SF NAACP Calls on San Francisco Unified to Hold Racist Behavior Accountable
The NAACP San Francisco branch, along with parents and community advocates, accused the city’s public school district of failing to take action against anti-Black rhetoric after multiple incidents at district high schools.
On Sept. 4, a Black student at Lincoln High School was called the “N-word” during a passing period, according to representatives for the NAACP and Coleman Advocates, a racial justice nonprofit.
Coleman Advocates Youth Justice Director Rachel Jones said that after the student used the “N-word,” a physical altercation ensued.
Video footage of the incident, posted by KTSF, shows a child being shoved in the school hallway. Board of Education candidate Laurance Lee said on social media that the television station reported that a “Chinese American special education student was attacked after class,” and had been bullied before.
Jones said Wednesday that “a physical response to a conflict is unacceptable, but racial slurs also cause significant harm and trauma.” She said the student had previously used the language last year, prompting classmates to ask administrators to intervene — but they didn’t feel that they got the support they needed.
“This is not an isolated incident,” said Yolanda Williams, the vice president of the NAACP San Francisco branch. “Every Black child that enters the San Francisco Unified School District deserves respect, they deserve to be safe and they deserve to be in an educational environment that is free from racial hostility.”
Following the incident, Lincoln administrators sent an email to families, saying they had been made aware of “multiple instances of hate speech” on campus.
“At Lincoln, there is no place for slurs of any kind … discriminatory, hateful or demeaning language,” the letter reads.
SFUSD said in a statement that district leaders were meeting with the families involved in the Sept. 4 incident, as well as community stakeholders, including the NAACP.
“We are implementing restorative practices to ensure that students directly impacted by the incident receive the support they need,” the district wrote via email. “We are also focused on providing support for the broader Lincoln High School community to ensure every student has access to any resources they need and that it is made clear that we do not accept behavior of this kind anywhere at SFUSD.”
The incident at Lincoln occurred just days after SFUSD announced that it had removed Lowell High School’s varsity baseball coaching staff and that the team would forfeit three games next spring after an incident of racial taunting last season.
The coaches have been on leave since May, when reports surfaced that they were present during the school’s junior varsity championship game against Lincoln High School, where “alleged race-based taunting by Lowell’s varsity players” occurred.
“In this school district today, the N-word is used repeatedly at the elementary, middle and high school levels,” Rev. Amos C. Brown said Wednesday.
He said that after the Sept. 4 incident, the school was slow to respond, and he blamed the school’s principal for not taking independent ownership for the letter sent to families. He called the message “generalized,” and said it lacked specific details or information about what, if any, repercussions there have been for the students involved.
The district did not respond to a question about whether it had taken any disciplinary action.
“Far too many principals have sought to sweep under the rug instances when Black children have been victimized by racialized, bigoted language,” Amos said, noting that Superintendent Maria Su has met with the NAACP and “been supportive.”
Virginia Marshall, a member of the NAACP, addressed Su specifically: “However, you must get the word out to your principals. You must get to word out to your assistant superintendents … to say to them, ‘the N word is never ever allowed.’”
In 1979, the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP sued SFUSD, alleging that the district was engaging in racial discrimination and maintaining segregated schools.
The case led to a consent decree requiring the district to accelerate efforts to achieve academic excellence for all students, particularly African American and Latino students, and to eliminate racial and ethnic segregation in schools and programs.
“During that time, under the consent decree of the early years, African American students thrived in SFUSD,” Marshall said. “We fear that we are at that threshold again — we should not have to sue the school district for our children to thrive.”
The organizations called on the district to increase accountability for racist language and behavior on its campuses.
Marshall said the schools must make it “their number one priority to make sure that all children receive a great education, and that all children are safe and all children feel that they are part of [their] school.”