A judge found a New Hampshire teenager guilty of violating the state’s civil rights law after he joined other boys in scrawling racial slurs and threatening messages against Black people in his high school, one of which included the name of a Black student who was his best friend.
The Union Leader reported that 17-year-old Edward Ackerly has to perform 100 hours of community service and write a 3,000-word essay that addresses racism. The civil action against Ackerly also sought a $500 fine, but the judge rejected it.
“The point here is not to derail you from having a productive life,” the judge reportedly told Ackerly.
In April 2022, Ackerly scrawled the phrase “Blacks stand no chance” on a bathroom wall inside John Stark Regional High School in Weare.
Another 17-year-old student was accused of drawing a swastika, “KKK,” and a racial slur that read, “Kill n*****s” alongside the name of a Black student at the school. That student behind those scribbles agreed to pay a $500 fine, perform community service, and also write an essay. Another younger student reportedly was involved but is too young for his punishment to be disclosed.
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This comes after the Civil Rights Unit of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office filed an enforcement action against Ackerly and those two other students involved in September of that year. The civil complaint Attorney General John M. Formella filed alleged that the vandalism was motivated by the race of the Black student whose name was drawn alongside those slurs and that the incident violated that student’s civil rights.
Civil rights violations in the state of New Hampshire carry up to a maximum civil penalty of $5,000. The two students whose punishments were released initially faced fines that ranged from…
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