Citing the retirement of its founder and Executive Director, Steve Wessler, the Board of Trustees of the Center for Preventing Hate announces that it will be winding down operations over the next several months. Additionally, the Center is seeking to transfer key programs to allied organizations to ensure that the Center’s… more

Today, EqualityMaine and the Center for Preventing Hate are calling attention to the savage attack on a 22-year-old woman in a Baltimore County, Maryland, McDonald’s restaurant to express sympathy and solidarity with the victim and because, as the Maine Legislature considers legislation to restrict appropriate restroom use for transgender people,… more

Steve Wessler, executive director of the Center for Preventing Hate, denounced the disturbing graffiti discovered this morning on a Portland mosque and called for support for the local Muslim community. “Acts of hate and bias like this have no place in our city,” Wessler said. “Muslims in Maine and across… more

Over the coming week, in cooperation with Northern Ireland's Community Relations in Schools program, Wessler will gather with unity teams from eight Belfast high schools – one integrated, the rest either Catholic or Protestant. more

SOURCE: MPBN 2/11/11 Maine legislators are drafting bills to crack down on bullying and raise awareness of student harassment. Steve Wessler, Executive Director of the Center for Preventing Hate, shares his thoughts on the proposed legislation in this MPBN report. “I think what does help is a clear statement from… more

If we allow ourselves to lose our collective empathy for those whom society marginalizes and if we demonize and treat with disdain the people we disagree with, then we must be prepared accept the consequences. more

No young person, for any reason, should be afraid to come to school because of harassment. more

Recognizing degrading language in daily life is often easier than knowing how to respond in the moment. In honor of the Center’s tenth anniversary, the following are ten practical steps for interrupting degrading language in everyday life. 1. Ask people to “say what you mean and mean what you say.”… more

Purchasing Maine Coffee Supports Center The Center for Preventing Hate thanks Coffee By Design in Maine for selecting the Center for its “Beans of Peace” program. For the month of September, the Center’s mission will be printed on the labels of this coffee roast and the Center will receive $1… more

SOURCE: Portland Press Herald Op-Ed 09/01/10 Americans are capable of acting to oppose discrimination when the need is apparent – as it is now.   In Billings, Mont., in December 1993, someone threw a rock through a window of the home of a Jewish family that had placed a Hanukkah… more