Administrators at a Missouri high school announced Tuesday that a “non-white” student confessed to school officials that she was responsible for writing “White Lives Matter” on a mirror inside a girls’ bathroom.
Parkway Schools Superintendent Keith Marty said in a statement that school officials were surprised that a non-white student was behind the incident, but it did not “diminish the hurt” to the Parkway Central High School community in Chesterfield.
“The behavior was wrong and the student will be held accountable for this serious act according to our student discipline policy,” Marty told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Administrators found a racial slur and the phrase “White Lives Matter” scribbled on a mirror inside a girls’ restroom on campus on November 15, prompting the community to take action against racism.
“I was horrified,” West County anti-racism activist Joy Weese Moll told KTVI last week. “A lot of us in West County have a really hard time saying racism exists here. It makes me sad for the person who wrote it because they have not been taught and not learned how beautiful our society can be.”
Parents of children at the school also sounded off on the issue.
“This is very much a white person issue that we need to tackle as white people and speak up against,” parent Alexandria Lane-Detwiler said.
Parkway Central High School Principal Timothy McCarthy stressed that the school does not tolerate this behavior, and the student would be punished.
“The student will be held accountable within the parameters of the district’s discipline policy,” McCarthy wrote in a statement.
“The use of the N-word, in the context of the message on the bathroom mirror, provoked feelings of hate, not love. … Actions and speech which degrade an individual’s human dignity have no place in school; they have no place at Central High,” he added.