Black Sacramento vice principal endured racist taunts, but district can’t ID a suspect

The Sacramento City Unified School District late Friday confirmed that someone targeted a Black high school assistant principal with racist messages last fall, but acknowledged that it could not identify a suspect after a six-month investigation.

The district released a summary of findings from its investigation into the harassment West Campus High School Assistant Principal Elysse Versher endured last year, when she found racist graffiti painted on a wall directly across from her parking spot and was harassed with other racist messages on social media.

A district investigator interviewed 45 witnesses and reviewed the social media messages. The investigator could not identify anyone responsible for the racist messages.

Versher told The Sacramento Bee last week that she planned to resign from the school district because of the trauma experienced. She further said the district failed to protect her from the harassment.

“Unfortunately, the district has not taken this seriously and still does not take incidents of racism and hate crimes seriously, so I have to seek accountability through the legal system,” she said before the district released the findings.

On Friday night, Versher declined to comment further. “My attorneys will address the matter on June 1,” she said.

Sacramento City Unified leaders acknowledged they were frustrated that they could not identify a suspect.

“I am frustrated and disappointed that those responsible have not yet been identified. We know many in our community share this frustration,” Superintendent Jorge Aguilar said.

“What is clear from this report is that a member of our staff was targeted with racist language. This should never happen. We appreciate Dr. Versher’s service to our students. While we respect her decision to separate from Sac City Unified, we remain committed to treating incidents of racism with the utmost seriousness and will seek more ways to learn and improve district wide,” he said.

The district said in a news release said the Sacramento Police Department is still investigating the incident.

“No one is satisfied with this outcome. Someone knows who committed this crime,” said attorney Mark Harris, the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion monitor. “The investigator spent months following the evidence and it’s unfortunate this is where we ended up. Now we must call upon and work with the Sacramento Police Department to bring its resources to the investigation of this heinous crime as expeditiously as possible,” Harris added.

This story was originally published May 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM.