The president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable is demanding that the Los Angeles Unified School District declare a state of emergency to protect Black students after several local high school students received racist text messages last week. Similar messages were sent to people across the country.
The texts were directed to individual students and contained racist references to slavery and plantations. An FBI investigation is underway, but Urban Policy Roundtable president Earl Ofari Hutchinson said he wants L.A. Unified to take action to protect Black students now.
“We have to take, in this climate, or in any climate for that matter, where there’s hate, you got to take these things seriously,” said Hutchinson, speaking at Dorsey High School on Tuesday morning. “And seriously means not just issuing a statement condemning racism and bigotry -- that’s important -- but action, action, action. What action? School security.”
Hutchinson called for utilizing police resources to ramp up security, including LAUSD’s police force, the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. He says the texts should be taken as seriously as any other threat made to students, such as the threat of a shooting or other violent attack.
“In capital letters, ‘C-R-I-M-E,’ is a crime. We’re talking about racist texts targeting specific students by name. If that’s not a crime by the definition of the L.A. Unified School District, their own code, I don’t know what is,” he said.
Hutchinson stressed how in American schools, threats can quickly turn into physical violence. He’s also calling for mental health support for the students who’ve been traumatized.
“Since these texts have been circulated, we’ve had so many students and parents say, ‘We’re scared, we’re fearful. We don’t know what could happen.’ And so as a result of that, I think it’s important when you have trauma, when you have a psychological, not only crisis, but when you have, really, people that are really fearful, and, of course, young people are fearful,” Hutchinson said. “I think it’s very incumbent upon you to have those that counsel, to have that support.”
Officials from both LAUSD and the L.A. County Office of Education have released statements condemning the text messages. But Hutchinson says statements are not enough – and that Black students need security and support right now.
“Anybody can issue a statement condemning racism or bigotry. I mean, they’ll do that anyway. I would hope you would do that. But the real proof is, are you going to go to the next level, the next step?,” he said. “We’re not going to stop here. We’re going right up to the top, President-elect Trump.”
Hutchinson said he hopes elected leaders will take note and take action.