Students at Berkeley High School today staged a walk-out and rally in protest of a racist, hateful, and threatening message left on a computer monitor in the school library. Though harm to Black students has come only in the form of speech, it has been deeply felt by the student body, not mollified by a promise from the school principal Wednesday that an investigation involving the Berkeley Police Department would receive "the utmost attention." Fusion reports put the number of protesting students at 800, the Chronicle's estimate is 700.

If you do not want to, please, do not read the awful message, as it appeared, below.

In what the school's Black Student Union decries as an act of terrorism, the words “Fuck all the ni*ggers in the world,” “KKK forever public lynching December 9th 2015,” and “I hung a n*gger by his neck in my backyard” were left, presumably to be seen, and screenshots were publicized yesterday. The move is not suspected to have involved a hack of the computer system.

“We are disgusted by this act of terror,” Black student leaders wrote in a statement released last night. “The safety of Black students has been explicitly threatened.”

According to the Daily Cal, Pasarow's email to students went out Wednesday night, promising the investigation. As Berkeleyside quotes from that email, Pasarow wrote that the school district is “working hard to create a positive and inclusive school culture and we recognize the deep pain and rage that hate crimes such as this one bring to our students of color, as well as the damaging effects on our entire community. Even as we continue our investigation we recognize the need to address the harm that this has caused, and to that end we will be spending time planning as a staff about how to support and care for our students.”

Last year, police investigated a noose tied to a tree at the school, the Daily Cal reported at the time.