A local chapter of the NAACP is demanding sweeping changes after a student broadcaster at Penn High School used a racial slur during a live broadcast of a boys’ basketball playoff game against Riley High School.
According to Atlanta Black Star, civil rights leaders say the incident, which involved repeated use of the N-word directed at Riley star Kelin Webster, exposed larger problems inside the Penn-Harris-Madison school district and requires more than a simple apology.
The incident happened on March 6 during Penn’s livestream of its sectional game against Riley. As Webster stepped to the free-throw line, a student announcer repeatedly made monkey noises before repeating the racial slur three times.
Another student on the broadcast immediately reacted, saying, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! … Simon, c’mon now,” before telling someone to cut the stream. The school’s YouTube broadcast was quickly removed, but clips of the moment spread online within hours.
The controversy has since grown beyond the game itself. The South Bend chapter of the NAACP said its review of the Penn-Harris-Madison student handbook found “no clear provisions addressing the use of derogatory language.”
The group is now calling on the district to revise its code of conduct, require the student and his parents to prepare a report on the harm caused by racist language, and have those findings presented publicly before the school board.
The organization also wants the district to create a task force focused on implicit bias and racial discrimination. The NAACP said it has met with district leaders several times in recent years regarding other race-related complaints.
In a statement, Penn High principal Rachel Fry said the student’s behavior “do[es] not reflect the expectations we have for our students” and confirmed that an investigation began immediately after the game.
District superintendent Heather Short later said the student had been identified and disciplined, although federal privacy laws prevent the district from publicly disclosing the punishment. Short also apologized directly to Webster and the Riley community, saying no student should be subjected to that kind of treatment.
The fallout has continued to build across South Bend. Black Lives Matter South Bend and former city council member Henry Davis Jr. have called on South Bend schools to boycott future athletic competition against Penn High until the NAACP’s demands are met.
Davis, whose son plays for Riley, said student athletics cannot be separated from the treatment Black students experience in school buildings.
Not everyone agrees with that approach. Marcus Ellison, a member of the South Bend school board, said there had already been a private apology between the student broadcaster and Webster and argued that ending athletic competition would ultimately hurt both schools and the wider community.
