Students are fed up with racist slurs and bulling (North Salt Lake, Utah)

- A study found that young adults who experience discrimination about their bodies, race, age or sex have a greater risk of dealing with mental health problems than those who do not.
- Those who faced discrimination frequently -- at least a few times per month -- were around 25% more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder and twice as likely to develop severe psychological distress than people who didn't experience discrimination or did less often, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics.
- The findings mirror what experts have said about the effects that discrimination and hostile behaviors have on children. Experiencing a negative racial climate at school can impact K-12 students in a number of ways, including lower grades, low engagement and their mental health, said Charity Brown Griffin, a certified school psychologist and an associate professor of psychological sciences at Winston-Salem State University.
- "If you have to frequent a place every day where you feel like you don't belong, that you're left out and where you don't don't feel safe, that is certainly going to take a toll on your mental health," Griffin told CNN.
- Society often considers schools as race neutral places, she said, but they can be platforms for racial stress and trauma due to negative racial climate experiences.