Md. School Apologizes After Video Shows White Students Singing N-Word

A group of mostly White teenagers from an all-boys private school just outside the District was recently recorded in a viral video singing the n-word while riding on a D.C. Metro train. Administrators at the Landon School where the boys are enrolled said in a statement Tuesday they were “deeply concerned” by the video and were looking into the matter.

Jose Romero recorded the video while on a Red Line train toward Glenmont on Thursday. When he boarded the car at the Metro Center station, it was packed with dozens of students, some wearing shirts and backpacks from Landon — a college preparatory school in Bethesda. {snip}

Romero, who is Latino, couldn’t make out what the students were saying until a song came on that he recognized, “Freestyle” by the rapper Lil Baby. Romero began recording a video, with his camera angled toward the back of the students’ heads as they sang three verses that contained the n-word. Someone in the video seems to call attention to the students saying the racial slur by saying, “Yo, yo,” before the song stops and the group of students laugh.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the school said the students’ “conduct and offensive words are unacceptable and antithetical to our school’s values and our Civility Code.” When asked about any punishment the students would face, the spokeswoman said any disciplinary measures taken would be confidential, given the students’ ages.

A young Black woman near the center of the car dropped her jaw in shock and made eye contact with Romero because “we couldn’t believe what we were seeing or hearing,” Romero said.

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Landon School teaches nearly 700 students between third and 12th grade. {snip} The student body is made up of about 41 percent students of color, according to its website.