LONG BEACH : School Panel Lets Club Keep ‘Caucasian’ in Name
A club for students of European descent at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach can keep the name “Caucasian Ancestry Club,” the school’s Community Interracial Council decided this week.
The council’s 12-10 vote to allow the name followed a meeting at which some students and administrators argued that Caucasian is a racially charged word, similar to Aryan. They said they feared that the club, which has about 45 members, might be seen as a white supremacy group. But other students pointed out that the word “Caucasian” appears on many school forms to identify white students, who constitute fewer than a third of the school’s 3,700 students. Club supporters said the purpose of the club is to study European history and culture.
All of the school’s clubs, including the Caucasian Ancestry Club, are open to any student regardless of race or cultural background.
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