Wellesley High School issued a brief follow-up regarding its investigation into reports earlier this month of racial slurs being directed from the Wellesley student section toward Weymouth’s players at a varsity boys home basketball game. That reported behavior led to Wellesley High requiring students be accompanied by an adult if attending the final regular season home game.
Wellesley High Principal Dr. Jamie Chisum wrote to the school community on Friday that “I was asked earlier in the week at our PTSO meeting for a follow up to the racial incident involving the Weymouth team. As you saw from our previous messages, that was a deeply unsettling incident for many in our community. We undertook and have since completed a full investigation. We were able to uncover credible accounts of what happened and have taken appropriate action. Because of the nature of the incident and the action, we won’t be offering any further comments on that incident at this time.”
WBUR reported that Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association assistant director Mike Rubin said over the past year there have been many reported hate incidents during games, largely directed from the stands.
To that point, Chisum wrote that “there was a separate incident last week, this one involving one of our girls’ basketball teams during an away game at Framingham. During the game, our players reported hearing a racial slur toward a white player on the Wellesley team as she was shooting a free throw.
Since this occurred, we have been in touch multiple times with our counterparts in Framingham. We have been working behind the scenes here at the high school to best support this student, her family, and her teammates.
I want to take this moment to praise our girls for coming forward and reporting what they heard. Our girls team maintained their composure throughout and represented Wellesley well. We all have to work together to prioritize sportsmanship and inclusion, in order to prevent this type of hurtful language from being normalized in our community or anywhere.”
A racial incident involving students from Medway High was reported in December at a Wellesley girls’ basketball away game.
Swellesley welcomes school parents/guardians/students to pass along school memos to us. These are public records. This helps the entire Wellesley community understand school issues better: theswellesleyreport@gmail.com