Pleasant Hill School Newsletter Sent Out With Racist Image
PLEASANT HILL (CBS/AP) -- A substitute secretary apparently mistook a racist cartoon for a harmless comic and sent it out as part of a Pleasant Hill middle school's newsletter.
The newsletter sent last week from Sequoia Middle School in Pleasant Hill included a Peanuts cartoon showing a black character with a noose around his neck beneath the words "White Pride."
School officials said the cartoon was in fact evidence from a 3-year-old hate crime investigation stemming from racist graffiti on a campus mural.
Principal Connie Cirimeli wrote in a letter Sunday that the busy secretary added the digital image to the newsletter without examining it closely.
Cirimeli says the secretary then sent out the newsletter without having other staffers proofread it, contrary to school policy.
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