Local advocacy group the 3/20 Coalition launched a petition on Thursday calling for the Centre County District Attorney’s Office to drop the legal case against a teen who allegedly assaulted another student last week at State College Area High School.
The assault, which occurred inside the school before the start of classes on Feb. 1, stemmed from a photo that had been circulating of a white student wearing a racial slur and antisemitic imagery.
A 16-year-old Black student is facing juvenile charges for the altercation, though what specific allegations have been filed remains unclear. The coalition’s original petition, and a previous statement by the State College NAACP, said he was charged with a felony and two misdemeanors. The petition was updated to state the “severity of the charges have yet to be determined.”
State College police confirmed a juvenile allegation was filed with Centre County’s juvenile court, but deferred questions to the district attorney’s office. District Attorney Bernie Cantorna reiterated on Thursday night that his office does not comment on juvenile cases.
Both the coalition and the State College NAACP, which started a GoFundMe campaign for the student charged in the case, say he was “harassed, bullied and threatened with hate speech and symbols over the course months” by the white student who took the picture.
“Hate speech is not free speech and has no business in an institution of learning,” a statement from the coalition said. “The 3/20 Coalition stands against racism and white supremacy, and are now faced with a situation that has fallen into the hands of the district attorney instead of the principal’s office.”
State College Area School District Superintendent Bob O’Donnell wrote in an email on Monday that the district is not involved with determining whether charges are filed in such incidents.
“In addition to prompting our own internal investigations, every physical altercation within our high school is automatically logged by our school resource officer, a police officer,” O’Donnell wrote. “The district has no say in whether charges or arrests follow. Charges are up to the victim in collaboration with local police departments.”
District policy calls for a minimum of five days of out-of-school suspension for both assault and harassment of any kind, including ethnic intimidation. O’Donnell added during Monday night’s school board meeting that code of conduct violations also include an educational plan and “a restorative approach that provides opportunities for students to repair harm caused.”
Nine community members who spoke at Monday’s school board meeting said the incident should never have ended up in the court system and that the district needs to do more to address racism.
The 3/20 Coalition’s statement said both students “have been failed by the school system, and this situation is a prime example of the school-to-prison-pipeline wherein Black youth are criminalized and pushed out of school more often than their White counterparts.”
“We believe in restorative and equal justice,” the statement said.
If the case is not dropped, the coalition will demand that the white student be charged with harassment and ethnic intimidation.
But Tierra Williams, chair of the 3/20 Coalition and a Ferguson Township supervisor, said she wants to see an opportunity for healing and a plan for addressing racism in schools.
“If the legal case is dropped we would like to see some kind of racial healing between the two individuals as well as others affected in the schools,” Williams wrote in an email. “Then we would like to see SCASD come up with a minimum 10-point plan on how they will address racism, bigotry and bias and consequences.”
