Tolerance Field Trips Ahead for School Kids?

Today is a citywide "Day Out Against Hate." City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the Reverend Al Sharpton have spearheaded the event, which was prompted by a number of disturbing hate crime incidents, from swastikas in Brooklyn Heights to a noose found at the Columbia University campus.

The Politicker was at one of the events this morning, where Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz "suggested, rather strongly, that city public school students be required to make field trips to institutions like the L.G.B.T. center in lower Manhattan."

Later, Speaker Quinn told Azi Paybarah, "there were a bunch of different ideas that got brought up in there. I think we’re going to take them all to the Department of Education, the Department of Youth and Community Development and explore them and explore how we can make them possible.” It's an interesting and worthy concept, but we couldn't help but be reminded of the South Park episode "The Death Camp of Tolerance."

And, up at Columbia, there are anti-hate collages created from events at Teachers College on display.