This commentary is by Edward Scott of Richmond, a retired middle and high school teacher, coach and school counselor. He worked most of his career in the Northeast Kingdom, but retired from the Burlington school system, where he was the guidance director at Burlington High and the counselor at Edmunds Middle School. He is an Army veteran who was a pilot in Korea and Vietnam.
Another incident of bigotry among high school athletes has surfaced in the media. This time it was a Champlain Valley Union girls basketball player who posted the “N” word in a video on TikTok, but last fall it was racial slurs at Enosburg High School boys’ soccer games, sexist comments at another event, and the incident that got national attention when a trans volleyball player entered the girls locker room at Randolph Union High School.
Typically, following these events, administrations do damage control. They launch investigations, review their policies, and shame the offenders. Punishment is meted out, apologies are written, and life goes on until the next inevitable event.
In the case of the CVU incident, the principal listed the consequences for the offending student, met with the Burlington High School players and officials, and wrote a 625-word open letter to Vermont students apologizing and pledging to seek “a path forward.”
For the BHS players, however, this is not enough, and stated that, ”sadly, racism is still alive in our community.”
From my perspective as a retired high school teacher and coach, I am astonished that schools have failed to get ahead of racism, transphobia and other forms of hazing, harassment and bullying. It is the most basic administration leadership that would have coaches introduce the trans student to the team at the beginning of the season and thus get ahead of any possible issues.
It’s also astonishing that, given all the incidents in schools of bigotry and racism, school leaders have not sought to develop programs that go to the core of the issues, not one topic in a health class or a unit in U.S. history, but courses that strive through history and personal accounts to develop empathy in their students.
In the 1970s, I taught a Black history course at North Country Union High School in Newport. The course highlighted historical figures, and I brought in my personal experience from living in the South in the 1960s and from my tour in Vietnam, where I witnessed the slaughter of Blacks in terribly disproportionate numbers. I also brought in speakers who talked about experiencing prejudice, and the class read several books.
If a course like mine could be taught in a rural Vermont union high school in the 1970s, it could be taught at CVU and Enosburg and every school in Vermont.
The CVU girl who posted on TikTok surely knew the “N” word was inappropriate, but her cavalier use showed she lacked empathy with the Black community for whom the “N” is a visceral connection to their history in America. It’s shameful that young kids at Enosburg are so blatantly racist in a state and nation that just celebrated Martin Luther King.
If Principal Adam Bunting is true to his word to find a path forward, he will lead to create programs at CVU that strive to develop empathy, not just for Blacks but for all marginalized people. Perhaps that would in part satisfy the Burlington High players who demanded he do more.