Two California high-school students used a promposal as an opportunity to flaunt racist rhetoric. In a selectively capitalized homemade sign, the male student spelled out the N-word while asking another to go to prom.
"BiaNa You are racIst," the sign read. "But I would Give anything for you to Go with mE to PRom."
The photo of the Palos Verdes High School students began to spread outside the school after a fellow student named Ryan Pascal shared it on Twitter. She called on the school to discipline the two students in a tweet that went viral.
“In today’s climate, No one is safe in an environment where racism is tolerated and joked about,” Pascal wrote in a statement after the photo began to spread. “That there are students on campus who do not recognize the blatant disrespect the words they used hold is a testament to the lack of effort we as a society put into expunging atrocities like these.”
Palos Verdes principal Allan Tyner released a statement saying that there might be "severe consequences" for the two students. While he initially referred to the offending language as a "slang term," a later statement correctly identified it as a racial slur.
Pascal shared that the two students have been disciplined and noted that they are deserving of a chance to show that they learned their lesson.
“We all deserve a second chance, and that starts with learning from our mistakes,” she wrote, while refusing to share the students' names.
