As part of the Homecoming festivities, Crookston High School in Minnesota scheduled an event called "Prey and Predator Day" that encouraged "guys [to] dress in their camouflage and other hunting apparel while girls … show off their animal print," the Pioneer Press reports.
"In hindsight and looking at it from a different light, a better decision should have been made," Superintendent Chris Bates said. "People might see it in a different way than it was intended." According to Principal Lon Jorgensen, the school’s students did not realize the name’s underlying connotations, adding, "hunting in this area is pretty popular."
The town’s residents, including Ileanna Noyes, were not so understanding, however, and voiced alarm at the school’s implicit endorsement of sexualized assault. Noyes said the theme was "absurd and appalling," telling reporters, "Really, in this day and age, you think it's okay to have the mentality of the men as predators and the women as pretty prey?"
Crookston is near Grand Forks, North Dakota where UND student Dru Sjodin's disappearance and death garnered national media coverage -- prompting the creation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry.
