2 Students Face Expulsion Over Drawing of Lynching

Two San Marcos High School students may be expelled for drawing a picture of a lynching and leaving it on the desk of the only black girl in their English class.

The girls were suspended last week, more than a month after the incident.

Authorities said they drew a picture of a black girl being lynched that included the phrase: “Every class should plant a tree. Here’s our tree.”

Cheron Davison, 16, said she left the class Oct. 7 to go to the bathroom and returned to find the drawing folded between two books on her desk.

“My feelings were hurt,” she said. “The only thing I come to school for is to get an education.” She eventually left the class and, in tears, telephoned her mother and asked her to take her home.

The names of the girls, who face an expulsion hearing, were not released. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department was investigating to determine if criminal charges should be filed.

“It was a lynching, not a prank,” said Shirley Kennedy, a member of the Santa Barbara chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “A girl hanging by her neck, that is a vicious ugly threat. It’s a death threat.”

It took weeks to identify the girls who drew the picture because other students refused to identify them, said school district Supt. Michael Caston.

District and school officials have since undergone a two-day training seminar on how to prevent and deal with such incidents, and teachers also will have the training, Caston said.