A Muslim teenage girl, Bayan Zehlif, is disgusted because she was misidentified as “Isis Phillips” in a yearbook photo of her wearing a hijab. Zehlif attends to Los Osos High School in California.
The principal of Los Osos High, Susan Petrocelli, apologized on Twitter. She assured that officials are working to correct and investigate the “regrettable misprint” in the yearbook, as she qualified the incident.
“I am extremely saddened, disgusted, hurt and embarrassed that the Los Osos High School yearbook was able to get away with this,” she posted on Facebook. She added that the school reached out to her and said that the incident was a typo, with which she disagreed.
On Twitter, The school’s yearbook staff also posted an apology, recognizing that they must have been more careful with the names in the yearbook. However, in the statement, the yearbook staff maintains that it wasn’t intentionally done.
Chaffey Joint Union High School District Supt. Mat Holton said that Zehlif was misidentified as a former student named Isis. He noted that the administration was notified of the incident after 287 yearbooks were distributed to high school seniors, Los Angeles Time reported. Students were asked to return the yearbooks.
Zehlif’s has received support both from authorities and the community
On Sunday, The Council on American-Islamic Relations claimed that civil rights attorneys from its Los Angeles office are investigating. We understand the concern of Zehlif’s family about the teenager’s safety as a result of being falsely labeled as a member of a terrorist group, said Ayloush, the council’s Los Angeles executive director. He added that any student should go through the humiliation of being associated with a terrorist group as the ISIS.
On the other hand, the Muslim teenager has received a lot of support through the social media due her postings. On the commentaries on her social media posts, it can be read the reactions of people saying that the incident was “unacceptable.”
The name ISIS is associated with a terror group based in Syria and Iraq. Its rise has prompted many companies to change names in order to avoid being associated with the ISIS, including a pharmaceutical company, a mobile payments company and plenty others.
Source: CNN