Muslim student Bayan Zehlif, who is a senior at the Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga, California, was furious after she was identified as "Isis Phillips" in the school's yearbook. ISIS is commonly known as the acronym of the Islamic State, the jihadist and terrorist organisation that has caused much misery in the Middle East and elsewhere.
She posted a photo of her school yearbook on her Facebook page and wrote, "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."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported that Zehlif's parents were "embarrassed after seeing the picture in the yearbook and have suffered a great deal of emotional and psychological distress." The legal team of CAIR will be meeting with the family and school officials on Monday to conduct an investigation regarding the incident.
School principal Susan Petrocelli insisted that Zehlif was only a victim of a "misprint," but she nonetheless issued an apology.
"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," her letter of apology read. "We should have checked each name carefully in the book and we had no intention to create this misunderstanding... We are currently working in coordination with the school and district office to remedy this situation."
Meanwhile, a student named Trevor Santellan, who worked on the yearbook, backed up Petrocelli's statement. Santellan said the typo was an honest mistake, and that the school really had a student named Isis Phillips who transferred earlier this year.
"We have a campus of 3,200 students. [There] are going to be imperfections," he told The New York Daily News in a Twitter message. He thought that Zehlif's reaction was "out of proportion."
"If anything, she's being racist against herself because she misinterpreted it and not us," Santellan said. "Because we thought of it as a beautiful name that parents gave to a kid. She obviously didn't."
