Wait, did Calif. teacher really approve KKK costume for student’s class project?
The Los Angeles Unified School district released a statement to news organizations apologizing for the incident.
Activists sometimes advise people to largely ignore the Ku Klux Klan or anything related to it because it gives the hate group and its supporters more notoriety.
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But those activists might feel differently about a case at a Los Angeles-area school, where a history teacher allowed a freshman student to wear a Klan costume–pointy hood and all–for a class project about Hiram Wesley Evans, a former Klan imperial wizard, ABC 7 reports.
Photos of the student at Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy in the Los Angeles Unified School District were posted Friday on social media, students told the television news station. Other students wore costumes reflecting historical figures, but Klan costume was not appropriate.
The student also wore the Klan costume during a presentation, according to Los Angeles’ NBC 4.
What’s more, the student seemed to flaunt the supremacist-supporting outfit, students complained.
“He wore it throughout the school, like in nutrition, lunch, things like that,” rising senior, Lance Dantignac, said. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
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Rising senior Eliza Dumag told ABC 7, “It made me feel unsafe and threatened.”
“I was uncomfortable, actually,” another rising senior, Kevin Gamino, said.
Parents said they were baffled by the teacher’s decision.
Kimberly Knox, a parent, told NBC Los Angeles that she was so upset by the incident that she was struggling to find words to explain her feelings.
“It makes me very sad to see that they would be OK with that,” said Knox, who is parent to a sixth grader at Harbor.
Students said they could not understand why the teacher would allow such a thing. They asked her and she compared the Klan to the Black Panther Party, rising senior Trinity Young told the station.
Young said she sees both groups as “two different things,” calling the situation and the teacher’s role “troubling.”
The Los Angeles Unified School district released a statement to news organizations apologizing for the incident.
“L.A. Unified and Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy understand the extreme sensitivity around this issue and do not condone or support this type of reenactment,” the statement read.
The statement also explained that an investigation is taking place, and added that the district and the school both are supporters of diversity, according to KABC.
When asked whether the teacher would face some sort of discipline for approving the costume, a district spokesman repeated that the matter is under investigation, NBC Los Angeles reported.
