A concerned Missouri community has rallied for action after a white student—and daughter of a school board member—was filmed hurling anti-Black racial slurs months ago, with residents claiming the school’s administration only responded recently as a form of damage control rather than attempting to fix an issue that has been embedded within the culture.
The video of the Summit Christian Academy High School student, who has not been publicly identified, originally surfaced in October 2023, according to the Kansas City Defender.
In an Instagram post, the Kansas City Defender shared the clips with a disclaimer that they contained “hate speech, white supremacy, racial terror, [and] anti-Blackness.”
In one clip, a white female student with blond hair is seen standing in front of a long mirror in a public restroom. She turns toward the camera and says with a smile, “Stupid n—-r.”
In the next clip, the same student is seen motioning with her hands, seemingly in another public restroom, and laughing toward the camera: “Come here, little n—-r.”
Summit Christian Academy confirmed with The Kansas City Defender that at least one of the clips was filmed at the private school. School board treasurer Sarah Osborne also reached out to the publication and admitted that the student seen in the video was her daughter. The Kansas City Defender told The Daily Beast that Osborne said the context of the clips wasn’t provided to the public. Instead, she claimed that the student filming her daughter said the N-word first, which made her daughter say it in response.
After the school’s administration allegedly didn’t take action, students rang the alarm to The Kansas City Defender in early April—six months after the video first appeared on SnapChat.
“It was brought to the principal because it made many students feel very uncomfortable, and the school did nothing,” students told the outlet. “Because her mom is on the school board she knows she can get away with anything, and she has.”
In a statement to the media outlet, the school gave quite a crumbly cookie-cutter response.
“We take accusations of this nature very seriously and the accusation of the use of inappropriate language by our students seriously,” the statement read. “We expect the students to appropriately represent [Summit Christian Academy] even when not on school grounds. Scripture clearly provides guidance and expectations in the power of our words… SCA strives to provide a safe Christian environment conducive to developing Christ-like attitudes, habits, and character to pursue academic excellence and positive extracurricular activities.”
Students claimed the student stayed at school and continued in sports activities after the incident was reported. They said the student was only reprimanded with one day of in-school suspension after The Kansas City Defender contacted the Summit Christian Academy to get some answers.
But in an April 23 email, Summit Christian Academy Head of School Chris Hawn told the school community that the student seen in the video was handled according to “administrative protocol,” The Kansas City Defender reported.
However, members of the Lee’s Summit community are still confused as to what exactly happened.
“[The school’s] inaction not only endorses but also perpetuates an environment where hate speech and racial terror are normalized under the guise of preserving ‘traditional values,’” a user wrote on Reddit. “It is essential to recognize and challenge these institutions, for their passive endorsement of such ideologies contributes directly to the systemic racism that erodes our societal fabric.”
Alumni and parents chimed in about their experience with the school, with some claiming that student-led discrimination without any repercussions was standard.
“I went to this school. They never discipline things like this or worse,” an Instagram user commented under The Kansas City Defender’s post.
“I went to this school a few years back for my seventh grade year, it was horrible,” a former student wrote. “As a black girl I was constantly teased and called so many slurs it was hurtful.”
“My daughter graduated from [Summit Christian Academy] in 2019, worst decision we made was sending her there,” a parent commented.
“Graduated from here in 2022. This is not the first time the school has responded to racist incidents in this way,” a former student added. “As someone who served on the now non-existent diversity committee the administration refuses to address the rampant racism at the school.”
The Kansas City Defender told The Daily Beast Friday that dozens of current students, alumni, and parents have contacted the publication, detailing their experiences of being discriminated against at Summit Christian Academy.
April Smith, a local concerned Black parent, told The Daily Beast that the Christian school had been fostered from an intolerant culture when public schools were becoming more diverse as more residents began to move in and settle.
“What I’ve seen in the last couple of years is parents making a decision, a choice to remove their kids out of public school,” she said. “So, some parents felt like they wanted to kind of take their power back and take their kids out of the public schools.”
Smith’s daughter attends a public school and also saw the video that circulated on social media, adding that Black students at other schools in the area feel as if they don’t belong.
Recently, the Kansas City-metro has grappled with a series of racial issues.
In April 2023, Ralph Yarl, a Black teen, was shot by a white neighbor in the head after ringing the wrong doorbell. The 16-year-old finally got help after running “to 3 different homes” and was still instructed by a neighbor—after being shot—to lie on the ground with his hands up.
Bre’yanna Brown, a Black female student, was viciously attacked and called the n-word by a white male student at Shawnee Mission East High School in December. Members of the school community held a walkout and protested for the administration to take action, and other Black students also spoke out about the hate they had endured.
Smith said people have come into the community to do equity work in the area, but there’s always high “turnover.”
“We have people come in and they do great work, and then they leave,” Smith said. “There’s just a lot of fatigue in this community of just recurring situations.”
Neither Summit Christian Academy nor Osborne returned The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
