Hundreds of Fresno students walk out of class to protest racist images at Bullard High
Hundreds of students from Fresno high schools across the city walked out of class Friday afternoon as part of a protest against a string of racist and violent images circulated around Bullard High in recent days.
The Fresno Bee will not publish the photos in question due to their racist and violent content.
At Bullard High School, dozens of students were seen outside classrooms, gathered in a quad area on campus, some waving signs and calling for change.
Across town, about 400 students at Edison High School walked out of school and marched to the Fresno Unified District Office to protest at the same time that FUSD Superintendent Bob Nelson held a news conference addressing the racist imagery.
Students at Bullard High, Edison, Sunnyside, Fresno High, and McLane all reported participating in the walkout.
Nelson encouraged schools to support the students who walked out.
Edison High’s Black Student Union called the images “dehumanizing.”
“These posts have not only affected the Bullard Student Body but have traveled to other school sites (including Edison High School), creating an unsafe environment,” the student group said.
A photo of a student wearing a white shirt resembling a Ku Klux Klan hood was posted and taken down within a few hours on Wednesday, with screenshots of the image circulated on social media Thursday, according to details provided by FUSD Trustee Terry Slatic, who represents the Bullard High area. But a statement from the Bullard High Black Student Union says the picture was taken Thursday morning during school hours.
It’s one of at least four racist incidents that have happened at Bullard recently, according to teachers and student group social media posts.
Black students’ faces have been photoshopped on monkeys, and there have been two social media accounts depicting violence against Black people along with some of the most horrific moments for Black Americans throughout history, according to a social media post from Edison’s Black Student Union.
Board member provides details of investigation
Slatic spoke to The Bee’s Ed Lab on Friday afternoon after being briefed on the details of the ongoing investigation that is expected to be complete by Monday.
“I have no opinion on it until I get the facts,” said Slatic. “If you start making judgments before you have enough facts, you’re setting yourself up for failure.”
Demanding the district take action before the investigation concludes is “silly,” Slatic told The Bee, which is also the word he used to describe the photo in question.
Three students were involved in the Bullard photo – the boy wearing the shirt over his face, the person standing behind him holding it up, and the person videoing it, Slatic said.
“I want the investigation completed, and then we decide on that,” he said. “Make no mistake, there are still holes in understanding what happens. You answer all the questions that anyone has before you enter the discipline phase.”
Slatic said those “holes” include learning who posted the photo online, who removed the photo, and finding out where the adult staff members were who were supposed to be supervising the students.
“Adult supervision is something that helps keep kids from doing silly things and taking pictures of it,” he said.
In October 2020, Slatic cast the lone no” vote on a resolution declaring the school district an anti-racism institution because the wording acknowledged “the impact of racism on the academic outcomes and social-emotional well-being of students” and stopped short of calling FUSD a racist institution.
Latest Bullard High incident part of a long racist history in Fresno schools, critics say
In an interview Friday morning with The Bee’s Education Lab, community organizer Stacy Williams said the racist photos that emerged this week from Bullard High School are just the latest examples of what she said is a troubling, years-long pattern in Fresno schools.
The pattern, critics say, stretches back decades, but numerous incidents have made headlines in just the last three years, according to more than a dozen students and residents who spoke with Bee reporters on Friday.
In a social media post late Thursday, Williams said the district’s “excuse” during prior episodes has always been that those incidents happened off-campus.
So Williams said she questioned what school and district leadership would say about the photo taken in Bullard High School’s weight room.
The district collected dozens of students’ cellphones that had footage from the weight room. The other students, though not involved, may have captured what was happening in the background of their videos.
Williams said parents she’s spoken with want the student seen in the photo to be suspended or expelled, but Williams noted those same parents were also concerned the district would put up “shields of protection… to allow him to be safe in his racism.”
Nelson, too, described the photo as a “makeshift Ku Klux Klan hood” and also acknowledged that the photo is “reflective of a long history of cultural and racial injustice in Fresno.”
“For anyone under the sound of my voice who wants to shrug that off as a joke or kids being kids, I need to be clear,” Nelson said. “Cultural destructiveness, racism, and hate are never a joke.”
The picture has caused pain, fear, anger, and hurt across the community, Nelson said.
Families want their kids safe, unharassed
Slatic told The Bee that about 40 of his constituents have expressed mixed feelings about the incident, with some saying, “kids are doing stupid stuff and being stupid with what they film.”
The uniform opinion is that they want their kids safe, unharassed, and in a safe learning environment.
When the school or district responds by saying those incidents are not racist, it becomes traumatizing, too, Williams said.
“These kids feel like they should have protection at a public school,” she said. “And the school district and staff at Bullard are not producing that environment by their response, dismissive tone, ignoring what racism is and acting as if kids will be kids.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2022 at 2:48 PM.
