At Springfield High School, the bell between third and fourth period rings and 1,450 students pour into crowded hallways. The students congregate, joke, and jostle with one another.
Michael, a sophomore wearing headphones and a blue sweatshirt, knocks into Chris's backpack, and Chris calls out, "Watch it, fag!"
An English teacher standing in her doorway overhears the disrespectful language. She sighs, thinks about interrupting the student banter, and then smiles as she realizes she doesn't need to say anything. A third boy, uninvolved, hears what happened. "Hey, Michael," he says, "use another word, please, OK?"
A typical response? Hardly. It occurs at Springfield High School, in Springfield, Ore., where the "Use Another Word" campaign is in its second year.
"Use Another Word" is a student-led initiative to decrease the use of disrespectful language on this diverse, suburban campus. Approximately 27 percent of the students identify as students of color, mostly Latino, in a county that is predominantly white. In 2004-05, nearly 50 percent of the students qualified for free or reduced lunch.