Justice Prevails Over Prom Plan
Students opt out of $3,000 deposit by way of doing the right thing
Still, the prom goes on.
With high school prom season in the offing, student prom committees throughout the area are scrambling to make the necessary arrangements, to plan an "Evening to Remember," "A Moment in Time."
It's a lot to organize, but the committee at Chicago’s Northside College Preparatory High School had things pretty much tied up for their June 5th event. That is until a member of the senior class threw them a curve ball.
A WBEZ radio report paints Northside senior Sam Hamer as an involved student. In addition to his recent input in the planning of the prom, he's a member of the school's Jewish Student Union.
Hamer points to his faith and religion in explaining in a WBEZ interview why he caused a ruckus over plans the prom committee had made to hold the event at the Congress Hotel, where the workers have been on strike for almost six years, fighting for wages on par with what other downtown hotels pay.
Listen to the WBEZ report in City Room.
"Everything in my religious spirit, my religious being, tells me that to stand by while injustice occurs would be the wrong thing to do," public radio quoted him as saying.
Hamer went to Northside's principal, who called an emergency meeting with the appropriate parties to hear Hamer's complaint and discuss the issue.
It was no slam-dunk. His position prompted a lot of push-back from fellow students, but eventually, WBEZ reports, Hamer was able to convince the committee that holding the prom at the Congress Hotel was not a good idea.
"We just had a discussion about what would have happened if we had kept it at the Congress," said prom planner John Konow. "Eventually (we) decided that moving it would be the best choice because there’s no way we wanted to be walking through picket lines and have chaperones withdrawing their names."
They canceled the reservation at the Congress and lost their deposit of $3,000.
Hamer thinks it was worth the cost, and the prom committee is commited to recouping the money with fundraising activities.
The radio report says that the decision helped lift the spirits of striking Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 1 workers, and that hotel management would not speak publically for the report.
Special thanks to Chip Mitchell of WBEZ radio.
Posted Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009 - 6:23 AM CST
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