A Dallas high school apologized after holding a pep rally which appropriated Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” when it was accused of racism for using a border “wall” sign to taunt a football rival.
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“I’m embarrassed to say I went to this school”, wrote one person on Twitter, who said she was a Colleyville Heritage alumna.
The principal also called Trinity Principal Mike Harris to apologize.
“At Colleyville Heritage we celebrate and take pride in our own diversity and we appreciate the diversity at Trinity High School”. The sign refers to Trump’s repeated assurances that Mexico will be paying for the wall he plans to erect to stop the flow of illegal immigration.
The pictures were later posted online, which sparked social media outrage where countless of people called the Trump-themed pep rally banners “racist and disgusting”.
The sign was part of a pep rally Friday with the theme “Make Colleyville Great Again”.
“Trinity don’t y’all dare lose to Colleyville tonight in spite of this foolishness”, Turner tweeted.
Despite the rally, Colleyville still lost the game, 35-21, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported. Students also released an open letter to Trinity students, writing that “the actions of last week do not demonstrate who we are” and acknowledged “that what we did was wrong”.
In the 2014-15 academic school year, a performance report listed Trinity as 21 percent black, 26 percent Hispanic and 36 percent white, with almost 46 percent of students categorized as “economically disadvantaged”.
The Trinity Trojans, shown in white, easily beat the Colleyville Heritage Panthers, in red, for the ninth straight time in the game on Friday.. The banner “offended members of the Trinity High School community and members of the community at large”, according to a statement posted on the district website.
“Going forward”, Hadley added, “pep rally signs will require admin approval before being displayed”.
Groppel said he doesn’t believe there was intent to hurt Trinity students, but that it’s important to understand “the impact that comments can have on others”. “Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD and Grapevine-Colleyville ISD have always had a very positive working relationship and will work together to resolve this unfortunate issue”.
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“When situations like this arise, we as educators see these as learning opportunities and are committed to teach our students how to respond when something is perceived to be negative”.
