By Anjuli Niyogi, Editor-in-Chief
On Tuesday, August 18th, Serena Arge’s 6th period Art of Video class was interrupted by a Zoom bomber’s racial comments.
While giving a personal example for a get-to-know your classmates slideshow assignment, Ms. Arge described her life as shown on the shared screen with an illustration of her African-American significant other. The Zoom bomber appeared with the name “Ritchie Ahuma.” repeating the phrase, “All n****** matter.” Jeshua Ambrosia (11) directly told the Zoom bomber to stop, explaining that “this is a classroom” environment where this kind of behavior is not appropriate.
Several other classmates responded by recording the incident on their cell phones, hoping to ensure that the perpetrator could be identified later on.
Shaken up by the statement, Ms. Arge told the Zoom bomber to stop, but when they continued with their comments, she promptly ended the Zoom call. The class reconvened roughly 20 minutes later and Ms. Arge sought to address the inappropriateness and injustice of the racial slurs, possibly triggered by her husband’s illustration.
Shortly after, Ms. Arge informed all Mills administrators and the Dean of Students about the incident. She was able to speak to Vice Principal, Lyndsey Schlax the same afternoon to give her the details of what happened and share the login data of the Zoom bomber. While the investigation is still going on, Ms. Arge informed her class that
It looks like 2 people logged in and we are trying to identify them.”
– Serena Arge, Art of Video Teacher
To combat these risks of online learning, Mills High School is now requiring all of its students to join zoom calls via their own personal student SMUHSD accounts.
[The] racial comments were disgusting and totally unjust. I think that the administration has taken a good step by requiring us to have our student emails to login.”
– Aiden Neely (12), 6th Period Art of Video Student
Ms. Arge is also now requiring her students enter a designated password to join every Zoom class with her.
Ms. Dusyznski came to the next day’s class on Wednesday (August 19th) to talk about the racial trauma that was felt by all the classmates and to applaud those who stood up against the commenter.
I do want to say that I’m proud of the upstanders in this class who took quick action to confront this racist act.”
– Pamela Duszynski, Mills High School Principal
Efforts have been made by administrators to ensure that the perpetrator is found and receives disciplinary action. It appears that this Zoom bomber potentially logged in with an alias account, not associated with a Mills student. Administration is also asking for students to submit an anonymous alert with any information leading to the identification of this person.
