High School students in Santa Barbara walked out of class this week amid ongoing controversy surrounding a blackface social media post featuring four San Marcos High School students.
Last month four San Marcos students received backlash over a post on TikTok where they recreated an AI-generated meme by darkening their skin to mimic Black children.
The Santa Barbara Independent reported that Principal Dare Holdren sent a message to families following the incident, saying that San Marcos High School has "instituted consequences" for the group of students who "portrayed blackface" on social media.
Newsweek reached out to the Santa Barbara Unified School District via email for comment.
Students Walk Out Over Blackface Post
Over a week after the incident, students and staff have shared their frustration with the response from the school board. On Tuesday, October 13, students from San Marcos and Dos Pueblos high schools walked out of class, while students, parents and community members spoke at the Santa Barbara Unified School District board meeting that evening.
"I want to address our culture of care and the harm caused by the blackface incident in San Marcos. What happened was racist and harmful, and there is no place for hate, racism or discrimination in our schools," Santa Barbara Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Hilda Maldonado said during the meeting.
She went on to address black students and community members, adding: "I recognize that this reaches beyond one incident and touches deeper experiences of racism and exclusion. I am committed to listening."
A number of speakers addressed the board during the meeting, though it was explained that there would be no official responses on the night due to the volume of speakers.
Charlotte Gullap-Moore, speaking in a personal capacity, said during the meeting: "When a nation refuses to confront institutional and structural racism the harm does not stay contained. It escalates. Santa Barbara Unified has watched that escalation in its own schools…How much more must our black students endure before the district acts?"
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Yeko, a student in the district, said: "If someone who has tardies gets lunch detention, but someone who posts blackface doesn't. You are clearly promoting racism."
"As a Black student in the Santa Barbara Unified District, I have experienced many acts of racism firsthand," another student, Sedenya, said. "There is hardly any acknowledgment or punishment, and we have spoken up about this before. We aren't being heard and we deserve to have a voice."
Maile Schoonover, a representative of the Santa Barbara Fund, cited other reported incidents involving racial slurs and harassment in Santa Barbara Unified District schools. She raised allegations of a Black student being physically assaulted, a substitute teacher using the N-word in class, racial slurs and monkey noises in school hallways, and a Black educator finding the N-word written in a classroom.
Board members pledged to discuss the issue at a further meeting as speakers said they wanted to see a response that addressed not only the blackface incident but what they described as a recurring pattern of racism in the district.
Racism in U.S. Schools
The concerns raised in Santa Barbara sit against a broader national picture of racism experienced by students in schools.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 31.5 percent of U.S. high school students reported having experienced racism at school. The proportion rose to 45.9 percent among Black students and 56.9 percent among Asian students.
A 2024 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Black girls represented 15 percent of girls enrolled in U.S. public schools, but received nearly half of suspensions and expulsions in the 2017-18 school year. The GAO also found Black girls received harsher punishments than White girls even when the underlying infractions were similar.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Rebecca Flood and Trevor Davies