In the past two months, two murals were defaced with targeted slurs — and both were painted over within two days. Few people noticed or heard about the defacements at the time they occurred, raising issues of transparency and communication of such incidents.

On Feb. 14, a homophobic slur appeared on the mural located on the second floor of the middle school near a painting of a girl with a pride flag on her shirt. In a separate instance on Jan. 17, a student noticed the word “Jew” scrawled next to the First Amendment mural outside Judd C016.

Cole Summerfelt, senior, said he learned of the homophobic graffiti from a middle school teacher and informed Lab Schools Director Charlie Abelmann during his ArtsFest workshop Feb. 21.

Cole said he understood that administrators must protect the privacy of those involved in disciplinary issues, but he expressed concern that hate speech appeared in school and that so few people, from students to administrators, even knew that the slur had appeared on the middle school mural.

“When an entire group of people, when an entire marginalized identity is attacked in such a public and could-have-been-permanent way, it should be known,” Cole said.

Neither Dr. Abelmann, High School Principal Stephanie Weber nor Dean of Students Ana Campos were aware of the First Amendment mural incident.

Ms. Campos said she first learned of the middle school mural incident from Spectrum adviser Daniel Jones approximately a week after it happened, and she soon informed Ms. Weber.

According to Joe Wachowski, director of operations, graffiti is common at school, and operations team members typically remove it right away by sanding or painting over it. He said if they believe the graffiti will cause potential harm or looks like gang graffiti, the team will send an image to the dean of students and department of safety and security.

“We do not take these things lightly and we definitely do not hide anything that could cause potential harm to our students, faculty and staff,” Mr. Wachowski responded by email.

However, he said the operations staff did not hear about the middle school graffiti. Operations staff painted over the Judd hallway graffiti immediately.

Mr. Jones said that he wished administrators had been more transparent with at least faculty. While he did not believe that administrators were necessarily homophobic or racist, Mr. Jones thought that administrators might not know the best way to handle identity-targeted graffiti, resulting in what he saw as a trial-and-error approach.

According to Dr. Abelmann, every situation requires a different plan of action, and the Lab Schools’ size means there is always a lot going on at once.

“Not everyone knows everything that’s going on all the time,” Dr. Abelmann said.

Dr. Abelmann added that every Tuesday, administrators from all schools hold a meeting to discuss health, safety and community issues, and that principals typically inform him of safety issues they are working on. However, information may fall through the cracks.

“I don’t have an intent to cover up anything,” Dr. Abelmann said.

The Feb. 28 high school bulletin noted the Feb. 14 mural graffiti incident and emphasized that the Lab Schools do not tolerate hate speech.

Recalling the mandatory assembly fall quarter regarding offensive language and actions in school, Cole said the bulletin was not an adequate platform for responding to the pride flag mural slur.

Cole said, “It’s underwhelming, and it’s kind of disrespectful to the LGBTQ+ community.”

Regardless of the administration’s response, any student experiencing discrimination should contact Title IX Coordinator  Betsy Noel.