Members of a California high-school football team acted out a slave auction, the district’s superintendent told a local media outlet.
Yuba City Unified School District Superintendent Doreen Osumi said it was a “reprehensible act” after the district received a video Thursday of the incident involving members of the River Valley High School football team.
The football team forfeited this past week’s game, KTXL reports. The players involved will also not be playing the rest of the season, causing the varsity team’s season to be over due to a lack of players.
“They violated our student athlete code of conduct which they all signed and committed to follow, and that will not be ignored or minimized,” a statement from the superintendent read.
The junior varsity team will continue with their season. Sophomores and juniors from the varsity team who are still eligible to play can join the JV team to finish the season, if they would like.
“Re-enacting a slave sale as a prank tells us that we have a great deal of work to do with our students so they can distinguish between intent and impact. They may have thought this skit was funny, but it is not; it is unacceptable and requires us to look honestly and deeply at issues of systemic racism,” the statement added.
“Last night we were notified by a representative from the Yuba City Unified School District of situation involving the RVHS football program; this is truly an unfortunate incident and the CIF-SJS is providing whatever support RVHS/YCUSD needs,” the statement read.
