Racial tensions come to surface at Tomball High
Incidents occur when students dress ‘American’
A Tomball High School student was disciplined Friday after he wore a makeshift Ku Klux Klan robe and hood to school, while classmates wearing all black to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement were allegedly threatened with in-school suspension last week if they didn’t purge a photo from social media.
The student punished Friday, who was white and not identified by the district because he is a minor, could be seen on social media making obscene gestures as he walked across campus in a pointed hood with a red-and-white cross drawn on his chest. The outfit appeared to be constructed from paper, tape, marker and trash bags.
“Unfortunately, a student wore an offensive costume between classes at Tomball High School this afternoon,” district spokeswoman Staci Stanfield said. “The incident was reported to campus administrators who immediately responded and took appropriate action according to the Student Code of Conduct. Tomball ISD does not tolerate this type of disruptive behavior.”
Both incidents came after students were asked to dress “American” on Oct. 28 as part of the school’s Red Ribbon week, which aims to encourage students to refrain from using drugs or alcohol. On that day, one group of students dressed in all black in support of Black Lives Matter. Meanwhile, five girls used duct tape to spell out “T-R-U-M-P” on their collective shirts.
A picture of the groups together went viral on Twitter. The post shows 17-year-old Jodeci Williams, a senior who wore black, posing with her fist raised as the white Trump supporters stood for a separate picture at the back of the room behind her. It appears
the Trump supporters, who later posted their photo on social media, were unaware Williams and her friend, Claire Skivington, were taking a photo of them at the same time.
Skivington and Williams said they took the photo to show the ideological divide that exists at the school, not to criticize the Trump-supporting students or the candidate himself.
Suspension threatened
Once the photo was shared across Twitter, Williams and several other students said they were threatened with in-school suspension unless they deleted their tweets of the image. Jodeci and others decided to delete their tweets to avoid getting in trouble.
The school’s threat of punishment raises constitutional questions, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, who is an expert on social media and First Amendment law.
“Any expressed First Amendment activity is governed by the Supreme Court’s Tinker standard, which means you get to express yourself on school grounds on school time as long as you don’t materially disrupt the school,” LoMonte said. “They’re never going to be able to show one retweet out of 200 caused a substantial disruption.”
In a statement, Tomball administrators maintained the post violated its “Technology Resources Acceptable Use and Internet Safety Policy” document.
“Students have periodically posted photos supporting various groups and have not been asked to remove photos from social media. In this instance, a photo that was posted to social media was not in accordance with Tomball ISD’s Technology Acceptable Use Policy. The photo has since been removed,” the statement read.
One concern of Tomball administrators was that the Trump supporters could be identified and potentially taunted.
Toni Trail, who was one of the first to share the photo on social media, said countless students take photos at the school each day, often with passersby in the background. She had never heard of an instance of a student being punished for taking a photo at school, with or without people in the background, until this incident.
“The school said they were only following the code of conduct, but it’s a gray area,” Trail said. “But there’s more to it than the rule. They wanted to get rid of the issue very quickly. They wanted to brush it under the rug before it got more attention.”
That begs the question of how the district’s policy was applied in this case, LoMonte said.
Williams, Skivington and Trail said administrators approached them about the post only after several parents of the Trump supporters in the background complained. But such complaints would not give the school or the district the right to force the students to take the posts down with threats of punishment, LoMonte said.
“The fact her photography makes some people uncomfortable doesn’t make her a violator,” he said. “Displeasing parents isn’t a recognized disciplinary offense.”
‘Very angry moms’
Trail said the school administration’s swift response to the Trump supporters’ parents stands in stark contrast to how they treated her and her father when they complained about racial incidents at the school, where fewer than 5 percent of the 1,720 students are black. About 60 percent are white and 30 percent are Hispanic.
Trail said she complained to administration after a coach made jokes about watermelons and fried chicken at her expense. Trail and her father, Hosea Harris, both said the administration did nothing because the girl could not prove the incident happened.
And when students wore black in solidarity with Black Lives Matter on Oct. 28, Trail, Williams and Skivington all said, students shouted taunts in the hallway, including “black lives don’t matter,” “white lives matter,” and, oddly, “no lives matter.”
Harris said the school’s reaction shows a double standard.
“If my kid feels bullied, she has to prove bullying, but if other kids’ parents complain, they act on it,” Harris said. “(Black students) hear slurs every day — the n-word, the Confederate flag — every day. And the administration tells us there’s nothing they can do.”
But Skivington, who is white, does not place blame solely on administrators. She said many in the community overreacted to the photo, putting enormous pressure on the school to take action.
“They had five very angry moms calling them, so it’s hard to judge whether they were right or wrong when there are so many other factors,” Skivington said.
Opening a dialogue
She added that she, Williams and Trail had a productive meeting with administrators Friday and that administrators encouraged the students who wore black in solidarity with Black Lives Matter to take a photo of themselves.
The three also said the incident has opened a dialogue about race and equity at the school. They hope to start a club for students of all ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations and backgrounds who feel they are underrepresented at the school.
The students said they expected to get backlash for supporting Black Lives Matter through their clothes.
“It was provocative for us to dress the way we did, but it was also provocative for them to wear their outfits,” Skivington said. “But we were prepared for the fallout.”
Meanwhile, Williams said she is horrified that a student wore a KKK costume.
“It makes me feel unsafe that someone would dress and walk around like that — that they don’t have a problem with what the KKK stands for and they support the ideas,” she said.