- Ebony Smith was crowned at the Homecoming Football Game for North Shore Senior High School in Houston, Texas, in September
- The school issued a press release with a photo that had been altered to make Ebony’s hair look brown when it was actually purple at the time
- The school’s dress code prohibits brightly-colored hair so it doctored it
- After Ebony’s mother complained the school issued an apology and replaced the ‘incorrect’ doctored image with a black and white version
A Houston high school has apologized for altering a photo of a student who was named Homecoming Queen to make her hair look brown instead of purple.
When Ebony Smith was crowned at the Homecoming Football Game for North Shore Senior High School in September she wore a white dress with bright purple hair.
The school’s dress code doesn’t allow brightly-colored hair, so when the school district posted a photo of Ebony and homecoming king Kasson Abdullah to its website, her hair had been changed to brown.
Ebony Smith was crowned Homecoming Queen at her high school in Houston in September. The school’s press release featured an image with Ebony’s purple hair photoshopped to brown
Ebony and Homecoming King Kasson Abdullah are pictured in an undoctored photo after they were crowned. Ebony’s bright purple hair violates the school’s dress code
Another photo of the Homecoming royals has also been photoshopped, but this time her purple hair is intensified. The background is also blurred
‘It’s embarrassing. It wasn’t even photoshopped correctly. You can still see purple outlining. It’s just very embarrassing,’ Ebony told KHOU.
Ebony agreed to dye her hair brown after homecoming, but was frustrated by how the school handled the situation.
‘You changed her to make her look like someone else. Keep her as who she is. That’s who the students voted in,’ Ebony’s mother Tameasha Watkins said.
The school later replaced the doctored photo with a black and white version
Ebony was beaming when she got crowned Homecoming Queen, but her excitement was squashed when she saw that her hair had been altered in the press release
Galena Park I.S.D. issued the following statement: ‘After looking into this parent’s concern, we did discover the incorrect photo was posted with the story highlighting her child. The error was immediately corrected, and our district sincerely apologizes to the student affected and her parents.
‘Our intent has been, and will continue to be, to acknowledge and spotlight the accomplishments of our students, and we do regret this mistake.’
The press release was changed to include a black and white photo on Tuesday.
The school district released a statement the photoshopped image had been put in by mistake