When public threats of terror against black students crop up on a school computer and permeate a community, any semblance of safety in an already racially tense environment is shattered. Taking steps toward healing — the first of which ought to be expelling the student responsible — must be done thoughtfully.

The triggering and traumatizing text and images were found on a library computer Wednesday. On Thursday, when students arrived at school, trying to make sense of the senseless, seeking answers but not finding any, they came up with their own response — to march. Students walked out of the school, taking to the streets of Berkeley as they did last December for the Black Lives Matter movement.

In the wake of this act of terror, the students’ strength is braver and more necessary than ever. The fact that the walkout was a protest of not only the administration’s response but also the incident itself demonstrates students’ dedication to the fight against racism and injustice.

It is now on the administration to give its full support to the student body. The campus has already seen a repetition of racist events, the most recent of which occurred in June, when a racially charged note was published in the school’s yearbook, and in October 2014, when a school safety officer discovered a noose hanging on campus.

But the horrifying level that this incident reached demands a strong response from the administration. Berkeley’s Local Control and Accountability Plan, which details policies for the school system to meet its mission, specifically includes provisions on fostering a safe, welcoming and inclusive climate, as well as ending racial predictability by ensuring that its teaching environments are responsive to its students’ cultural needs. When the campus climate is as poor as it is now, the school must prove its commitment to ensuring the safety of all students.

The administration must create time and space for black students to discuss discrimination they experience within the Berkeley Unified School District as well as opportunities for solidarity and continued education of students, like it has already promised to do later this year.

It also must remove from campus the student responsible for such an outrageous act. Someone who thinks it is acceptable to call for lynchings and pledge allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan has no place on a campus committed to equality.

This student needs to be educated on the effects and the moral reprehensibility of his or her action, but the necessity of removing the student from the space he or she threatened with historically entrenched racial oppression overrides the student’s possible reintegration into student life. Additionally, as called for by the NAACP, the school should disclose the discipline it enacts, even if it cannot disclose the student’s identity.

The expulsion of the student alone will not fix the systemic racism that manifests in everyday high school life. This one student’s high school career cannot rectify the centuries of inequality building up to this event. But the walkout and protests proved real maturity and dedication in the youth fighting against racism.