The University of Maryland suspended its club tennis team indefinitely after officials learned team members sent racist imagery to other universities in an email about its invitational tournament.
The university said it suspended the team Saturday after discovering the graphic. It referred the incident to its police department and said U-Md.’s Office of Student Conduct is conducting an investigation into the incident, though acknowledged the email “may have directly involved only a few student team members.”
“The University of Maryland is horrified and expresses its regret and sincere apology for the harm that this has caused,” Rebecca Ann Aloisi, a university spokesperson, said in an email.
Toni Rachal, president of the club team at Howard University, said she noticed an image containing a symbol associated with the Ku Klux Klan in an email from the Maryland team on Friday, the evening before the tournament. It displayed pointed hood masks with eye holes replacing the Crossland coat of arms of the Maryland state flag, according to a photo shared with The Washington Post.
She raised concerns with the U-Md. tennis executive board, which removed the graphic and sent an apology to participating teams. The team’s student leaders said they copied the document from the previous year’s executive board, said Rachal, a senior at Howard, a historically Black university.
“I don’t know what the intent was behind that, if it was nefarious or not, but no matter what they kept it on there” this year, she said. “That was wrong.”
Members of the U-Md. club tennis team did not respond to a request for comment.
U-Md. President Darryll J. Pines apologized on behalf of the institution, according to a statement from Howard University interim president Wayne A.I. Frederick, who said the tournament “should have been an opportunity for friendly competition, sportsmanship and fellowship.”
“Instead, our students were confronted with deeply offensive and racist imagery,” Frederick wrote. He said the incident “evoked a painful history of racial terror and exclusion that has no place in an environment dedicated to learning, personal development, and mutual respect.”
Rachal said the incident highlighted a broader trend of racism in tennis and said her career as a junior player was interrupted by racist threats to her family. She noted that on Saturday, the United Nations’ human rights office condemned racist messages sent to pro tennis player Coco Gauff.
“I wish I could say that this was surprising, but I’ve played tennis my whole entire life, and unfortunately, this behavior is very normal,” Rachal said.
The U-Md. club tennis team forfeited its matches in the tournament, and student leaders met with other captains to apologize, according to the university. The tournament continued for other regional teams, including from American, Temple, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown universities, and the University of Virginia.
But Rachal said that despite its suspension, a captain of U-Md.’s club tennis team sent a message Saturday evening about a social event at an off-campus house for other invitational players.
In a statement, Howard’s tennis club team called for additional accountability, including sensitivity training for U-Md.’s club team leaders and advisers, and a donation of tournament funds to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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