Black Student President Receives Death Threat: Report

OAK CREEK, WI -- Authorities in Oak Creek say they're investigating a racially-based incident in which an African-American student was threatened.

Yesterday, an Oak Creek High School student reported that she received an anonymous, racially insensitive threat. The high school administration and the Oak Creek Police Department are working together on an active investigation of this situation.

The student's godmother told Patch that the Oak Creek High School student has been called racially-charged names, harassed and taunted about her apparent inability to quell her harassers, and received a written death threat at her locker Monday.

"Please know that the Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District will not tolerate threats or harassment. The District has a strong student harassment and bullying policy in place which requires thorough investigation and proactive actions to be taken to eliminate such conduct," Tim Culver, Oak Creek-Franklin Superintendent of Schools said in a news release Monday.

Culver said that the Oak Creek Police Department and school officials are working on the investigation. "Today, it has been brought to our attention that this incident is being shared and discussed on social media. There appears to be a significant amount of misinformation being passed around," he said.

According to the student's godmother, the student was leaving gym class when "many white girls" congregated in front of her locker. As she approached, they told her that she did not belong at their school. The student's godmother said the students told her goddaughter to "go back to South Milwaukee." She engaged in the conversation and they had a healthy debate about how she too deserved to attend Oak Creek and she too earned her place, she said.

According to the student's godmother, as the student was leaving her locker, she found a note on her locker. "She immediately took it to her guidance counselor - who supported her and they went to the assistant principal. The assistant principal told her, "the handwriting is illegible and it will be almost impossible to find out who did this. She then went to the principal who told her that there were too many other things on his plate at that time," the godmother told Oak Creek Patch.

Oak Creek Patch has obtained an apparent copy of the note, and has displayed it on this site, with part of the message blurred out out of sensitivity for our readers.

All Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District students also have access to an online reporting resource named STOPit. STOPit can be used to report incidents to school contacts anonymously. It can also be used to engage in two-way communication with school officials. It can be found at the link above.

Oak Creek officials say they take all cases of bullying and harassment seriously, and further information and various tools that can be used to report acts of bullying and/or harassment are available on the district website https://www.ocfsd.org/parents/bullying.

Submitted Photo, Published With Permission, Edited for Sensitivity