High school apologizes for Stalin, Hitler quotes in yearbooks
There are humorous yearbook quotes and then, well, there are these.
Students and parents at Quaker Valley High School in Pennsylvania were in for a shock after discovering the school's yearbook included quotes — with attributions, no less— from Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The three quotations included were Hitler's “Words build bridges into unexplored regions,” Stalin's “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, so why would we let them have ideas?” and al-Baghdadi's “Be just: the unjust never prosper. Be valiant. Keep your word, even to your enemies."
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Upon discovering the error, the school district has offered refunds to students who want to return the yearbooks — which cost $69 a piece but can range up to $100 for customized versions —and stickers to cover up the quotes for those who opt to keep them.
Though it's unclear how the oversight happened, the school district apologized to students and parents in an email obtained by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Thursday, explaining that while the quotes were vetted before publication, the attributions obviously were not.
“This is a regrettable mistake, as the school district would never knowingly condone this messaging in a school-sponsored publication,” the statement signed by district leadership read. “We are well aware of the emotions this has conjured in many of our students and their families, and for that we are sorry.”
Though the district didn't indicate whether any students will be punished in relation to the incident, it seems safe to say the high school's student body was not amused by the prank.
“It's one thing to have a silly quote from your favorite TV show," senior Dominique Cagliuso told the Tribune-Review. "But to have a quote from dictators is disrespectful.”
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Olivia Niland is an Editorial News Intern at Mashable in Los Angeles and a senior digital journalism major at the University of Southern California. She has previously interned with NBC Los Angeles, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today College, and when she isn't working can usually be found concert-going, golfing and exploring.
