Update 11/5/15: This article has been updated to reflect the conclusion of an investigation by Berkeley High School administrators, which identified the student responsible for the image.
Members of the Berkeley High School community expressed outrage after one of the school’s library computers displayed threatening language toward black individuals early Wednesday afternoon.
A screenshot — tweeted by Berkeley High School’s Black Student Union, or BSU, on Wednesday night — appears as a rendered image of the library’s website, with a message superimposed over the original text of the library’s home page with words that read, “KKK Forever Public Lynching December 9th 2015,” in addition to including racial epithets and hostile language. In the image, the poster indicated solidarity with the Ku Klux Klan.
School district spokesperson Mark Coplan said that the screenshot was left open on a computer as a displayed image and that there was no hacking involved to change the actual website’s contents.
This happened at our school! When we will we as Black Students feel safe? pic.twitter.com/awoRyUX8hX
— Black Student Union (@BerkeleyBSU) November 5, 2015
“We are disgusted by this act of terror,” said black student leaders in an statement released by the high school’s BSU on Wednesday night. “The safety of Black students has been explicitly threatened.”
Similar reactions flooded social media after the BSU publicized the screenshot.
Get it together Berkeley High. Lives are at stake.
— Kadijah Means (@SpecialKay00) November 5, 2015
There’s no such thing as “peace” when the KKK is making threats to Berkeley High School Black students. #BerkeleyKKK
— Brotha B (@BlakeDontCrack) November 5, 2015
I do not feel safe at berkeley high — ✨Camellia✨ (@CamelliaXO__) November 5, 2015
This is a direct threat to lynch a Black person. Remember Dylan Roof was one of these online racists. Look what he did.
— Brotha B (@BlakeDontCrack) November 5, 2015
My heart goes out to all the black students at BHS who don’t feel safe on campus rn. Stay strong❤️ #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/lVKzKsTlQC — Aminta (@amintagueye_) November 5, 2015
the tragic thing about this is that Berkeley high has had a past of blatantly racist actions
— Maya Cohen (@mayahrc) November 5, 2015
As a African American student I feel as if my safety is in danger and our administration focuses on the wrong things that goes on at BHS
— ChynaDoll✨ (@RealestWithin) November 5, 2015
Disgusting, devastating, intolerable https://t.co/m7YbzylLpL
— louisa (@louisamyshoe) November 5, 2015
The administration launched an investigation Wednesday, according to an email sent by Berkeley High Principal Sam Pasarow to students that night.
“This is a hate crime and messages such as this one will not stand in our community,” Pasarow said in the email.
On Thursday afternoon, as thousands of students had just finished protesting through the city and at UC Berkeley, high school officials concluded the investigation after a student sent forward a statement to administrators confessing to the actions.
The administration is now considering what disciplinary action will follow and has turned over evidence to Berkeley police, who will determine if there is any criminal charge. The student’s name will be kept confidential.
“We are working hard to create a positive and inclusive school culture and we recognize the deep pain and rage that hate crimes such as this one bring to our students of color,” Pasarow said in the email. “We recognize the need to address the harm that this has caused.”
In their press release Wednesday night, BSU leaders called on the campus administration to respond to what they described as a “blatant act of terrorism” against the black community.
In their demand, black student leaders referenced two prior discriminatory incidents involving underrepresented minorities. In October 2014, a noose was found hanging from a tree on the high school’s campus and was quickly removed by a Berkeley High safety officer, though no one was found to be responsible for hanging the noose.
And earlier this year, the high school recalled its yearbook after an inappropriate comment — which described members of the Berkeley High Academy of Medicine and Public Service, one of Berkeley High’s small schools with primarily black and Hispanic students, as “future … trash collators” — was slipped into its text.
After the controversy over the yearbook language, along with the noose incident the prior year, then-BSU president Kadijah Means wrote in a letter that a “pattern of failed communication” existed between high school administration and students. Means went on to characterize the climate at the high school as “hostile.”
To mitigate the harms of Wednesday’s incident and begin a healing process within the campus, part of the administration’s future actions includes giving back Dec. 9 — the date referenced by the poster’s lynching threat — to the school’s black students, creating a space for them “to regain their power and take back the day,” Coplan said.
