Area high school takes action following incident involving offensive image, racial slur on student’s car

HOLMEN, Wis. (WKBT) – Holmen High School is responding to an incident involving a racial slur and offensive image on a student’s vehicle.

On Monday, March 2, a student drove a car into the Holmen High School parking lot with both an offensive image and racial slur written in the dust on the passenger side. The driver was unaware of the images.

According to a statement from Dr. Kristen Mueller, District Administrator at the School District of Holmen, other students wiped off the word and image and reported the incident to school officials.

Here is a copy of the Holmen High School Public Statement.

School officials interviewed the students and reviewed camera footage to confirm the incident did not occur on school grounds. “Racism is not acceptable on school grounds or in our community,” Mueller said. School officials are working in partnership with the Holmen Police Department. Upon completion of the investigation, the appropriate discipline, per school district policy, will be administered, according to the statement.

“We know these actions and statements reported are by a small number of students and do not accurately reflect the character and feelings of the entire student body.” According to Mueller, “The School District of Holmen has taken steps such as creating student and parent groups to communicate openly about racism, provided learning opportunities around the topics of prejudice, bias and perspective, intent versus impact, digital citizenship, and character development. As you can see, we have been working hard to educate our students, but know there is more work to be done.
As we see more incidents of racism in society, we are also seeing more incidents in our schools and community. Racism has no place in Holmen. We understand the moral responsibility we
have to be relentless in our work to create a culture in which racism is not tolerated and every child and adult is treated with respect and dignity. It is going to take a strong community working better together to create a society where all feel welcome and safe.”

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