Racism in America should be unacceptable and there should be no tolerance for it. Being a student in duval county I have encountered many instances of students saying hate speech and racial slurs with no consequence. This must come to an end.

While students and Americans have the right to freedom of speech and can say what they want, racial slurs and hate speech has no place in the classroom. This could be extremely offensive to certain groups and people and could cause serious disturbance in the classroom. Just this past year my school, Douglas Anderson school of the arts, had several reports of students using hate speech. These students were not held accountable and were defended by the fact that hate speech is not in the code of conduct. The only thing that relates to hate speech is offensive words. This means that someone that says a curse word is more at risk of getting in trouble than someone who uses a slur. 
For example, if I were to say “fuck” in front of a teacher I could be given a referral and that would stay on my permanent record. On the other hand someone can say the n word and get away with it. This is not just a hypothetical. This has happened several times at my school and I want people to be held accountable. Zero tolerance should be given for racism.

I’m asking you to stand with me to fight against the injustices in the duval county public schools. Racism and hate speech has no place in a school and there needs to be action taken to make sure slurs are properly punished.