Escondido High School Students Spell Out Slurs During Senior Picture Day

[ via The Daily Mail ] EHS students spelling out a racial slur on their senior picture day

On Thursday, September 27, students at Escondido High School took their individually lettered T-shirts and spelled out racist and homophobic slurs during their senior picture day.

After photos were taken, some students broke off into their own groups and arranged themselves into lines that spelled out “the N-word” and the homophobic “F-word.” Pictures were taken of these groups and posted on various social media accounts, which were then taken and reposted to Facebook. These images were met with immense frustration and anger from many individuals within the community upon receiving such wide viewership.

[ via The Daily Mail ] EHS students spelling out a homophobic slur during their senior picture day

Having reached a heightened presence in the public eye, these pictures have even managed to attract national news. From CNN to Buzzfeed, news outlets of all sorts covered the Thursday afternoon incident at EHS. If people haven’t heard of Escondido before, they have now.

[ via CNN ]

[ via Buzzfeed ]

“I felt really misrepresented,” said San Pasqual senior, Esther Peralta. “I saw the article The Daily Mail posted and the author made it look like all of Escondido is a racist, homophobic city and I feel that we aren’t even like that by the slightest bit. At least from my experience.”

Noticing the backlash EHS was receiving as a result of the incident, some schools within the Escondido Union High School District took to Twitter to express their support for the people there in the midst of all the harsh criticism.

[ via Twitter ] A tweet from San Pasqual High School’s Twitter, @SanPasqualHS: “Sending positive vibes to our @EUHSD @ehscougars family #unitedwithescondido #unitedagainsthate”

[ via Twitter ] A tweet from Del Lago Academy’s Twitter, @DelLagoAcademy: “Del Lago Academy stands with EHS and all of our Escondido Schools. #UnitedWithEscondido #UnitedAgainstHate.”

These same schools, along with a few others, directly addressed the incident at EHS on their campuses. Del Lago Academy, in particular, held schoolwide discussions during their advisory period to allow students to express their personal outlooks on the circumstance in a judgement free space. Most followed that same trend of disappointment, but there were also instances where students questioned the kind of power people let words hold over them and whether or not the accused students at EHS deserve the punishments that were given to them.

“My outlook,” as said by Del Lago junior, Manny D’Anna, “was that the ‘joke’ wasn't as controversial as people made it seem, and it definitely didn't merit the loss of two amazing scholarships.”

As hinted by Manny, the accused EHS students did receive disciplinary measures, some of which involved the revocation of scholarships.