Racially-Charged TikTok by Greeley Teens Inflames Passions  

A months-old racially-charged video containing images of several Horace Greeley High School students resurfaced Thursday sparking outrage and disgust among alumni and community members and calls for Chappaqua school officials to do more to address racial intolerance.

Local social media sites were in an uproar Friday and Saturday after the roughly 10-second clip posted to TikTok in February shows a girl asking several different boys in rapid-fire succession “Would you be my Valentine?” Each responds with the n word.

On Friday, high school Principal Andrew Corsilia posted a community-wide response on the Chappaqua School District’s website condemning bigotry, stating “this act and all other acts of racism and hatred, have no place in our community.”

“These actions are not representative of who we are or what we believe,” Corsilia’s message read in part. “That being said, we must do better. We must pull together, with the rest of the country and the world, as we confront systems that perpetuate racism, inequality, and ignorance.”

The students’ punishment, which has been one source of conversation and speculation on social media sites, was not addressed. Corsilia stated the students involved had been “disciplined appropriately” and in accordance with the district’s Code of Conduct. The punishment and the incident itself had been kept from the public because revealing details could potentially violate the students’ rights, according to Corsilia.

Several recent Greeley graduates said racist and racially insensitive behavior was routinely tolerated or ignored during their time at the school. Liam Curtis, a 2019 graduate who recently completed his freshman year at Yale and a member of Greeley’s Black Student Union when he attended the school, said there has been a continuous pattern by district officials to look the other way when racially insensitive incidents occur.

“I was more disappointed by the fact that the administration didn’t issue a public statement or a public condemnation of such a hateful and intolerant video for months, leaving black students and other students of color in the dark,” Curtis said.

The video resurfaced on Thursday after a former Greeley classmate of Curtis forwarded it to him. He said he showed it to several students who he remains in contact with and still attend the school. Curtis said he felt it was his responsibility to post it on social media because there is a “very hostile racial climate for students of color” at Greeley.

Since then, the clip has gone viral, having been circulated in the community and even among friends of Greeley graduates who have no connection to Chappaqua schools.

A 2018 graduate, Violet Gautreau, said she was appalled but not surprised at the video. Gautreau, who last month completed her sophomore year at Princeton, said there had been what she termed “casual racism” accepted at Greeley when she attended the school. Students often felt it would require too much effort to appeal to school or district administrators to have the issue addressed.

She said it often felt as though faculty and administrators were more interested in protecting their own reputations and that of the district rather than addressing a difficult problem directly.

“During my time there my classmates and I felt that it wasn’t our place to go to the administration,” Gautreau said. “We didn’t feel welcome to talk to them about issues like this.”

By Friday, Gautreau had sent a letter to Corsilia voicing her dismay at the district’s handling of the matter and for “an extremely light punishment.” After failing to receive a response, she posted it on Facebook.

Social media posts have speculated that the students involved were disciplined with a two-day suspension but The Examiner was unable to confirm the accuracy of those comments.

Curtis and another 2019 graduate, Divya Kishore, said one other significant problem is a lack of diversity among the faculty.

“I would say that that’s a very big issue and I think that’s a very true point,” said Kishore, now a student at Emory University. “I think that the way they should be able to empower the students and the faculty and the entire district and community as a whole is to have people exposed to students from different backgrounds.”

In addition, Curtis said the district should require bias training for all faculty, staff and students, include classes on race and ethnicity and increase racial sensitivity in history and other classes.

“I think there is an unwillingness to make these structural and cultural changes and a lack of understanding and a lack of representation of people of color, which obviously doesn’t allow for these issues to be pushed as much,” Curtis said.

On Saturday, The Examiner reached out to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Christine Ackerman, who forwarded her June 2 message to the community reaffirming solidarity with communities of color in the wake of the recent protests around the nation. She also included Corsilia’s Friday correspondence and the Board of Education’s letter that has been posted on the district’s website.

The board’s letter, which acknowledged officials receiving an outpouring of grief from current students and alumni over the video, said trustees are “appalled and devastated by racially divisive incidents in our schools and our society as a whole.” It also listed six steps that are ongoing or will be added to confront racial intolerance in the district, including addressing the lack of diversity among staff and incorporating into the curriculum an improved focus on racism and hatred at pivotal moments in history. 

Board President Jane Shepardson defended the administration’s response amidst the heavy criticism, saying they responded appropriately to a difficult situation.

“I can speak to this administration the last three years,” Shepardson said. “I don’t think they’re slow to react. I think they are not avoiding controversy. For my tenure on the board, they have addressed everything head on.”

A special Monday evening Board of Education meeting was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. to address the issue. The link to the live-stream of the meeting can be found on the Chappaqua School District’s website.

An earlier version of this article noted how a caption toward the bottom of the video said “bc jewish white boys saying the n word is cute.” While that caption did appear, it was not written by the Greeley students but rather a social media user, The Examiner has since learned.