Lowell students suspended after racist texts

LOWELL, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) - Six students are suspended after allegedly sending a racially charged group text. A screen grab of the text ended up on social media and went viral.

Lowell High School officials are investigating the exchange, which occurred Tuesday, hours after the election of the new class president, 18-year-old Anye Nkimbeng, who is African American.

"I was sad and heartbroken," said Nkimbeng.

The Lowell High School senior was celebrating his election, but the victory was cut short when he started seeing a group text going around calling for him to be impeached because he is black.

The group text was sent out to 12 students. One message said that "He shouldn’t be president, impeach him, imagine him doing your graduation speech." One response read "f--- black people." Another one read, "Rule rule out blacks and #MakeLHSGreatAgain."

School officials said Friday that due to the messages, six of the students on the group text have been suspended.

Nkimbeng father say his heart sank because one of the messages said a student wanted to lynch his son.

"When I heard that word lynched I was numb and cold and frozen because I know what that word means and the implication," said Mr. Nkimbeng.

Anye's mother had to find out about the hateful messages from her son, not the school.

"You don't say a word to the parent of the victim it really kills us," she said.

"I do want to personally apologize to the parents of Anye because they felt we could have communicated better when we first had some information and I take full responsibility for that," said Headmaster Brian Martin.

School officials are now working to get Nkimbeng and the six suspended student in the same room to discuss what happened and figure out how to make sure it never happens again.

"If they want to tell me sorry - I have no problem with that," said Nkimbeng.

The 18-year-old is already making race relations a priority as class president.

"My first thing is to start with the school trying to bring our class back together," he said.

Cox Media Group