extension: Facilitate a discussion about the ways
inequality of resources affect student achievement.
(You can reinforce this activity by placing the poem on the
“Bulletin Board” and reciting it everyday.)
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What if my school had brand-new books every year and your
school got my used books? Is that fair? Why?
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What if my school gave your sports team our old used
uniforms every year and we got brand new ones?
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What if my school had lots of balls to play with at recess
and your school had none?
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What if my school had teachers that won awards for teaching
and had taught for years and your school had new teachers
who had never taught before? Would that be fair?
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What if my school had a library with thousands of new books
and your school had a library with just a few old worn out
books? Would that be fair?
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What if my school had a computer center in each classroom
with five new computers and your school’s classrooms didn’t
have any computers?
Variations
Quality and size of paintbrushes, magic markers and other
materials can be used for a variety of activities to model the
importance of adequate and equal resources to support equal
achievement.
Students can be asked to research and write a report. Let some
students use the Internet and have others rely on outdated
books.
Activity by Rhonda Thomason…www.tolerance.org
Barbara Gruener, counselor
Westwood Elementary School
Friendswood, TX... Tolerance.org
BULLETIN BOARD IDEAS FOR THE CLASSROOM
Place the title, “Celebrate Our Differences” in the center
of the bulletin board. Surround the edges with inflated
balloons to create an atmosphere of celebration. From
magazines or pictures of students at the school sprinkle
pictures that show a variety of cultures, genders, and
disabilities.
Place the title, “What do you do?” in the center of a bulletin
board. Ask students to bring in pictures of a nurse, doctor,
mechanic, model, police officer, dancer, elderly person, very
young person, etc. Collect pictures that are in conflict with
usual stereotypes of those positions. Guide students in
comparing pictures and choosing those to label and place
on the board as you discuss stereotypes.
Place pictures of each of the animals in the story “The Ram
and the Pig Who Set Up House” around a house in the center
of a bulletin board. Have students brainstorm together as a
class to create a title after reading the story, or you could
use the title “Different Strokes for Different Folks,” or
“Working Together Gets It Done.”
The Ram and the Pig Who Set Up House
Once upon a time there was a ram who was stuffed and crammed
day after day with everything that tasted yummy. So this happy
life went on. One morning, the dairymaid came into the ram’s
pen. She gave the ram even more food than usual and said, “Eat
hearty, ram, you won’t be here much longer. The next time I
see you it will be on our dinner plates tomorrow.”
What could the ram do? He ate till he could eat no
more. Then after the dairymaid left, he butted out the door of
the pen and went directly to the neighboring farm. That’s where
a pig lived whom he had been best friends with for years.
“Good day, friend pig!” said the ram, at his friend’s
pigsty.
“And a good day to you, too!” said the pig.
“I just learned,” said the ram, “why it is we are so well
fed. Do you know the reason?”
“No, I do not,” said the pig.
The ram leaned forward. “They fatten us because they
mean to kill us and eat us.”
“No, really?” said the pig.
“I heard it from the dairymaid myself, this very
morning,” said the ram. “Listen to me. Here’s what we can do.
We’ll go off to the wood, build us a house, and set up for
ourselves.”
“Yes!” The pig was willing enough. And so the two of
them set off.
When they had gone a bit they met a goose.
“Good day, good sirs,” said the goose, “whither are the
two of you bound?”
“Good day, and the same to you,” said the ram. “If you
must know, we learned the terrible truth about why we’ve been
so well fed at home, and so we are going to set up for ourselves
in the wood.”
“Well!” said the goose, “it’s much the same with me
wherever I am. May I go with you too?”
“We’re not sure,” said the pig. “Let us know what you
can do to help us. With gossip and gabble is built neither house
nor stable.”
“I am an expert plucker and stuffer,” said the goose
with pride. “I can pluck moss and stuff it into the seams of the
planks, and your house will be tight and warm.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s so!” And the ram and the
pig let the goose join. Above all things, piggy wished to be
warm and comfortable in their new house.
When they had gone a bit farther — it was hard work
for a goose to walk as fast as a ram and a pig — they met a
hare, who came frisking out of the wood.
“Good day, good sirs,” she said, “where are you three
gentlemen trotting off to today?”
“Good day to you, friend hare,” said the ram. “We were
far too well fed at home, and now we know the terrible reason
why. So we’re going to the wood to build us a house and set up
for ourselves.”
“Is that right?” said the hare. “You know, in the summer
I have a house in every bush. Still, I have often said in winter, ‘If
I only live till summer, I’ll build me a proper house.’ And so I
have half a mind to go with you and build one up, after all.”
“Well, we don’t expect you could help us in house
building,” said the pig doubtfully, “though I suppose if we ever
get into a scrape, we might use you to distract the dogs.”
“Why, I have teeth to gnaw pegs,” said the hare, “and
paws to drive them into the wall. So I can very well set up to be
a carpenter, for ‘good tools make good work.’”
“So they do!” And the hare, too, joined them, and there
was nothing more to be said about that.
When they had gone a bit farther they met a rooster.
“Good day to you all,” said the rooster. “Whither are ye
going today in such fine spirits?”
“Good day, and the same to you,” said the ram. “At
home we were all too well fed, and now we know the terrible
reason why. So we are going off to the wood to build us a house
and set up for ourselves.”
“Well!” said the rooster, “what a capital idea! Certainly
it’s better to sit on one’s own perch, for then one will not be
left in the lurch. Besides, all cocks crow loudest at home. Now,
if I might join such a gallant company as yours, I also would
like to go to the wood and build a house.”
“Ay! ay!” said the pig, “but a jaw on a stick never yet
laid a brick. How can you help us to build a house?”
“Oh!” said the rooster. “That house will never have a
clock, where there is neither dog nor cock. I am up early, and
so I’ll wake everyone.”
“Very true,” said the pig, “let him come with us.” For
you must know, piggy was always the soundest sleeper. “Sleep
is nothing but a big thief,” he thought, “who thinks nothing of
stealing half one’s life.”
So they all set off to the wood, a gallant band they
were, and together they built the house. The pig cut the timber
and the sheep drew it home; the hare was carpenter and gnawed
pegs and bolts, and hammered them into the walls and roof;
the goose plucked moss and stuffed it into the seams; the
rooster crowed and looked out that they did not oversleep in
the morning, and when the house was ready, and the roof lined
with birchbark, and thatched with grass and sod, there they
lived by themselves, and were happy and well. Said the ram,
“’Tis good to travel east and west, but after all, one’s own home
is best.”
You must know that a bit farther on in the wood there
was a wolf’s den, and inside the den there lived two grayleg
wolves. So when those two wolves saw that a new house had
risen up nearby, they were curious what sort of folk their
neighbors were, and they licked their chops just thinking about
it.
So one of the wolves made up an errand, and went
into the new house and asked for a light for his pipe. But as
soon as he got inside the door, the sheep gave him such a butt
toward the stove that he fell head first into it. Then the pig
began to bite him, the goose to peck him, the rooster to crow
and chatter; and as for the hare, she scampered about on the
floor and scratched and scrambled in every corner of the house.
The wolf rushed out of the house.
“Well!” said his companion who had waited for him
outside. “What became of the light, for you have neither pipe
nor smoke.”
“I am grateful to still be one piece!” panted the wolf.
“The most terrible creatures you can imagine live in that house!
As soon as I got inside the door, one of them threw me into
the fire. There sat two monsters who beat me and pinched me
with tongs. There must have been a hunter there, too, for I
heard him scrambling about looking for his gun, and it was
my good luck he didn't find it. All the while there was another
fellow who sat up under the roof and slapped his arms and
I’m sure he sang out, ‘Put a hook into him, and drag him hither,
drag him hither!’ That was what he screamed, and if he had
only got hold of me, I’m sure I never would have come out
alive.”
Source: Planet Tolerance
Discussion questions:
1.
How did the differences of each animal help the whole
group?
2.
Why did the ram and the pig ask the other animals how
they could help to build a house before they allowed them
to join the group?
3.
Talk about something you did in a group that you couldn't
accomplish by yourself.
S
t
Reading
Lis
gested
g
u
Preschool
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes - When a mouse with an unusual name begins
kindergarten, the class learns that “different” can be beautiful.
People by Peter Spier - Spectacular drawings and simple text celebrate the richness
and excitement of a diverse planet.
Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra L. Pinkney Photographs and whimsical metaphors showcase the beauty of different skin
tones.
The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss - Seuss spotlights the silliness of
prejudice and fear of the unfamiliar.
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon - A baby bat with a bird “mother” tries to fit in while
preserving her true nature.
Two Eyes, a Nose, and a Mouth by Roberta Grobel Intrater - Rhyming text and
photos emphasize the similarities and differences of people's facial features.
Yo? Yes! by Chris Raschka - Two boys — one black and one white — explore the
joys and insecurities of conversation as they learn to connect and communicate.
Early Elementary
Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman - An African-American grade-schooler longs
to play Peter Pan in the school play, but has to prove a black girl is right for the
role.
How My Parent’s Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman - An American sailor and
his Japanese girlfriend try to learn each other’s eating style in secret.
Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni - Friends of different colors bring
their families together in an abstract look at the way hues blend.
Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen - A Russian immigrant teaches her classmates
the true meaning of “pilgrim.”
Sitti’s Secrets by Naomi Shihab Nye - Despite national and language barriers, a
girl shares a strong bond with her Palestinian grandmother.
Wings by Christopher Myers - A boy who’s “different” finds the courage to be
true to himself and others.
Upper Elementary
The Big Book for Peace by Various Award-Winning Authors - A collection of
writing and art that explores peace, war, and conflict resolution across the globe.
Children, Just Like Me by Susan Elizabeth Copsey, et al - Photographs and
stories depict the daily lives of children around the world.
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan - Displaced from a life of privilege to one
of poverty, an adolescent discovers respect for herself and others.
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Lord - A 1940’s Chinese
immigrant connects with her new country and classroom through baseball and
the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli - A boy with an extraordinary talent transcends
racism in his segregated community.
Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges - Photos, quotes, and her own words describe
Ruby Bridges’ integration experience.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare - A 1687 Puritan girl
risks becoming an outcast in order to help her Quaker friend.
Secondary
Everywhere by Bruce Brooks - Two boys of different races join together to try to
help one’s grandfather recover.
The Journey: Japanese Americans, Racism, and Renewal by Sheila Hamanaka
- A retrospective exploring the intolerance in America during WWII.
My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl by
Ann Rinaldi - Forced to assimilate into the “white” world, a Native American girl
tries to preserve her past.
Samir and Yonatan by Daniella Carmi - A Jewish teen forges an unlikely friendship
with a Palestinian and fellow patient in an Israeli hospital ward.
The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle
East by Naomi Shihab Nye, ed. - Over 100 Middle-Eastern artists explore life,
love, war, and peace across their homelands.
Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman - When a young girl plants lima beans in a deserted
lot, she grows a sense of community in her multi-ethnic neighborhood.
Witness by Karen Hesse - Sixteen different characters offer their points of view
to racial crisis in a 1924 Vermont town.
Sunshine State Standards
PreK-2:
HE.A.1.1 Understands positive health behaviors that
enhance wellness
HE.B.1.1 Knows positive ways to handle anger.
HE.B.2.1 Knows and accepts differences of people with
special health needs
HE.B.3.1 Knows the skills needed to be a responsible
friend and family member
Knows how to use positive communication
skills when expressing needs, wants, and
feelings
Knows various ways of communicating care
and consideration of others
HE.C.2.1 Works with one or more people toward a
common goal
Grades 3-5:
HE.B.1.2 Compares behaviors that are safe to those
that are risky or harmful
HE.B.3.2 Knows the skills needed to be a responsible
friend and family member
Knows various ways to communicate care,
consideration, and acceptance of self and
others
Exhibits attentive listening skills to enhance
interpersonal communication
HE.C.1.2 Knows how to make progress toward
achieving a personal goal
Grades 6-8:
HE.B.1.3 Knows the importance of assuming
responsibility for personal health behaviors
Understands the short-term and long-term
consequences of safe, risky, and harmful
behaviors
HE.B.2.3 Identifies aspects in one’s own culture and
in the cultures of others that may have an
impact on health and the use of health
services
Understands emotional and social health risks
caused by prejudice in the community
HE.B.3.3 Knows effective verbal and nonverbal
communication skills
Knows various ways to communicate care,
consideration, and acceptance of self and
others
HE.C.1.3 Understands the various consequences of
health related decisions
HE.C.2.3 Knows ways to effectively express feelings
and opinions on health issues
Knows ways to work cooperatively with others
to advocate for healthy individuals, schools,
and family
Grades 9-12:
HE.A.1.4 Understands the relationships among
physical, mental, emotional, and social health
throughout adulthood
HE.B.1.4 Knows strategies for managing stress
HE.B.2.4 Understands the impact of technology on
personal, family, and community health
Knows how ethnic and cultural diversity both
enrich and challenge healthy living
HE.B.3.4 Understands the relationship between verbal
and nonverbal communication
Knows positive strategies for expressing
needs, wants, and feelings
HE.C.2.4 Knows methods for effectively expressing
feelings and opinions on health issues
Tolerance Quotes
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
“The ability to be fair towards
and accepting of other
people's religious, political,
beliefs or opinions.”
~The Pilgrim’s Quotes
“The highest result of
education is tolerance.”
~Helen Keller
“The capacity for getting along with our
neighbor depends to a large extent on the
capacity for getting along with ourselves.
The self-respecting individual will try to be
as tolerant of his neighbor’s short-comings
as he is of his own.”
~Eric Hoffer
“Toleration is good for all, or it
is good for none.”
~Edmund Burke
“Stay committed to your
decisions, but stay flexible in
your approach.”
~Tom Robbins
“Tolerance is giving to every
other human being every
right that you claim for
yourself.”
~Robert Green Ingersoll
“Tolerance implies no lack of
commitment to one's own
beliefs. Rather it condemns
the oppression or persecution
of others.”
~John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Tolerance is the oil that
takes the friction out of life.”
~Wilbert E. Scheer
“Laws alone can not
secure freedom of expression; in order that every
man presents his views
without penalty there
must be spirit of
tolerance in the entire
population.”
~Albert Einstein
“Travel teaches tolerance.”
~Benjamin Disraeli
“Human diversity makes
tolerance more than a
virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.”
~René Dubos
“Tolerance is held to be
a condition of mind
which is encouraged by,
and is necessary for,
civilization.”
~Arthur Keith
“There is so much good in the worst of us,
and so much bad in the best of us, that it
behooves all of us not to talk about the
rest of us.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson
“When you find peace within yourself, you
become the kind of person who can live at
peace with others.”
~Pilgrim’s Peace Project
“The test of courage comes when we are
in the minority. The test of tolerance comes
when we are in the majority.”
~Ralph W. Sockman
“The problem to be faced is: how to
combine loyalty to one's own tradition with
reverence for different traditions.”
~Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Yes, respect is a two-way street
and, when given, we will return
respect for respect, tolerance
for tolerance, acceptance for
acceptance.”
~Theodore Bikel
“What is tolerance? It is the
consequence of humanity. We
are all formed of frailty and
error; let us pardon reciprocally
each other’s folly - that is the
first law of nature.”
~Voltaire
“You are not angry with people
when you laugh at them. Humor
teaches tolerance.”
~W. Somerset Maugham
“A compliment is verbal
sunshine.”
~Robert Orben
Louis Brandeis (an excerpt from “The People’s Attorney”)
On January 28, 1916 the senators waited expectantly as a
clerk stood to read President Woodrow Wilson’s nomination
for the next justice of the United States Supreme Court. When
they heard the name, the men gasped. Louis Brandeis!
Everyone knew that the famed Boston attorney was a liberal many even said a radical. Besides that, Brandeis was Jewish.
No Jew had ever served on the Supreme Court before, and
some deeply prejudiced people thought no Jew ever should.
Brandeis would need the Senate’s approval before he could
be appointed by the President, however. As the Senate, the
press and the public debated whether or not he was right for
the job, Brandeis felt the sting of anti-Semitism. Some
objectors said that his Jewish heritage should “bar him from
the temple of law.” As one opponent of the nomination said,
“[Brandeis] is a Hebrew, and therefore some of his ideas might
not be the same as those of a man possessing an Anglo Saxon
mind.”
Brandeis believed that big companies were too powerful, and
too greedy. He also thought that they exploited workers and
consumers. Furthermore, Brandeis noticed that big companies
had the money to hire the most talented lawyers to defend
their practices and protect their interests. But who would stand
up for the public’s interests? Who would be an advocate for
those who didn’t have wealth or power? Early in his legal
career, Brandeis had decided that he would stand up for them
by becoming a lawyer; Brandeis was following in the footsteps
of his favorite uncle, Lewis Dembitz. “To me nothing else
really seemed worth while,” Brandeis said of his career choice.
He attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1887 with
the highest grades in his class. Soon after, Brandeis set up a
legal practice in Boston, where he took on many cases
defending the public’s rights. He fought against unfair price
increases that monopolies forced on consumers. He fought
for a minimum wage and shorter hours for laborers, as well as
their right to unionize. His work on behalf of everyday citizens
earned Brandeis the nickname “the people's attorney.”
Of course, Brandeis’ views about what he called “the curse of
bigness” didn’t win him any friends among the nation’s
corporate elite. Business and financial leaders spoke out
against Brandeis after his nomination, but he had his
supporters, too. “The real crime of which this man is guilty is
that he has exposed the iniquities of men in high places in
our financial system,” said Sen. Thomas J. Walsh of Montana.
“He has not stood in awe of the majesty of wealth.”
Some people criticized Brandeis for his politics. Others took
issue with his religious heritage and his participation in the
Zionist movement. However, no one could question Brandeis’
professional qualifications. Brandeis had practiced law for
nearly 40 years. At the time of his Supreme Court nomination,
some considered him to be the greatest lawyer in the nation.
He was known for his quick mind and astonishing memory. A
colleague of his once joked that Brandeis must weigh a ton
because he was so full of facts and statistics.
The debate over the Brandeis nomination dragged on for five
months. Finally, on June 1, 1916, the Senate voted on, and
approved, President Wilson’s nominee. Just four days later,
Louis Brandeis was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court. He was the first Jew - and some would argue
the first liberal - to be appointed to the nation’s highest court.
Source: Planet Tolerance – Written by Maria Fleming
For Discussion:
1. Why was the appointment of Brandeis a historic occasion?
2. Were the concerns some people had about his appointment
fair or prejudicial?
3. Do politicians today face discrimination?