South Philadelphia High's healing continues

There's trouble in the cafeteria.

Not like last year, when Asian students at South Philadelphia High were pelted with food.

Definitely not like when they were attacked at lunch by 70 mostly African American classmates, part of the daylong, anti-Asian violence of Dec. 3, 2009.

This is much more subtle.

The cafeteria aides and monitors want to meet with first-year principal Otis Hackney, and when he walks into the Alumni Room, 10 workers get to the point:

A group of Asian students broke into line ahead of African American kids - and it's happening a lot, they say. Black students are frustrated. The workers say they don't know whether to intervene, because when they send offenders to school supervisors, nothing happens - and Asian students know it.

"It's a certain rite of privilege they have," teaching aide Vanessa Holman tells Hackney. "When you question them, they give you attitude."

Others nod.

Holman says she asked a supervisor why Asian students weren't being punished. He answered, "Just because."

"There is no 'just because,' " Hackney responds.

All students must follow the same rules. Period. If midlevel administrators are not supporting the line staff, Hackney says, he will ensure that that changes.

The school has come so far this year, he says. And people know what he means - far from when the assaults on 30 Asians sent seven to hospitals, generated international news, and prompted a federal civil-rights inquiry.

After the attacks, Asian students came forward to complain that a different group of cafeteria workers, cooks and servers, would demand that they ask for food, not point to selections - then laugh at their accents. This year, Hackney warned: If he heard about anything similar, people would be looking for new jobs.

The atmosphere has improved, but the cafeteria remains a charged, highly supervised place in a school that's 65 percent African American, 22 percent Asian, 6 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent white.

Now Hackney implores those at the conference table: Be attentive. Be fair. Please, in these last weeks of classes, don't let the lunch line erupt.

Don't let it ruin everything.

Generally calm

At Southern, as the school is known, the halls are generally calm. Reports of violence are down. Though results of state achievement tests won't be known until summer, the early, predictive data show improvement.