The superintendent of an Indiana high school issued an apology this week after a photo caption in the school’s 2020 yearbook listed a student on the boys’ basketball team as “BLACK GUY” instead of by his name.
The image from the Brown County High School yearbook began circulating on social media, triggering a video message from school district Superintendent Laura Hammack on Tuesday.
“It has been brought to our attention that that yearbook has a truly incomprehensible statement included in it,” she said. “We are currently trying to better understand what that situation is all about.”
According to pictures obtained by local outlet WRTV, the description was included in the yearbook for the 2019-2020 school year.
An investigation was launched once officials were made aware of the caption, and Hammack said the school district is working with the student and his family to ensure that they understand “this awful situation” will be fixed.
“This is a clear violation of our nondiscrimination policy,” she said.
Hammack said it was unclear exactly how the caption made it through a series of revisions with the yearbook.
In a joint statement released earlier Monday with high school Principal Matthew Stark, administrators acknowledged that the yearbook is put together by a group of students in the “only class at this school where all assignments and homework are published for all to see.”
“We strive for perfection and hope any errors are minor and inconsequential. This is not an inconsequential error,” the officials stated.
To rectify the situation, Hammack said the school district is planning on republishing new yearbooks and having the school district foot the expense.
“This yearbook fundamentally needs to be fixed,” Hammack said.
Brown County High School, located in the town of Nashville, Ind., is a predominately white school, according to state data. During the 2019-2020 school year, 92.2 percent of its 577 students were white.