Racial slur written across high school student’s classwork

Blue Springs South High School officials are investigating a racist act directed at one of their students.

Principal Charles Belt said he learned Wednesday that someone had scrawled the N-word across an assignment paper belonging to a female student.

Belt said the student, who is bi-racial, had left her paper in an unlocked physics lab drawer on Tuesday, and when she returned the next day, the racial slur had been written across her classwork in capital letters.

The incident is the second act of racism to surface in Blue Springs this week. On Wednesday, a black Blue Springs barber found the words “Die (N-word)” in black paint across his shop windows.

Belt said he is certain the student did not fabricate the incident. He said that he and three assistant principals at the school have spent more than a dozen hours interviewing students, teachers, staff and anyone with access to the lab to try to pin down who committed the act. “The investigation is ongoing,” he said.

Belt called the high school incident “isolated” and said there would be consequences.

“As a staff, as a school, as a community we just will not allow these kinds of things to go on,” Belt said.

The student’s father, James Singleton, said that while he is glad the school is investigating the incident, he doesn’t think school officials are doing enough to stop something like this from happening again.

“I want it to be talked about,” Singleton said. “I don’t want it investigated and swept under the run. Racism is not a small thing.”

Singleton said he wants the school to take a public stand. “I want them make a big deal out of it. I want them to talk to all the students and tell them all that this type of stuff will not be tolerated in our high school.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2017 at 9:58 AM with the headline "Racial slur written across high school student’s classwork."