The University of Maryland indefinitely suspended its club tennis team for distributing materials with racist imagery ahead of a tournament hosted by the school.
The image appeared in an information packet emailed to participants in a tournament hosted by the University of Maryland this weekend, the university said. The first page of the document included the Maryland state flag, with the coat of arms replaced by pointed white hoods associated with the Ku Klux Klan, according to Howard University’s club tennis team, which first reported the graphic.
Upon learning of the materials on Saturday, the school suspended its tennis club, launched a student conduct investigation into team leaders and referred the matter to the University of Maryland Police Department for further investigation. The tournament continued, and UMD’s team forfeited its matches. The club’s student leaders sent an email to each participating school apologizing, according to the university.
“The University of Maryland is horrified and expresses its regret and sincere apology for the harm that this has caused,” university spokesperson Jordan Dunklee said in a statement to The Washington Sun.
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The Howard club team is calling for the University of Maryland to publicly apologize to Howard University, launch a formal investigation into who created the image, provide sensitivity training for UMD’s tennis team leaders and make a donation to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“True accountability has yet to come,” the Howard team said in a statement posted on social media.
Wayne Frederick, Howard University’s interim president, thanked the University of Maryland in a statement Monday for its “commitment to accountability” by suspending the club tennis team and launching an investigation into its student leaders.
“As institutions of higher learning, we share a responsibility not only to confront acts of racism but also to foster communities where respect for the humanity of others is an expectation, not merely an aspiration,” he said. “Our shared humanity demands nothing less.”
The University of Maryland’s Black Student Union called the incident “deeply disturbing” in a statement posted to social media and thanked Vice President for Student Affairs Patty Perillo for reaching out to the organization directly following discovery of the image. Still, the group said administrative action is not enough to address the impact on Black students.
“Racism disguised as student programming is not an accident or victimless oversight; it is a direct assault on the dignity, safety, and belonging of our students,” the statement said. “While apologies and forfeited matches are a necessary starting point, true resolution requires confronting the culture that allows such behavior to occur in the first place.”
The University of Maryland club tennis team did not immediately respond to questions from The Sun.
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