Parents say assignment at North Carolina high school 'promotes racism

A North Carolina high school faces backlash after students were reportedly asked to decide who should survive a hypothetical "nuclear attack" after receiving a warning from President Donald Trump. Students were given several options, each one highlighting the race of the individual.

Students at Olympic High School received the "bomb shelter activity" assignment,  which gave a doomsday scenario, WBTV-TV reported in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"The president of the United States issues a warning of a nuclear attack. The student has access to a bomb shelter and can bring four strangers," the scenario in the assignment states. The assignment presented students with descriptions of five different types of individuals. The choices were:

40 year old Black female doctor who is a lesbian

50 year old White male who is a Catholic Priest

25 year old Hispanic male who is a lawyer and is wheelchair bound

30 year old Korean-American female who is a former college athlete

20 year old White female who is pregnant, has a two year old son and is on welfare

One concerned parent posted an image of the assignment to Facebook, noting that his son had received it in his history class.

"It is Olympic HS. There is no quality. The place is a joke," one Facebook user commented.

Image source: WBAL-TV

WBTV-TV asked several other parents with children who attend Olympic High School for their thoughts on the assignment.

"It promotes racism. 100 percent," one mother said.

Another commented: "You have different classmates: black, white, whatever. If they're having to do an assignment like that, I think they can cause arguments in class."

And parent Tom Denton blamed the assignment, in part, on the current political and racial divisiveness in the U.S.

"Every day more and more of our country is about separation and division. It seems like that's kind of feeding into that type of thing,"  Denton said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, which includes Olympic High School, said it cannot say definitively if the assignment came from OHS.

The Olympic High School campus consists of five schools, three of which denied to WBTV-TV that the assignment came from one of its teachers.