Instagram Account Humiliates Mahar School Culture

ORANGE - On November 14, 2019, the first of many violent themed posts was made by a group of Mahar’s own students. The Instagram account, called “r.cm.fights_official” focuses on the brutal beating of their peers. The account has a growing 206 followers and has an ever-increasing 30 fight videos within the first couple of weeks of the account being created. Some of these fights take place off-campus. However the majority of the fights do take place on the Ralph C. Mahar campus.

The first post shows two girls punching while teachers and the High School Principal of Ralph C. Mahar are trying to split them up. This does not only affect the students in this post that are fighting, but it violates the privacy of the faculty members. The second post shows a young man get thrown to the floor of Mahar’s cafeteria and then continues to get punched while coiled up in a ball. In Mahar’s boys’ bathroom, there was a brutal fight showing a young man continuously getting punched in the face and then he gets put into a headlock and gets thrown to the tile floor.

According to a post caption made by an administrator of the account, “This is what bathrooms are for [to be honest]” Underneath each video, the captions for the post are condoning this behavior by using encouraging words towards at least one person shown in the fight.

There is another post involving a fight happening in the cafe. The caption of the video is “Who do you think won?” trying to stir the pot and trying to get everyone to talk. Another caption is “[name retracted] f***** her upppp yeoooo” meaning the girl was winning the fight and messed the other girl up.

There are a few videos of the fights happening in the bathrooms of Mahar; Does this mean that the bathrooms are now not safe enough for students to use them in the proper way?

While this account was at one point public, it has now been switched to private online. This account needs to be taken down, for the blatant promotion of violence between students. The videos violate Instagram’s guidelines which include the “ sharing [of] videos or photos that you’ve taken or have the right to share” Mostly all of these videos have been sent to the administrator of the account and, in turn, do not respect other members of the Instagram community. This account is jeopardizing and humiliating the future of Mahar’s students and Mahar’s culture.

In addition, the content on this account violates the Ralph C. Mahar Student Handbook; on page 28 of the handbook it states, “Fighting is not allowed and will lead to automatic suspension.” I can guarantee that the administration has not seen half of the fights that have been posted, and if they had the ability to view them, there would be disciplinary action taken. Several attempts have been made by both faculty and students to report this account to Instagram for violating their community guidelines.

Students have enough to worry about in school. They shouldn’t need to add worrying about being put on the internet that could possibly jeopardize their impressions to colleges, jobs, and other future endeavors.

Students need to step up to condemn this type of behavior. The actions of the few are representative of the whole. You may read this article and think, “Who cares? This has nothing to do with me.” You are wrong. This has everything to do with you. Actions of students or groups of students are reflective of the student body as a whole. We, as a group, by doing nothing, are promoting this kind of behavior in our school. Consider what message we are sending to future students of Mahar. That fist-fighting on school grounds isn’t only acceptable, but also a form of entertainment. Promoting this behavior is only adding to the negative image our school is projecting. It is absolutely embarrassing. It's time to take back our school.