“Threatening, racially charged and antisemitic messages” directed at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda and its principal were sent to the school student newspaper on Thursday, according to a letter sent out to the Whitman community.
The letter, written by Whitman principal Gregory Miller and sent out on Friday, didn’t detail the messages’ content and said they were never made public because all messages are reviewed by editors and staff.
The school notified the Montgomery County police, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Office of School Support and Improvement and MCPS Systemwide Safety and filed “appropriate reporting forms for this matter,” according to Miller’s letter.
To prevent similar incidents, Miller’s letter said, administrators, staff and student leaders from the newspaper have worked to develop additional safeguards.
“These measures include adjustments to the comment and contact features on the newspaper’s website, which will better protect our students from exposure to harmful content,” Miller’s letter said.
The letter also said the submission of comments and inquiries to the newspaper will include enhanced protections that prohibit anonymous submissions.
“We understand the distress that such incidents can cause and want to reassure you that we are committed to fostering a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment for all students,” Miller said in the letter.
The messages come amid a change in MCPS hate-bias response procedures that, among other things, set strict parameters for when police are contacted. According to MCPS documents, police will only be contracted for serious and intentionally discriminatory incidents.
