Student admits creating racist post that sparked Berkeley walkout

Berkeley High School students including Nancy Nguyen (left), Berenabas Lukas (middle) and Simone Ewell Szabo (right) stage a walkout demonstration at Sproul plaza over a racist post on the school website in Berkeley, Calif., on Thursday, November 5, 2015. less Berkeley High School students including Nancy Nguyen (left), Berenabas Lukas (middle) and Simone Ewell Szabo (right) stage a walkout demonstration at Sproul plaza over a racist post on the school website in ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close Student admits creating racist post that sparked Berkeley walkout 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

A racist message posted to a computer at Berkeley High School set off a 2,000-student walkout and protest Thursday.

A student at the school admitted to posting the message, which referred to the Ku Klux Klan, used derogatory language related to African Americans and threatened a “public lynching” on Dec. 9, officials said. The student, whose name was not released, acknowledged creating the post in a statement to school officials, said Berkeley school district spokesman Mark Coplan.

“We’ve had success with the investigation,” Coplan said. “They have identified the individual student involved.” There was no immediate word on what disciplinary action the school would pursue.

School officials found the message at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. “This is a hate crime and messages such as this one will not stand in our community,” said Principal Sam Pasarow in an e-mail to the school community late Wednesday.

District officials estimated that about 2,000 of Berkeley High’s 3,000 students left school Thursday morning and marched through downtown to UC Berkeley. Administrators and Berkeley police officers were with the students, Coplan said.

“We really understand the students’ pain, their anguish and their fear and are doing everything we can to work with Berkeley police and other agencies to figure out what happened,” Coplan said. “Our students are hurting tremendously. They’re weeping. They’re crying.”

School district officials said the message appeared to be a modified screenshot of the school’s library Web page, and that it had been left on one computer in the library. It did not appear that the system had been hacked, they said.

March to UC Berkeley

Chanting, “We got that unity!” and “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud!” the Berkeley High students ended up at the steps of the Sproul Hall administration building on the UC Berkeley campus.

Marshatta Porter, an 11th-grader, stood on the steps listening to fellow black students calling for progress.

“I think it’s really dehumanizing how they targeted one race,” Porter said. “It’s 2015. It’s ridiculous.”

Lauren Moore, another Berkeley High student, marched down Telegraph Avenue with a friend, holding a sign reading “Black Lives Matter” given to her by a math teacher.

“It’s important to me,” Moore said. “As an African American student, I felt in danger.”

The protest dispersed about 12:45 p.m., and most of the students returned to campus.

Students from the school’s Black Student Union responded to the computer posting in a widely distributed statement, calling it an act of terrorism.

Students’ statement

“The perpetrator sympathizes with the racist cause of the KKK and makes a clear threat to lynch Black students this Dec. 9. The terrorists call for the death of Black people in the message,” according to the statement.

Students who planned the protest said school officials should have reacted more quickly. The principal’s e-mail was sent out 11 hours after the message was discovered, and well after the Black Student Union had tweeted out a photo to students.

“That’s what made us even more mad,” said Berkeley High student Lashawnda McCullough. “That was the first question we asked him. Why the delay?

“If our lives are in jeopardy, we should be aware of that as soon as it happens,” McCullough said.

Berkeley High Walkout-1k students leave class, hold rally after racist message was found on campus computer @KTVU pic.twitter.com/NSpoAfitlK — Alex Savidge (@AlexSavidgeKTVU) November 5, 2015

3rd racist incident

The threat was the third racist incident at the school in the last year.

In December, over winter break, a noose made from string was found hanging from a tree on the campus, and then in the spring, the yearbook was altered just prior to printing, identifying an academy within the high school that serves primarily students of color as “trash collectors of tomorrow.”

Officials were requesting that other law enforcement agencies be brought in to investigate the most recent incident, Coplan said.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker