A brand new invoice aimed toward stopping racism at highschool sporting occasions in California might be heard by the Schooling Committee within the Meeting on Wednesday. Meeting Invoice 1327, launched by Assemblymember Akilah Weber, would require the California Interscholastic Federation to develop a standardized incident kind to trace racial discrimination and harassment at highschool sporting occasions. Sponsors of the invoice hope that it would present extra accountability for colleges which may have points that aren’t being addressed.
“We would like our youngsters to play sports activities, we would like them to be not solely mentally lively however bodily lively and study the significance of working collectively as a crew to attain a purpose. The very last thing that our college students have to take care of on prime of all of that’s racism,” Assemblymember Weber mentioned.
San Diego was within the nationwide highlight in 2021 due to two racist incidents at highschool sporting occasions.
The primary after a photograph surfaced exhibiting Cathedral Catholic Excessive Faculty college students sporting t-shirts that learn “Catholics versus Convicts” and a caption saying “We run this metropolis,” earlier than a scheduled soccer recreation with Lincoln Excessive Faculty, a predominantly low-income, majority-minority highschool.
Head soccer coach for Lincoln Excessive Faculty, David Dunn, mentioned he selected to forfeit the sport towards Cathedral Catholic final yr after seeing certainly one of his student-athletes crying.
“He wasn’t upset that we misplaced the competition, he was upset that they had been calling him racial slurs through the contest and he wished to behave, he wished to defend himself and he did not know the way and I couldn’t defend him,” Dunn mentioned.
Dunn grew up in San Diego and performed soccer at Lincoln Excessive Faculty rival, Morse earlier than he went on to have a profitable profession within the NFL. He says he remembers racism in highschool sports activities in San Diego when he performed, however he says it is unhappy that its nonetheless impacts his student-athletes at the moment.
“Making an attempt to organize our student-athletes to play in a recreation is already a job that takes numerous hours to do, lots of preparation, however when we now have to organize our youngsters to doubtlessly face racial feedback, being stepped on, being spat at, being antagonized, being referred to as out of their title throughout a contest in sure areas of town that’s a complete different ballgame,” he mentioned.
Not lengthy after the Catholic Cathedral Excessive Faculty incident, Coronado Excessive Faculty got here beneath hearth after tortillas had been flung at their opponents throughout a regional basketball championship recreation towards Orange Glen Excessive Faculty from Escondido — a predominantly Latino highschool. Jeff Harper-Harris, the basketball coach for Lincoln Excessive Faculty says he hopes Meeting Invoice 1327 will enable athletes to concentrate on the sport.
“My finish recreation is that I need my youngsters from Lincoln Excessive Faculty to have the ability to go play the youngsters in La Jolla, go up north of the 805, play a basketball recreation that has nothing to do with race, you win, you win, you lose, you stroll out of there, you continue to shake arms,” he mentioned.
The invoice might be heard within the schooling committee of the California Meeting on Wednesday.