St. George • Washington County School District says it has a zero-tolerance policy for racism and has trained staff and students to prevent it.
Yet school employees did not take action when Pine View High School students painted their faces black for a recent football game and were celebrated for doing it — a display that district officials say should not have happened, and that has led to the resignation of one employee.
The controversy stemmed from an Aug. 23 “blackout” football game hosted by Pine View, at which a small group of male students painted their faces black and then won a school spirit award. A staff member later posted pictures of two of the award recipients posing with cheerleaders on the St. George school’s website.
The images have since been removed, and the part-time employee who posted them has resigned, district spokesperson Steven Dunham told The Salt Lake Tribune last week.
“Because the investigation is not complete,” Dunham said, “we can’t discuss whether there will [be more] discipline on anyone else.”
In addition to appearing on the school’s website, the pictures also surfaced on social media. They sparked an online uproar between those who considered the paint to be blackface and called the students racist — blasting the school for not stopping them — and those who defended the students, characterizing their actions as a benign show of school spirit.
Blackface, the practice of using makeup to imitate the appearance of a Black person, dates back to the 1800s, when minstrel show performers created bigoted caricatures of Black people. Today it is considered racist and dehumanizing.
In a statement, the school district set aside the question of the students’ intentions — focusing on its judgment that the display was wrong and apologizing for its potential impact.
“We are disheartened that this took place and we apologize to our students and community for any offense that was felt because of this incident,” Dunham stated in an email.
“This should not have happened,” he continued. “While our staff go through hours of training to prevent bullying and harassment to create a safe environment for all students, we recognize that we must do more so every student feels safe and valued in our schools.”
Pine View High School principal Mike Mees followed the district’s statement with one of his own via email on Aug. 29, apologizing to school staff, students and their parents.
“Spirit Night is a time to come together as a school community,” Mees said. “Unfortunately, the blackface photo that was shared on social media has instead divided us. As a school, we are immensely sorry that we missed an opportunity to stop the incident, as well as teach and correct students. There is no excuse. We are sorry. To those who are hurt, or offended, we offer our sincere apologies.”
‘They were celebrated’
Edward Wright, a longtime St. George-area resident who is Black, was one of many who expressed anger at the display, which has garnered national and international headlines. After a Pine View student told him about it, he reposted pictures of the two students and cheerleaders on Facebook. He later met with district administrators and Pine View officials.
“They were extremely apologetic but they were not surprised because this is something they said they have been dealing with for a long time,” he said.
What angered Wright as much or more than students wearing the face paint, he said, is that no one at the football game said or did anything about it.
“Rather than let these young men know that this was unacceptable and offensive,” Wright said, “they were celebrated by receiving an award that the cheerleaders give to whoever in the crowd shows the most school spirit.”
Wright said he met with all three students and their parents, along with district officials several days after the incident. He said the students apologized, assuring him that they were naive and that the black face paint they wore was about school spirit.
District officials have declined to comment on the meeting.
Racism or school spirit?
Some who responded to Wright’s post on social media noted the game’s blackout theme and argued the students were wearing the paint to resemble a panther, the school’s mascot.
“What’s the big deal?” one woman asked on Facebook. “Why does everything have to be racist? This has nothing to do with race. They are the Pineview Panthers! … Are you going to force them to change their mascot to an animal that’s not black?”
Even if what the students did was wrong, others argued, their actions were due to ignorance rather than racism or malicious intent.
Williams agrees that could be true but adds that in his opinion, that doesn’t excuse what happened.
“Ignorance is not an excuse,” he said. “If I committed a crime and told a police officer that I did it but didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to, I’m still going to face some consequences.”
At the meeting with the boys and their parents, Wright said, one father accused him of wrongly portraying his son as a racist.
“Now my son is perceived as a racist and has been getting threats and things like that,” Wright said the man told him. “I just helped him understand that hey, that goes both ways.”
Being accountable, educating others
The controversy follows reports by Black students to district officials in the past few years about being subjected to racism or racially insensitive actions from white classmates.
For instance, Bryan and Stacey Fletcher complained several times last year about the racism directed toward their two adopted biracial daughters who were attending district schools at the time.
Stacey said her daughters were repeatedly threatened, called the N-word or racial epithets like “gorilla” or “monkey” or being told to go back to Africa and dreaded reporting the abuse out of fear of retaliation. On another occasion, according to Stacey, a classmate told one of her daughters to quit reporting the N-word because it was not a big deal and advised her to “kill yourself because people are not friends of you and your family.”
In May 2023, after meeting with the Fletchers and others targeted by racists, district officials had Utah legal consultant Heidi Alder train school administrators, addressing ways to eliminate racism, discrimination and bullying. Administrators, in turn, conducted that training with all district faculty, staff and students last October.
In addition, according to district officials, they instituted a zero-tolerance policy and developed a four-part learning module that violators are required to take. Dunham said that training and policies are still in place and district officials are focused on addressing racism and meeting with parents and students to prevent further problems.
The district is now creating school teams to work with teachers and staff to help make strategic changes to improve “school-level culture and climate,” according to Dunham. Racism, he said, “is not appropriate and should never happen in our schools.”
Even though they give district officials high marks for their efforts, the Fletchers recently moved to the Salt Lake City area for employment reasons and to escape the racism they say is prevalent in southern Utah schools. Stacey said the racism exhibited by “some students and their parents is just brutal.”
Her husband, Bryan, said that needs to change.
“If you are involved in a racist incident and realize you are wrong,” he said, “then stand up and correct it. Be accountable, apologize, educate yourself, and then help educate others about how they can be more tolerant and kind.”