Four South Carolina students from Westside High School recently spelled out “rape” with letters spray painted on their chests as a disgusting attempt at a joke during a football game for their district’s Breast Cancer Awareness night, reports The Huffington Post.
The four boys (two sophomores and two seniors) were reportedly part of a larger group that was spelling out “BUMP CANCER” for the event during the game against rival school D.W. Daniel. Before the game started, Kyle Newton, the director of the school district’s external affairs, said the students shuffled around to form different words. Unfortunately, one of those words was “rape.”
The picture was shared to Snapchat — which is how it caught the negative attention it deserved. It was captioned, “What we do to Daniel” in reference to the team from D.W. Daniel they were playing.
The Anderson 5 Citizens for Quality Education Facebook group shared a screenshot of the Snapchat to Facebook along with a long post that condemned the boys’ bad behavior.
The group is a “non-partisan group of concerned parents, students and citizens” in the school district. They called for action from the school and said the boys’ actions were especially concerning because of the juxtaposition of the breast cancer awareness event and the “joke” they made. Additionally, the group was concerned no action was taken at the football game when the incident occurred, especially considering “these young men were standing proudly in front of attendees, the teams, and the coaching staff.”
The post has been shared over 300 times since Wednesday morning.
Newton said all four students and their parents met with the administration Monday morning to be informed of their punishment. The school has not released the details of the punishment due to privacy concerns.
Newton also said the school is “very disappointed” in the boys’ actions, because “at best, what they did was extremely offensive ― at worst it could be traumatic to those who have suffered sexual assault. There is no place in any school or in any community for those types of actions.”