Edina Human Rights Commission Proposes Anti-Bullying Event

The Edina Human Rights & Relations Commission is considering a community-wide event late next spring as part of its year-long effort to combat all forms of bullying.

Commission members Meg Newell and Lisa Finsness brought the idea before their peers during a meeting Tuesday, Nov. 30, saying it would serve as an ideal culmination of the commission's current theme.

The idea came to the pair after viewing the Southern Poverty Law Center's documentary Bullied earlier this month. Watching the film and following it up with several speakers, Newell said, was an experience she and Finsness want to share with the Edina community.

Newell wants to educate people about the seeds of bullying, drawing similarities between the sort of bullying students face today and race issues she encountered growing up in the South. In both cases, she said, the most effective response is embarrassing the people responsible for hurting others.

"The way you do it is making it really creepy and really uncool to do something like that," she said. "We tried to turn the racists into troglodytes that nobody wants to sit with at lunch."

Newell and Finsness foresee local artists and others contributing short films, poetry and music. 

"We'll have some controls—so it's not Woodstock," Newell said. "But we want to give people an opportunity to express themselves about this particular issue."

The commission didn't take formal action, but instead asked members to each speak with specific organizations within Edina about partnering. Further discussion is set for the commission's next meeting, Dec. 14.

Commissioner Bob Mayer said it doesn't sound like a "minor event," and he questioned the feasibility of planning everything by next spring.

"It would be pretty hard to pull off an event like this by May without some of us spending a significant amount of time and effort," Mayer said.

But Commission Chair Arnie Bigbee said considering the number of young people dying as a consequence of bullying--either through suicide or victimization--it's time for Edina to take that stand.

"We're expressing that we don't want our community to accept that status quo as the reality for us," Bigbee said. "We want to do something to intervene—to have that event."