Warning: This article contains obscene language.
A group of freshman and sophomore boys who attend Masterman and Central High School are under investigation by the District and their schools’ administrators after sending a long chain of messages to each other that contained racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs.
On Wednesday, an unknown individual leaked screenshots of the private group chat on Instagram. The messages have since met with an avalanche of criticism online from classmates and Masterman and Central alumni.
In the chat, students joked about raping Black women, each other and their classmates.
“They complain so much I [might] actual[ly] rape one of them to give them something to complain about,” one student said, referring to Black women.
“Dumbass bitch,” another said, referring to his classmate. “Rape Diana.”
“Kevin I want to rape you,” another said, referring to someone else in the chat. “May I rape you Kevin?”
The students casually tossed out the n-word, the b-word and slurs like “tr**ny” and “f****t.” They named one of their chats “b*****s@f****t.com,“spelling out the words. They criticized women for not being grateful for their rights.
“Wom[e]n think they some sort of gods walking around with scum,” one student said. “Like hello who do you think gave you your rights?”
The School District and representatives from Masterman and Central said an investigation is ongoing into the students’ conduct — the screenshots were reported to administration on Wednesday.
Central president Timothy McKenna said he’s using the school’s harassment policy to guide him through that investigation. The policy says the school prohibits any harassment on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin and sexual orientation. It’s unclear whether the messages qualify as harassment, since they were sent in a private group chat.
The students who sent the messages have received no punishment thus far, but administrators at Masterman and Central had a meeting on Friday to identify all students involved and to discuss appropriate disciplinary action.
Both McKenna and Jesscia Brown, principal of Masterman, issued statements Friday afternoon.
“Students will be held accountable for their posts and videos,” McKenna said. “Ensuring a safe and supportive school for all students and staff has long been a goal at Central High School.”
Brown echoed McKenna’s statement.
“We condemn the use of any harassing language,” Brown said. “We are committed to making our community a safe place for all students.”
Nutsa Abashidze, a sophomore at Central, said she’s seen the messages circulating on social media, and the fact that her own classmates have used such offensive language against women and students of color makes her “uncomfortable.”
“Obviously I know misogynistic and racist people exist, but I don’t deal with them often. It’s appalling how uneducated they are about rape, and [that they] think it’s funny to joke about it,” Abashidze said. “I think they should face punishment for their actions because they’ve caused other people pain.”
The revelation of these messages comes on the heels of a nationwide, citywide and District-wide conversation about race and the nation’s legacy of racism. After George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis, was killed at the hands of police, and protests erupted across the city and country, the conversation made its way into (virtual) classrooms.
In addition to extensive teacher training around implicit bias and race, Superintendent William Hite said Thursday that the District would revise curricula to put more emphasis on imperialism, colonialism, and the history of protest movements.
Masterman and Central already incorporate anti-racist education into their English and history curricula. At Central, every sophomore in African American history class is required to read the book, How to be an Anti-Racist. Teachers at Masterman incorporate teachings about slavery reparations, Afro-Centrism and other social justice concepts in their classes. In 2017, every high school student at Masterman was required to watch the movie I’m not racist… am I, which was followed up with a schoolwide discussion about race and racism. At both schools, however, there is considerably less talk about sexism and sexual harassment.
As recent events unfolded, students of color began pouring out their experiences with racism in schools. Over the past several weeks there have been District-wide calls to disband school police, with students, parents and teachers saying they “criminalize” students of color. Advocates want the $31 million spent on school security invested in more counselors, social workers, and community members trained in de-escalation and restorative justice strategies for dealing with school discipline.
Several of the leaders of the Philadelphia Student Union, which is leading this “police-free schools” effort, are female students from Masterman and Central.
On Thursday, the District’s new safety director Kevin Bethel outlined for the Board of Education his plans to “re-imagine,” rather than disband the security force, so its members support rather than criminalize students. Among other changes, they will now be called “school safety officers” and they will have new uniforms with a “softer look” that makes them look less like Philadelphia police. The officers are unarmed, but they carry handcuffs.
Several speakers at the meeting also called on the District to re-evaluate its policy for admission to these and other selective schools, noting that Black students are vastly underrepresented at Central and Masterman compared to their numbers in the District as a whole.
The Instagram page blackatmasterman, where Black students at Masterman recalled racist incidents at the school, has been gaining a lot of traffic. The page has more than 100 posts from students ranging from the class of 1998 to the class of 2026.
“It’s also important for them to be educated,” Abashidze said of the students in the viral group chat. “They might not realize how serious this is and need to actually understand why it’s bad so that they don’t do it again.”
The students in the chat could not be reached for comment.
Neena Hagen, a Notebook intern, attends the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from Masterman in 2017. Follow her on Twitter @neena_hagen.
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Masterman and Central students use slurs, tell rape jokes in viral group chat - Philadelphia Public School Notebook
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