Overview

Pacifica High School Nazi Salute Video refers to the public outcry about a leaked video of a group of high school students in Garden Grove, California giving Nazi salute and singing Nazi songs at an unsupervised event.

Background

On August 19th, 2019, The Daily Dot^[1] published video of the Pacifica High School boys water polo team giving Nazi salutes and singing Nazi songs at an awards ceremony in 2018. According to the report, "The incident occurred in an unsupervised banquet room out of view of adults, the school said. The video was uploaded to Instagram by one of the athletes, who also posted lyrics to the song in his Instagram bio. After the video expired, the athlete removed the reference. He did not respond to requests for comment."

Developments

Second Video

The following day, more videos of this sort surfaced. ABC's Veronica Miracle tweeted, "Three new videos -- potentially three more examples of #racism & #extremism at Pacifica High School in Orange County. These videos are now part of a bigger investigation at the school. 1st & 2nd vid from last school year. 3rd vid from 3 yrs ago but show current students" (shown below).

Three new videos -- potentially three more examples of #racism & #extremism at Pacifica High School in Orange County. These videos are now part of a bigger investigation at the school. 1st & 2nd vid from last school year.3rd vid from 3 yrs ago but show current students.@ABC7 pic.twitter.com/ieOun4FyZl

— Veronica Miracle (@ABC7Veronica) August 21, 2019

School Response

The initial video was taken November 2018 at an unsupervised athletics banquet. The school learned about the videos and launched an investigation about four months later, speaking with parents and students, who were reprimanded.

Following the release of the clips, the school announced that they would be re-opening investigations into the videos. According to the Los Angeles Times,^[2] Pacifica High School Principal Steve Osborne said:

This new information, which continues to unfold minute by minute, demands a school-wide call to action to address the severity of these claims to ensure hate speech never happens again. Hate speech will not be tolerated. This is not who we are. Rest assured that any students engaging in hate speech or activities will face disciplinary action in accordance with the California education code.

We did a disservice to the entire school community by limiting our actions to the small group of students involved. We are sorry that our investigation and our transparency with the Pacifica community fell drastically short. In retrospect, our judgment was wrong, and we take full responsibility for that.

Media Coverage

Several media outlets covered the controversy, including The Daily Beast,^[1] The Los Angeles Times,^[2] ABC,^[3] The Daily Dot^[4] and more.

Search Interest

External References