Authorities have identified the student responsible for a racist message found on a Berkeley High School library computer that the principal initially deemed a hate crime.

Principal Sam Pasarow declined to reveal the race of the 15-year-old student, citing student privacy laws, The College Fix reported.

“All I can share is that we are considering all available consequences for the individual in response to the widespread hurt that these actions caused,” Mr. Pasarow said in an email to students and staff Thursday night, The Oakland Tribune reported.

The racist post, discovered Wednesday on a library computer, referred to the Ku Klux Klan and threatened a “public lynching” on Dec. 9.

Joined by Mr. Pasarow, more than 1,500 students reportedly walked off campus Thursday in protest.

“They are really afraid because they have been threatened by this message,” said Mark Coplan, a spokesman for the Berkeley Unified School District, the Los Angeles Times reported. “They are calling on everyone to come up with solutions to end this kind of madness.”

School board member Beatriz Leyva-Cutler called the post “disgusting.” She said the walkout allowed students to demonstrate unity “because black lives matter.”

In a statement to parents and students Wednesday, Mr. Pasarow called the message a hate crime, saying “messages such as this one will not stand in our community,” the Times reported.

“We are working hard to create a positive and inclusive school culture and we recognize the deep pain and rage that hate crimes such as this one bring to our students of color as well as the damaging effects on our entire community,” he said in his statement.

Now, the school’s Black Student Union wants to know: “So when does the student body learn the name of the perpetrator?”

The College Fix, a conservative college news website, said it isn’t likely that the student will be identified, unless charged with a crime, but revealing the perpetrator’s race is “not barred by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.”

“The most likely explanation for the school’s silence is that this doesn’t fit the narrative that the BSU is peddling,” The College Fix concluded.

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