No Place for Hate aims to combat bullying and racism

In an effort to make the community hate free, juniors Jackson Gurdack, Sabir Shamlal and Declan Lynch have worked to create the No Place for Hate club.
“No Place for Hate” is a subsection of the Anti Defamation League, a Jewish non-governmental organization.
The No Place for Hate club said they want to remove prejudice and spread tolerance.
“We feel Marshall today has lost some comradery and celebration of differences,” club founder Gurdack said.
“Declan, Sabir and I wanted to move the students back to that place of acceptance, tolerance and love.”
Lynch said he thinks intolerance is very common on school grounds. He also said that he thinks this affects the way student’s feel about bullying.
“While we may not see it constantly happening, bullying and discrimination is still prevalent in our community,” Lynch said.
The club partnered with the National Honor Society (NHS). Senior and President of NHS Neel Simpson said No Place for Hate corresponds with the mission statement of their organization.
“We want to promote their message because students are best able to succeed in supportive environments and positive interactions,” Simpson said.
Club Sponsor David Barkley said that No Place for Hate will bring more students together and make students realize each other’s differences.
“My hope is that this club can make us more self aware that discrimination is happening,” Barkley said. “I want us to realize as a community that these things can easily happen and I know we’re better than that.”
Despite starting very late in the school year, the club has already formed a committee of students, designating the community as a No Place for Hate environment.
Shamlal said he feels confident that their club is doing a good job at the time.
“I feel we are doing very well as of now because we formed our committee and dealt with all of the other things that had to be done to start our club,” Shamlal said. “The administration gave us the designation because they felt that we were motivated in the mission of the club.”
Shamlal also said the club’s goals in the future pertains to raising awareness about the bright side of things, to show soliditarity and to show what they hope the club will lead to.
“We want to get around three fourths of the school to sign the No Place for Hate pledge through our rally on Jun. 12,” Shamlal said. “We hope to show people that there is a bright side to every bad situation and that they are not alone.”