A women’s volleyball game was moved on Saturday after a Duke University player who is Black was called a racial slur during a game the night before.
A Duke University women’s volleyball player who is Black was called a racial slur during a game Friday night in Utah, prompting Brigham Young University to ban a fan from sporting events and Duke University to change the venue of a tournament game on Saturday.
Marvin Richardson, the father of the Duke volleyball player, said in an interview late Saturday that a slur was repeatedly yelled from the stands as his daughter was serving, making her fear “the raucous crowd” could grow violent.
Mr. Richardson said his daughter cried to him over the phone on Friday night about the episode.
“Here we are,” Mr. Richardson, who said he grew up in Fort Worth when it was still desegregating, said in the interview. “It’s 2022, and we’re dealing with 1960s issues.”
After the episode occurred, a police officer was placed on Duke’s bench.
In a statement, the B.Y.U. athletics department said that the fan who was banned was sitting in the university’s student section during the game at the university’s arena in Provo, Utah, but was not a student. A B.Y.U. spokesman said the ban was for all university sporting events, but he was not sure whether a time frame had been worked out.
The statement said that Brigham Young was “extremely disheartened” by the actions of “a small number of fans” and that “the use of a racial slur at any of our athletic events is absolutely unacceptable.”
“We wholeheartedly apologize to Duke University and especially its student-athletes,” the statement said.
B.Y.U., whose student population is less than 1 percent Black, has struggled with creating an inclusive environment for its students of color, according to a February 2021 report by a university committee that studied race on campus.
The report found that the university lacked institutional support for its few students of color, failed to recruit and retain a diverse student body and had a faculty far less diverse than the national average, with less than 7 percent of faculty members being people of color.
In a statement, Duke University said officials moved the game on Saturday against Rider University from Brigham Young’s George Albert Smith Fieldhouse to a location in Provo meant to create the safest atmosphere for both teams.
The game, which was open only to staff and family members, is part of the same tournament, the doTERRA Classic, in which B.Y.U. played Duke. B.Y.U. won 3 games to 1.
“First and foremost, our priority is the well-being of Duke student-athletes,” Nina King, Duke’s vice president and director of athletics, said in the statement. “They should always have the opportunity to compete in an inclusive, anti-racist environment which promotes equality and fair play.”
Mr. Richardson said he instructed his daughter that if she faced a similar situation in the future she should immediately make sure an authority figure was aware. But his daughter, who is 19, told him that she was scared of the crowd and that the safest course would be to keep her head down and continue playing.
She didn’t only “feel the ping of the slurs but also fear of the crowd,” he said. “Because as the crowd got more hyped and the epithets kept coming, she wanted to respond back but she told me she was afraid that, if she did, the raucous crowd could very well turn into a mob mentality.”
His daughter, whom he did not want identified for fear of harassment, should not have borne that burden, he said. It was the responsibility of the home team, including the coach, to ensure the visiting players felt safe, Mr. Richardson said.
“I’ve seen coaches, from the likes of Coach K” — the Duke men’s basketball team’s storied coach, Mike Krzyzewski, who recently retired — “to preschool coaches, take the microphone and approach the crowd and indicate to them what is acceptable and not acceptable behavior and invite them to leave if they cannot respect their guests,” he said.
“That did not happen on Friday night.”
Jon McBride, a B.Y.U. spokesman, said in an email late Saturday that when Duke initially reported the behavior security and staff were unable to figure out who was hurling the slurs. It was not until after the game that Duke identified the individual who was subsequently banned, Mr. McBride said.
“The Duke players’ experience is what matters here,” he said. “They felt unsafe and hurt, and we were unable to address that during the game in a manner that was sufficient. For that, we truly do apologize, and we are examining our processes and practices to do everything in our power to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
Mr. Richardson said that his daughter, a sophomore neuroscience major, is a strong and dynamic leader who played against Rider on Saturday night. The game, he said, had been moved to safer territory: a local high school gym.
“She’s still dealing with it,” he said, “but she’s doing it the way she knows best and that’s to immerse herself in the thing she is there to do: Help her team win.”
On Saturday night, in the high school gym with a small audience, Duke defeated Rider 3 games to 1.
McKenna Oxenden contributed reporting, and Jack Begg contributed research.
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