Related Articles Hijab-wearing woman describes San Jose State attack WOODSIDE — Racially driven animus over the presidential election jarred the usually serene Woodside High School campus with video spreading of a violent attack on a student who voiced support for Donald Trump.

Within 24 hours, as the student was home recovering, much of the campus walked out of class and gathered in the quad to vent their myriad feelings about the new political atmosphere taking shape in the country.

“It’s hard because we’re at a diverse school, and (nationally) it feels like we’re going back in time,” said senior Alexa Suchite, 18.

Her feelings were heightened by fervor over an Instagram post by sophomore Jade Armenio on Tuesday night that some students interpreted as a racial attack.

A partially obscured image of the social media post obtained by this newspaper shows a sequence in which a comment disparaging Mexicans was followed by Jade writing, “one of the few things we can agree on.”

Jade’s father, Todd Armenio, contends that her response was to the original post, which expressed a pro-Trump sentiment that didn’t disparage Mexicans.

“She would never do that. We don’t raise our kids like that,” Todd Armenio said, referring to the idea of his daughter made racist remarks.

But the order of the comments was taken by some students as an endorsement of the disparaging comment. That apparently caught Jade by surprise when she was on campus Wednesday.

“This girl comes up to me and she said, ‘Do you hate Mexicans?’ and I was like, ‘no,’ and she said, ‘You support Trump. You hate Mexicans,’ ” she said in an interview with KGO-TV.

Not long after, the girl removed her eyeglasses and punched Jade, threw her to the ground and continued hitting her, according to multiple student cellphone videos obtained by this newspaper. Jade was left with a bloody nose, scratches and bruises.

“She’s pretty shaken up, and rightfully so,” said Todd Armenio, who noted that his family does support the president-elect. “It makes me sick to my stomach that people would do this to other people. It’s sickening, and no one has the right to touch another person.”

A self-described mentor for the girl who attacked Jade urged compassion for the suspended student. “We don’t want a mistake during a highly emotional and intense time to affect her long-term future,” said Khabral Muhammad, a life coach at Live in Peace, a nonprofit group supporting East Palo Alto youth.

Todd Armenio said his family is considering pulling Jade out of the school, alleging a lack of responsiveness by the school. A statement from Woodside High Principal Diane Burbank, which stated, “The recorded incident was investigated in conjunction with law enforcement and appropriate disciplinary action has been taken.”

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office is working with the school, the involved students and their parents in their investigation, spokesman Detective Sal Zuno said. Meanwhile, the girl who attacked Jade has been suspended pending an expulsion hearing.

Students on Thursday had mixed feelings about what happened, expressing sympathy for their suspended schoolmate while disavowing the violence.

But they walked out of class and gathered en masse in the quad Thursday morning, after the airing of the television news piece on the attack, staging a sit-in where upward of 100 students took turns expressing their reactions, hopes and fears about the election.

Gillian Person, a 17-year-old senior, said the campus confrontation galvanized her fellow classmates, regardless of where they fell on the political spectrum.

“This is something that’s happening not only at our school, but in the entire U.S.,” she said.

Word of the lengthy rally spread quickly enough that Daira Quintero Lopez, 17, visited from another campus to sit in, explaining that the conversation happening at Woodside was dormant at her own school.

“To get a new president who wants to close the door to other races, that doesn’t make sense,” she said.

The variety of voices at the rally was heartening to 15-year-old freshman Keiran Lewman.

“Instead of fighting, people were coming together over what they do agree about,” he said.

Burbank, the principal, said in a letter to parents that “it was a remarkably peaceful protest … the permeating student message was one of unity.”