SF Unified School District photo
Students and school officials Thursday denounced racist and anti-semitic posts left on a virtual bulletin board set up by the Asian American-majority school, Lowell High, in San Francisco, reports SFists.
The school is known nationally for its academic excellence, but has been embroiled in controversy over a decision to temporarily do away with its admittance exam. The Board of Education made that decision due to the lack of available tests during the pandemic, but also in an effort to diversity Lowell which is only 2% Black.
The vulgar and offensive posts came after teachers asked students to share their reflections on an anti-racism lesson taught online. Anonymous posters used the N word and other distasteful words including anti-semitic slurs as well as pornographic images.
Some believe the bulletin board may have been hacked, but others criticized that theory as dismissive.
“Placing the responsibility on anonymous hackers completely disregards the rampant, unchecked racism at Lowell,” wrote San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Vincent Matthews and Supervisor Myrna Melga.
“We know that these platforms are only open to SFUSD accounts and we’re really careful about that to make sure that it’s within our school district, which leads us to believe that it was kids within our school district,” San Francisco Board of Education president Gabriela López told CBS5.
Students at Lowell acknowledge racism is an issue there.
“People calling me N-word with a hard r, you know, micro aggressions, asking why am I here, you don’t belong at Lowell. Harassment images comparing me to a gorilla — it’s a lot of stuff that gets swept under the rug at this school,” said student Shavonne Hines-Foster. to CBS5.
“When I first saw the post, I definitely wasn’t surprised because racism at Lowell is definitely there,” sophomore Gabrielle Grice said.
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