Student efforts muzzle hate speech through education, awareness
West has launched peer-led homeroom presentations aimed directly at addressing hate speech and fostering a stronger sense of community within the student body. The initiative, which transitioned from its conceptualization period to schoolwide implementation in just over a month, represents the start of a new beginning where students are placed at the forefront of serious topics to converse directly with the student body.
The catalyst for the project was a combination of student initiative and data from the fall MySAEBRS (Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener) survey. According to school officials, the category of “student belonging” scored the lowest for West. This data gave rise to senior Micah Troedel, president of the Black Student Union, and senior Madysen Probst to approach the administration with a proposal for a student-driven campaign. Troedel believed action was needed to develop this initiative.
“We saw a window and we felt like we needed to attack that window,” he said. “Just the way the school schedules line up. It was only about a month, maybe a month and a half before the conceptualization happened.”
Principal Rebecca Montour and the rest of administration fully supported the move because peer-to-peer communication often carries more weight than some administrative lecture.
Montour emphasized that students wanted to take ownership.
“They felt like it sets a stronger stance and would hopefully be received well by the students if it was coming from students and not just like administrators talking at them in a homeroom lesson,” she said.
The behind-the-scenes was no less stressful, involving district leadership and other professionals. Student leaders worked with Assistant Superintendent Dr. Sam Coleman and school board member and immigration attorney Molly Smiltneek to refine the content and delivery.
Troedel felt that this brought a necessary degree of seriousness to the initiative.
“We had both a school board member and one of our assistant superintendents come in to help prepare the students,” he said. “We had them go through and present it to the class as if they were the presenters in a class full of students to show the level of professionalism and seriousness with which these topics were going to be taken.”
Senior Henry Bongers, a member of the leadership team, added that research went beyond school walls, looking at global statistics to show students real-world consequences of their words.
“We also worked with not only gaining statistics at our school, but gaining statistics about mental health worldwide to really measure the effects and like cause and effects,” he said. “This is what hate speech does in the moment, but this is what happens after the fact.”
One of the primary goals of using student presenters was to break the habit of disengagement during homeroom towards adult led lectures.
Sophomore Faateha Ahmad, a member of West Leadership, noted that seeing a peer at the front of the room created a different dynamic, even when presenting to older students.
“I presented to three rooms of seniors, and I’m a sophomore,” she said. “I think if something comes from your peer, something comes from your friends, something comes from a fellow student, it’s a lot more pressured than when it comes from an adult.”
However, the experience was not the same for everyone throughout the building.
Junior Genna Williams reported that while many students listened, the level of interactiveness varied and was more of a challenge that teachers had to step in to remind students to “turn and talk” for different portions during the presentations.
“I do feel like it was a bit frustrating with students not necessarily listening to their peers,” she said. “They don’t always think it’s that big of a deal unless it’s an adult saying it, but I think it needs to come from our own peers because they’re affected directly a lot of times.”
Montour believes that the initiative bridges the gap between education and discipline.
"Usually if it’s a first offense and the students do a module in Canvas. From our data, we don’t have a lot of repeat offenders," she said. “But I do think that a lot of times the hate speech that is happening is underreported. I don’t think students are reporting it when they hear it."
Despite the challenges of reporting hate speech, Troedel thinks that student facilitators are already noticing small shifts.
"The biggest piece of feedback that I got was that students are talking about this," he said. "We’re hearing students hear something in the hallway and say, ‘Hey, that’s not cool. Don’t do that.’”
by Uzma Mirza
Published February 9, 2026
Oshkosh West Index Volume 122 Issue IV