Princeton Student Used Racial Slur On Snapchat, Officials Say

PRINCETON, NJ — The Princeton Public School District is investigating an incident in which a student is alleged to have used a racial slur in a Snapchat photo.

The high school student apparently used the N word to describe her classmates in the photo, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Steve Cochrane said in a statement posted on the school district’s website.

“We want to make clear that the student's statement was unacceptable,” Cochrane said. “We are investigating the incident, and we understand the anger, sadness, frustration, and even fear the use of the word has created in our community.”

Cochrane went on to say that the incident points to a larger issue of racism in the world at large. He said while he would like to envision a world without racism, that isn’t the reality.

“We live in a world in which we are regularly exposed to explicit and implicit biases. The news is filled with incidents and commentary regarding cultural difference and tensions. The conversation and the conflict are all around us,” Cochrane said. “Our students want and need to be a part of that conversation and to make sense of that conflict. I believe schools have a responsibility to give them a safe space to do that. More importantly, I believe schools have a responsibility to lead the conversations - and the actions - to propel our world to a place beyond racism.

“As educators, we have to have the courage to wade into conversations about race with our colleagues and our students even when we are afraid we might misstep and offend someone else or embarrass ourselves. We have to have the courage to look honestly at our curricula and in some cases radically revise it to reflect cultural balance. We have to have the courage to pose the questions to our students that challenge their world view – and ours.”

Princeton High School senior Jamaica Ponder tackled the issue in a post on the Multi Magazine website titled “Back of the Bus.”

The post includes the Snapchat photo, which was apparently taken on a school bus, although it is unclear when.

In the post, Ponder wrote that she finds it terrifying that the girl found displeasure in the presence of black kids.

“To see that there are people, my peers who can’t stand me, or people who look like me, purely because we’re black, scares the living daylights out of me,” she wrote. “I thought we were moving on. I thought this was all over, that the racists were dying out. I didn’t think about the back of the bus until this girl promptly reminded me that’s exactly where I belonged. And now, as I think about it incessantly, I can’t help but laugh.”

The laugh she refers to is an uneasy laugh, one that she says black people can share together about incidents like this, but that doesn’t mean they are OK.

Ponder is the same student who exposed the offensive “Jews vs. Nazis” beer pong game Princeton High School students were playing last year.

To read Cochrane’s full statement on the incident, visit princetonk12.org.

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