At least two students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania were suspended from the swim team after a report that a racial slur was scratched onto a student’s body, officials said.
School administrators received “a deeply concerning report of a racial slur being scratched onto a student using a plastic or ceramic tool,” officials at the 2,200-student private liberal arts school in Gettysburg said in a statement last week.
“This is a serious report, which is being actively assessed through the student conduct process,” the college said. “At this point, the students involved are not participating in swim team activities.”
The school declined to release further details, citing that process, as well as privacy laws.
The family of the student who was targeted told Gettysburg College’s student newspaper, The Gettysburgian, that their son was the victim of a hate crime. They said the perpetrator, someone he “trusted,” used a box cutter to cut the N-word onto their son’s chest, according to the newspaper.
The alleged victim is among the students barred from participating in swim team activities as the college investigates the incident, said the family, who said in a statement to the newspaper that, within two days of the incident, their son “was interviewed by the members of the coaching staff and summarily dismissed (not suspended) from the swim team.”
The Gettysburgian did not identify anyone by name.
The incident is believed to have happened during an “informal social gathering at an on-campus residence” and was first reported by upper-class students from the swim team, Gettysburg College President Robert Iuliano said. The family said it happened on Sept. 6.
“Two weeks ago on the evening of Friday, Sept. 6, our son became the victim of a hate crime. The incident took place at a gathering of swim team members,” the alleged victim’s family said in their statement to The Gettysburgian. “It is important to note that he was the only person of color at this gathering. The reprehensible act was committed by a fellow student-athlete, someone he considered his friend, someone whom he trusted. This student used a box cutter to etch the N-word across his chest.”
It was not immediately clear how the slur was allegedly scratched on the student’s chest. Neither the school administrators nor the family elaborated in their statements.
Iuliano described feeling “profound distress about what happened” and the impact on those long underrepresented on the campus, as well as the implications “for a community continuing its evolving efforts to create a truly inclusive environment.”
“No matter the relationship, and no matter the motivation, there is no place on this campus for words or actions that demean, degrade, or marginalize based on one’s identity and history,” he said in a statement that also cautioned against speculation “based on fragments of information that may or may not be accurate.”
The city’s police chief, Robert Glenny Jr., said he contacted the college after hearing news reports and was told the victim chose to handle the matter through the college’s internal process, despite college officials encouraging the person to take the matter to police, WGAL-TV reported.
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