Yuba City Unified School District
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Published – October 20, 2022
A group of varsity football players on the River Valley High School football team posted a video of themselves participating in a mock slave auction on TikTok, according to The Washington Post. In consequence, the Yuba City School District forfeited the team’s following game after banning the involved players from playing. Eventually, the entire varsity season was forfeited due to the team not having enough players to compete because of the ban.
Superintendent Doreen Usumi responded to the video by saying, “Reenacting a slave sale as a prank tells us that we have a great deal of work to do with our students so they can distinguish between intent and impact… They may have thought this skit was funny, but it is not; it is unacceptable and requires us to look honestly and deeply at issues of systemic racism.”
On October 17th, three of the players involved in the auction gave public apologies that were aired on CBS Sacramento. One member of the team, according to KCAR3, stated in his apology that: “This video was harmful to the entire Black community who counts on people like myself to stand against these wrongs rather than participating in them.” According to the same outlet, parent Dante Walters said “Though we believe we have instilled in them a pride of culture and self, and prepared them with the knowledge and lessons necessary to navigate these situations, clearly, as parents and educators there’s still work to be done within our homes and our community.”
Yuba City Unified School District contains 17 schools and enrolls approximately 11,000 students.
