*Administrators at a secondary school in Bath, England have refused to expel a group of white students who allegedly tied a black classmate to a lamppost, whipped him with sticks and called him “extreme racist names” as part of a “mock slave auction,” the Bath Chronicle reported this week.
The alleged incident was reportedly filmed on Snapchat and shared among students, according to a woman whose child attends the school. The woman told the BBC she did not see the footage, but said the black student was “really humiliated” and “apparently panicking.”
Per The Guardian, at least seven students allegedly participated in the assault during lunch on Jan. 22. The head teacher of the secondary school (for students ages 11-16) initially suspended three of the alleged perpetrators, but the decision was overturned by school governors and the students are now back in class.
Police are investigating the incident, according to the BBC. Parents were only informed of the January incident on March 13, the Chronicle reports.
“We have today become aware of media interest in an incident which took place in January and involved a group of established friends and related to a single incident of unacceptable behavior within the school grounds,” the school said in a message to parents. “A full investigation was instigated in line with both internal school procedures and Department for Education requirements, including contact with the police.”
The parents of the alleged victim declined to speak to the Chronicle, but other parents are reportedly outraged.
“It just sends the wrong message out to the children,” the father of a student at the school told the paper. “I’ve got a mixed-race son. He’s thinking, ‘They’re going to stick up for the white kids but we get in trouble if we do something wrong.’”
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