Hidden racial slur sparks recall of hundreds of yearbooks from Macdonald High School.
More than 900 yearbooks were recalled after people started noticing and commenting on social media.
The Lester B. Pearson School Board said that for one graduate's entry, the biography included a series of words separated by commas, with the first letters of the words forming a slur. The school board says two students from Macdonald High School in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue were responsible for the entry.
The board condemned the students' actions as "extremely inappropriate and unacceptable" in a statement Sunday. The board's spokesperson, Darren Becker, said the 2021-22 yearbooks will be edited to remove the offending passage and returned to students. The students involved will face disciplinary action, although Becker declined to comment on what measures would be taken.
Mr. Fo Niemi, the Executive Director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, commented on the severity of the students' actions."All school boards should pay serious attention to racism, especially anti-Black racism, and invest in effective measures to combat and prevent it as much as possible — because they owe children of colour and their parents a racism-free learning environment."
—Virginie Ann, The Canadian Press
