KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Saint Louis University is investigating — and condemning — racially insensitive texts sent last year by two members of the school’s overwhelmingly white baseball team, a top campus diversity official said Tuesday, calling the texts “appalling.”
The two players haven’t been publicly identified, and one of them no longer attends the 198-year-old Jesuit school, according to Jonathan C. Smith, who was made the campus’ special assistant to the president for diversity and community engagement last year in the wake of the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.
The questioned texts came roughly a year after a pair of racially insensitive incidents on the campus: A group of candles set outside a dorm for a vigil were rearranged into a swastika symbol and a projector in a campus ballroom was altered to display several racist and anti-gay messages.
In the case of the baseball-related texts, two SLU students — including one who had a screenshot of the texts — reported the matter on April 4 to university’s Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, Smith said. That started the investigation.
University officials have met with the baseball team and its coaches, and that no decision has been made about disciplinary action, Smith said.
Last week, the baseball team’s four captains signed a letter published by the school newspaper, The University News, apologizing “to anyone offended by the biased messages.”
“We, too, are frustrated, and we feel that the comments do not accurately reflect the values that we hold,” the letter read. “In light of the incident, the SLU baseball program and athletic department are working to actively address and thwart any action that threatens our inclusive community. To ignore such an incident would be remiss and detrimental to the SLU community.”
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