Do Christian K-12 Schools Have a Race Problem?

By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware, Word in Black

The viral video, recorded in what looks like a high school cafeteria, starts innocuously enough. Jeremiah Mason — a Black student at Fresno Christian Schools in Fresno, California —  munching on chicken fingers. Then, another student walks in and greets Mason.

“What up, n*gger!” he says.

Mason, a Fresno Christian senior at the time who has since graduated, looks into the camera, an exasperated, see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with expression on his face. That incident, along with others the teenager surreptitiously caught on camera — including another student throwing up a Nazi salute, then pretending to whip him — led Mason’s father to accuse the school of allowing racism to fester on campus.

“I shared it ultimately with the president of the [Fresno Christian] board,” J. Mason, Jeremiah’s father, told yourcentralvalley.com, a local news outlet. “He told me, ‘Hey, yeah, we’re going to do something about this.’ But I waited for 11 days and didn’t receive any information. I didn’t hear anything.”

For parents dissatisfied with local public schools, private, faith-based schools can be an option for their child to receive a quality education anchored in Christian values. But a spate of high-profile incidents points to an undercurrent of racial bias that harms Black students and undermines schools’ religious mission.

“I think it’s literally anti-Christian” J. Mason told the local NBC affiliate last week. “You’re setting the team back” because people see how Christians treat a Black student — “your own people at your own school.”

After receiving inadequate follow-up from school leadership, J. Mason went public with the story. A video of the abuse against Jeremiah has since gone viral.

The incident at Fresno Christian is the latest in a series of racial harassment allegations involving private Christian schools in recent years.

Learn about the other incidents.

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