A South Carolina baseball team is accused of using racial slurs against two of its own African-American teammates.
As reported by the Charleston Post and Courier and ABC affiliate WCIV, two members of the Ashley Ridge baseball team claim their teammates have been bullying them for more than a month.
More disturbingly, the African-American teens claim their teammates resorted to using the N-word and calling them monkeys.
An investigation of the incident — which included interviews with all the students involved and their parents — found significant evidence supporting the African-American players’ version of events, with four students specifically called out for name-calling receiving discipline and all athletes and coaches forced to undergo diversity training.
That may be a start, but it isn’t deemed sufficient enough for the Community Resource Center in Summerville, which was calling for a far more stringent punishment.
“We are demanding a federal investigation of hate crime and bullying against the students that called these young black boys these horrendous names,” Louis Smith of the Community Resource Center told the Post and Courier. “We are demanding that these students are suspended or expelled.”
In fact, Smith went so far as to suggest the entire team be disbanded in the interest of re-setting its culture.
To this point, officials at Ashley Ridge have yet to release further public comment on what the punishment of the four players may look like, as well any other measures that could be taken against it.
