Racial tensions at prep school prompt talks

Milton Academy canceled two afternoon classes and called an emergency assembly yesterday in an effort to defuse racial tensions that erupted at the prep school over comments that appeared last week on a school-sponsored website and on fliers scattered in a campus building, school officials said.

In the first instance, which occurred on the school's Young Republicans online forum, students were commenting on recent controversial remarks by conservative radio host William Bennett that suggested the crime rate would decline if black babies were aborted.

The school would not detail what was said on the online forum, but many students were offended by the comments, according to The Milton Paper, a student newspaper at the academy.

It was not clear if the comments considered offensive were made by Young Republicans members.

Within days, papers were found spread across a campus building floor with the words, ''[expletive] kill all whites," the newspaper reported.

School officials said yesterday that the incidents are under investigation, but students involved are not expected to face discipline.

The school, which planned to send a letter today informing parents about the incidents, is attempting to use them as an opportunity to teach students how to talk about race in a constructive way.

''We're trying very hard to help students learn how to talk honestly about difficult subjects," academy spokesman Neal Litvack said.

Litvack would not confirm the wording of the offensive comments, except to say they were ''powerful." At yesterday's assembly, the second since the incidents, a student panel spoke for a few minutes at 1 p.m. before students broke off into discussion groups, some of which were still in session at 4:30 p.m.

Students say racial tension has roiled the campus, where officials say students of color constitute one-third of the 680 students in the upper school, which is composed of grades 9 through 12.

''From discriminatory printouts to verbal assaults and heated confrontations, this week has been consumed by repercussions of this incident," reporters Spencer Gaffney and Matt Gottesdiener wrote in Friday's edition of The Milton Paper.

In the comments that spurred the incidents, Bennett told his radio listeners on Sept. 28, ''I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

He quickly added, ''That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

Bennett complained Saturday that the media had distorted his remarks, saying he had intended to make ''a bad argument in order to put it down."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.