Last week’s exchange of racially charged vandalism between Lawrence’s two high schools was disheartening, but a broader community and student response to those incidents is worthy of recognition and praise.

Last Thursday, the day before the annual football game between Lawrence High and Free State High, vandals egged a section of bleachers and used shaving cream to scrawl a racial epithet and draw a phallic symbol on the LHS football field. Sometime last weekend vandals responded by spray-painting a Lawrence school bus with racial slurs and obscenities directed at Free State.

School officials are right to take these two incidents seriously, but the actions of a few disgruntled students should pale by comparison to a more positive outpouring that occurred during the LHS-FSHS game last Friday.

Amid the Free State fans wearing green and the LHS fans wearing red, were a number of students, parents and faculty members from both schools wearing purple. Rather than wearing their team’s colors, they chose to wear purple to signify their stand against racial intolerance. They also decorated parts of the stands with purple balloons and streamers and displayed signs celebrating “equality” and saying “United We Stand.”

One Free State student wearing purple told the Journal-World that they wanted to express their disgust at the vandalism and show that the actions of a few vandals didn’t represent the attitudes of the entire student body. School Superintendent Rick Doll also addressed the game crowd saying the vandalism was “a big deal” and that teachers at the two high schools would use the incident as an opportunity to discuss tough issues about racial equality with their students.

It’s natural for Lawrence’s two public high schools to have a healthy rivalry in sports and other areas, but using that rivalry as an excuse to fuel racial tensions is simply unacceptable. The students involved in both the football field and bus vandalism should be punished in a way that makes them aware of the seriousness of their offense, and Lawrence should be proud of the football fans who put their rivalry aside to support the principles of racial equality and respect at both Lawrence schools.