Last week, Rachel Richardson, a black volleyball player from Duke University, claims she heard someone from the Brigham Young University student section yell a racial slur in her direction. But in the days since, her allegations cannot be substantiated and in fact, they rather sound like yet another leftist fabrication.
According to Outkick, "An independent student newspaper dug deeper than any national news outlet, who all predictably repeated Richardson’s version of events without question. The paper wasn’t able to find a single source in or around the student section who was willing to say that they heard any slurs yelled during the game."
However, not only was the student newspaper unable to find any witnesses, but campus police also could not find one and essentially decided that either Richardson did not hear what she claims to hear or -- well, you get the picture. In fact, according to reports, one officer who was stationed in the arena nearby during the match said the person who was banned probably had special needs and was not overheard by anyone close by to have been yelling inappropriate things toward Duke players or anyone else.
So in other words, as Outkick notes correctly, "every piece of available evidence that’s emerged since the allegations have contradicted the original story."
But that did not stop the virtue-signaling coach of the University of South Carolina, Dawn Staley, from canceling a previously scheduled series with BYU set to begin later this year.
“As a head coach, my job is to do what’s best for my players and staff,” Staley said in a statement released by South Carolina last week. “The incident at BYU has led me to reevaluate our home-and-home, and I don’t feel that this is the right time for us to engage in this series.”
BYU, meanwhile, has done a bit of investigating as well and again, officials turned up nothing.
"As part of our commitment to take any claims of racism seriously, BYU has completed its investigation into the allegation that racial heckling and slurs took place at the Duke vs. BYU women’s volleyball match on August 26. We reviewed all available video and audio recordings, including security footage and raw footage from all camera angles taken by BYUtv of the match, with broadcasting audio removed (to ensure that the noise from the stands could be heard more clearly)," said a statement from the university.
"We also reached out to more than 50 individuals who attended the event: Duke athletic department personnel and student-athletes, BYU athletic department personnel and student-athletes, event security and management and fans who were in the arena that evening, including many of the fans in the on-court student section," the statement continued.
"From our extensive review, we have not found any evidence to corroborate the allegation that fans engaged in racial heckling or uttered racial slurs at the event. As we stated earlier, we would not tolerate any conduct that would make a student-athlete feel unsafe. That is the reason for our immediate response and our thorough investigation," the statement added.
"As a result of our investigation, we have lifted the ban on the fan who was identified as having uttered racial slurs during the match (our emphasis). We have not found any evidence that that individual engaged in such an activity. BYU sincerely apologizes to that fan for any hardship the ban has caused," the statement noted further.
No word on whether South Carolina's Staley has agreed to continue the rescheduled series, but state lawmakers want to know what's going on.
The South Carolina Freedom Caucus sent a letter to the athletic director and Staley, describing that they believe the team made an “ill-advised overreaction to an apparent [sic] erroneous claim.”
By the way, this became an 'issue' in the first place thanks to Richardson’s godmother, Lesa Pamplin, who herself has a nasty racist past. So it sounds like, once again, a person of color seeking to stir the pot with a false claim of racism, which is just as disgusting as the real thing.
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