A California student feels "disgusted" and "hurt" after a picture of her wearing hijab, an Islamic head scarf, appeared in her high school yearbook wrongly identified her as 'Isis Phillips'.
Bayan Zehlif, senior at Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga, California, posted the picture on Facebook. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the girl's parents were “embarrassed after seeing the picture in the yearbook and have suffered a great deal of emotional and psychological distress.”
Zehlif’s Facebook post reads that, “I am extremely saddened, disgusted, hurt and embarrassed that the Los Osos High School yearbook was able to get away with this. Apparently I am ‘Isis’ in the yearbook. The school reached out to me and had the audacity to say that this was a typo. I beg to differ, let’s be real.”
Mat Holton, superintendent for the Chaffey Joint Union High School District, said that, "If they find that a student acted irresponsibly and intentionally, administration will take appropriate actions.”
"The school will assure students, staff and the community that this regrettable incident in no way represents the values, or beliefs, of Los Osos High School."
Hussam Ayloush, executive director for the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement that, "We join with the family in their concern about a possible bias motive for this incident and in the deep concern for their daughter's safety as a result of being falsely labelled as a member of a terrorist group.”
"No student should have to face the humiliation of being associated with a group as reprehensible as ISIS," he added.
The school's yearbook staff also issued an apology, writing on Twitter, that, "It is our duty to represent the students of Los Osos High School and by mis-tagging and giving the incorrect name, we failed to do so.
"We should have checked each name carefully in the book and we had no intention to create this misunderstanding. It is our fault and this is absolutely inexcusable on our part."
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Nandini
