GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A quote by Adolf Hitler in a high school yearbook has some people upset.
For years, seniors at Southwest High School have been able to include quotes under their senior picture in the yearbook. But controversy over some of the sayings is putting that tradition to an end.
“I did look forward to it, because it’s always something, you know, personal that you can add into the book, and, you know, it’s like a piece of you going with you, you know, moving forward,” said
Southwest High junior Kevin Barrett.
Southwest High School students found out Friday, that piece students got to leave behind in the school yearbook will be no more.
“Your senior quotes should be fun and not taken too seriously, so just having them take that away is just like another way that they’re kinda like not advocating for the students as much,” Claire Betten, a Southwest High senior said.
The high school administration says they were made aware of a parent’s concerns with having the Nazi leader’s quote in the yearbook.
FOX 11 contacted the school, but school leaders said nobody was available for an interview Friday afternoon.
Betten said she believes doing away with the senior quotes is suppressive to some students.
“Yes, that kid should be reprimanded, and they should be like held accountable for it, but I don’t think the entire school should be in trouble for what one kid did,” she said.
But one offended parent by just one student’s quote isn’t the only reason why this senior privilege is being revoked.
In a statement, the school said that the concern raised, coupled with the difficult quote managing process this year, led to the decision.
“I know our yearbook editor, our teacher Ms. Kollath, she works really hard on it, and I guess some seniors were pushing the line with it,” said Betten.
Students say they noticed the school had really begun cracking down on what would ultimately go below their last high school picture.
“A lot lot of my friends, they would send in a quote and like immediately it would get denied,” Betten said. “They would have to play the back and forth game with the teachers a lot to make sure it wasn’t offending anybody, but none of them offended me – the ones that I saw.”
Barrett says he wasn’t personally offended by any of the quotes, either.
“I thought they were pretty funny,” he said. “I could see how some people maybe would be upset about them, but I thought they were pretty funny.”
The school, however, did not.
In the statement, officials said including the student quotes and comments started to negatively affect what should be a positive memory for students and their families.
“The yearbook is for us, not for them, so I think it’s pretty…I think it’s a little irrational,” Barrett said.
School officials also say they working to determine remedies for this year’s yearbook.
