Letter: None of Us Is Safe Until We Are All Safe

I am happy that Amherst has achieved a “perfect” score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Muncipal Equality Index (MEI), thus joining Northampton, Worcester, and other Massachusetts municipalities with similar “perfect” scores. I congratulate the town and recognize that this is achievement results from real commitment on the part of town and community leaders.

At the same time I acknowledge, with others quoted in the recent article in the Indy, that a “perfect” score is an imperfect measure and that partitioning town residents into categories such as LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and myriad other labels creates boundaries where there really are none and that none of us is safe until we are all safe, none of us can feel that we are valued until we feel that all of us are valued, none of us can feel proud of our town until we all can feel proud of our town.

There are many measures beyond those used in the MEI that we should regularly apply to Amherst. The Town Council should fully staff, train, fund and operationalize CRESS; the Police Department should embrace CRESS and insist that its dispatchers are fully trained and know when and how to dispatch CRESS staff in lieu of or in addition to police officers; the Police Department should take pride in those situations which are resolved or defused by CRESS either solely or in connection with other department procedures. This change requires persistence and creativity on the part of Police Department leaders, and patience and support from the rest of us.

Town goals of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are not real until they are subsumed into the goals of every department of Town Hall and every board and committee in town government, whether elected or appointed. I admire the efforts and creativity of our current DEI department but that is barely a first step. When the times arrive for creating budgets, setting goals, and assessing progress DEI goals should be a part of every department’s budget and evaluation.

Finally, our schools. How can so much be wrong with a major town department with so many committed and creative staff? This is too large a question to deal with here, other than to note that the question is wrongly worded. Our schools are not a major town activity; in fact, structurally they are not a town activity at all. At one time regionalization made a lot of sense; In terms of administration, budgeting, and decision-making it no longer does. The animosity between the Amherst Finance Committee and the Amherst School Committee this year is less that six degrees of separation from the Regional School Committee and Central School Office of several years ago whose incapacities and fears led to the sad story of LGBT+ abuse we are still dealing with today.

Michael Greenebaum was Principal of Mark’s Meadow School from 1970 to 1991, and from 1974 taught Organization Studies in the Higher Education Center at the UMass School of Education.  He served in Town Meeting from 1992, was on the first Charter Commission in 1993, and served on several town committees including the Town Commercial Relations Committee and the Long Range Planning Committee.