Video Shows California High School Students Giving Nazi Salute Before Athletics Banquet

Administrators at a California high school said they “strongly condemn” a video that that appears to show students giving a Nazi salute and singing a Nazi song. But, the school district will not say how the students were disciplined.

The video, which The Daily Beast first reported on Monday, shows a group of students at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, California, the Garden Grove Unified School District confirmed.

The video was taken in November 2018 before an after-hours, off-campus student athletics banquet, the district said.

At least twelve students appear in the 8-second video and at least nine appear to give a Nazi salute. One student can be heard laughing as a boy at the front of the room sings a German song. Per The Daily Beast, the song was written by Nazi Party member Herms Niel and played for Nazi troops.

The school district said the video was circulated among a “small group of students” on SnapChat, and the administration was not made aware of it until March of 2019.

The district said “school administrators took immediate action and addressed the situation with all students and families involved” when they learned of the video, but the statement did not specify the severity of the punishment, citing a federal law that “prohibits the district from disclosing details of student discipline.”

The statement said administrators “have reached out to community organizations to provide support that will continue to ensure an anti-bias learning environment and address issues of hate, bias, and exclusion with all staff and students.”

On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League of Orange County tweeted, “Unfortunately, we’ve seen this too many times: High school students parodying Nazi salutes.”

The group said it had reached out to the school district with educational resources.

This is the second time in 2019 that Southern California teenagers have been seen giving the Nazi salute. In March, photographs emerged of high school students in Orange County playing a game with cups in the shape of a swastika and their hands up in an apparent Nazi salute. The students were suspended.

In 2018, a photograph of Wisconsin students giving a Nazi salute stirred controversy, but the school said it was “not in a position to punish the students for their actions” because of the protections of the First Amendment.