A Marquette student-athlete has been removed from their team after a video of the athlete and another individual using a racial slur surfaced on social media Monday night.
“Late on the evening of Feb. 15, Marquette University was notified that two current students used racist language in a video posted to social media,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. “The Division of Student Affairs immediately initiated a student conduct investigation, the results of which will be confidential due to FERPA privacy law.”
The university has confirmed that one of the individuals in the video was a student-athlete, who has been removed from the team.
After the names of the students in the video circulated online, an athlete from the men’s lacrosse team was taken off the roster. The Marquette Wire reached out to an athletics spokesperson, who said the individual was removed from the team’s roster Tuesday morning.
The university said they will not be sharing the identity of the other student involved.
The Marquette Wire is working to independently identify and confirm the students involved. At this time, the Marquette Wire is not naming the students.
“As a Catholic, Jesuit institution, we are called to build a nurturing, inclusive community where all people feel safe, supported, welcomed and celebrated. Racism and discrimination have no place on our campus,” the statement said. “To our students of color, we pledge to continue to work with you to overcome injustice and make our university anti-racist.”
Marquette’s Black Student Council shared the video on their Instagram page, with a statement.
“It has come to the attention of multiple organizations that we have had yet another student of our Marquette community exhibit racists behavior,” the Instagram post said.
Lonny Clay, a member of Black Student Council and a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, said the video is nothing new to Black students on campus.
“I have seen the racism and prejudice that many on this campus have for African Americans in many ways,” Clay said in an email. “I have seen it in classrooms. I have seen it in the cafeteria. I have seen it ever since I stepped on this campus three years ago … The Black and brown students on this campus constantly feel attacked and targeted not just by students but by the entire atmosphere of the campus itself.”
In June, a women’s lacrosse commit’s offer was rescinded after she posted offensive comments related to the death of George Floyd on Snapchat. In August, President Lovell’s son withdrew from the university after he had been posting racist and sexist remarks on social media. In May of 2018, an image with disturbing racial overtones circulated around campus, that showed a group of students holding fake guns to a Black doll.
This story is developing.
Zoe Comerford contributed to this report.
This story was written by Benjamin Wells. He can be reached at [email protected].
