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BOSSIP has covered a lot of racism and a lot of hate crimes but we’ve never heard of anything like this before.
According to ABC7, a Black student-athlete, a swimmer, at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania was victimized by one of his white swim teammates when said teammate carved “ni**er” into the Black student’s flesh with a boxcutter. Go back and read that again. Yes, this actually happened in 2024 as if it was the 1700s.
B-b-b-but wait, it gets worse.
The white student appears to be protected by the school as they will not release his name to the public even though this person should be of adult age, 18 years old or older. We could be wrong but unless this student is a 16-year-old genius in college, he is not a minor and should be outed as the violent racist that he is, but we digress. As distasteful as that may be, the most infuriating part of this story is that both the perpetrator and the victim were removed from the swim team! Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Gettysburg College Jamie Yates confirmed this publicly.
“The student who did the scratching is no longer enrolled at the College,” Yates told ABC News in a statement. “The college is working with the other student and his family about how to most constructively move forward.”
Working with?! Why does a Black man who was subject to a hate crime need to be “worked with”?? Not only is the school making no attempts at transparency, they aren’t pushing for the local police to press charges against the white student. Gettysburg Police Department Chief Robert Glenny Jr. told ABC News that they have not received a complaint about the attack.
The school newspaper, The Gettysburgian, published a statement that was released by the Black student’s family.
Via Black Enterprise:
“Two weeks ago, on the evening of Sept. 6, our son became the victim of a hate crime. The incident took place at a gathering of swim team members. It is important to note that he was the only person of color at this gathering. The reprehensible act was committed by a fellow student-athlete, someone he considered his friend, someone whom he trusted. This student used a box cutter to etch the N-word across his chest.”
“In less than 48 hours after the incident, our son was interviewed by the members of the coaching staff and summarily dismissed (not suspended) from the swim team. The punitive action was taken prior to the commencement of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities’ own investigation. This does not appear to have followed the policies and procedures stated in the Gettysburg College Student-Athlete Manual,” the family wrote.
This investigation is ongoing and BOSSIP will keep you abreast of the findings as more information becomes public.