Hate message inked in Harnett County High School bathroom for days
ANGIER, N.C. (WTVD) -- A hate message written in a Harnett County high school bathroom stall remained inked for several days. Administrators said Thursday that they had it scrubbed as soon as they saw it for themselves.
A swastika accompanied by the words "burn n-words" was discovered by a Harnett Central student last Wednesday. That student immediately notified administrators, who said they went to the bathroom to see it.
Principal Chris Mace told Eyewitness News when he went to check it out, he didn't see the small print message because it was written in the stall where it was covered as he pushed the door open. Administrators also spotted another scrubbed inked message, and said they assumed it was the one the student had reported.
They said they thought it had been taken care of that day.
Fast forward to Thursday morning, and Mace said the student returned to tell him the message remained in the stall. He had the student take him and another administrator straight to the stall, where they called a custodian to clean it right away.
"There's zero-tolerance for that," said Mace.
While the message rattled some students, it was brushed off as unstoppable ignorance by others.
"I don't think it should be written there," said senior Alejandro Ruliva. "I think people should just keep their opinions to themselves."
"I mean you can't stop everybody and everybody (is) gonna do what they want to do because they're just being rebellious," Ruliva continued.
As the school's diversity increases, Mace said freshman are undergoing sensitivity training to address social tolerance and zero-tolerance for racist moves similar to what was discovered last week.
That training began with this year's class, although Mace said incidents like this one are not frequent in the school.
