Oak Park and River Forest High School officials and police are investigating racist and anti-Semitic graffiti found on the walls of a boys bathroom earlier today.
A video obtained by Wednesday Journal showed swastikas descending into KKK, the n-word and other racial slurs scribbled on various bathroom wall tiles and near the stall doors with what appeared to be a black marker. One phrase close to a stall door read: “White power. We love it.”
Images of the graffiti have already made its way to social media, including an Oak Park community Facebook group.
“Unfortunately, students and others have been posting photos of the graffiti on social media, which only increases the harmful impact,” wrote OPRF Principal Lynda Parker and Patrick Hardy, the district’s equity director, in an email sent on the same day of the incident.
“Please consider that posting hateful speech or symbols spreads it and has unintended harmful consequences for the communities at which it is directed,” the two added, urging students to report any hate speech they see on school grounds to security staff.
Security staff at OPRF are in the school’s welcome center and can be reached by calling 708-434-3125.
“Hate speech is a crime,” Parker and Hardy wrote. “We want to be clear: These types of reprehensible words and symbols have absolutely no place in our school and will not be tolerated,” they said.
