A coach and one of the players have been dismissed from New York's Roosevelt High School basketball team after they shouted antisemitic slurs at an opposing team from a Jewish school.
The match was between the girl's varsity teams of the Roosevelt High School public school and The Leffell School, a private Jewish school in Hartsdale.
Almost immediately at the start of the game, the Roosevelt team began to direct antisemitic comments against the Leffell team, including one student shouting “I support Hamas, you f–king Jew."
The comments continued throughout the game and were eventually joined by a variety of particularly violent fouls. Leffell student Robin Bosworth wrote in the local student paper The Lion’s Roar that the antisemitic harassment began in earnest during the third quarter when the other team began to become overly physically aggressive and cause injuries to the players from the Jewish school. By the end of the quarter, they were chanting "free Palestine" and other antisemitic chants.
Leffell Head of School Dr. Michael Kay said that Roosevelt’s athletic director Kyle Calabro and Roosevelt principal Edward DeChent contacted him to apologize for their students' behavior and promised that the incident would be investigated and the students properly disciplined.
"I have played a sport every athletic season throughout my high school career, and I have never experienced this kind of hatred directed at one of my teams before," Bosworth wrote.
The Leffell players and coach decided to end the game rather than continue to face such harassment and violence and had to be escorted out by security guards.
In light of the incident, the Roosevelt management decided to dismiss the team's coach and expel the student who shouted support for Hamas and threats against the Jewish players.
The mayor of Yonkers, Mike Spano, and public school representatives of the city, announced the punishments in a press conference on Sunday.
“The Yonkers Public Schools along with the City of Yonkers sincerely apologize to the students and community of The Leffell School for the painful and offensive comments made to their women’s basketball team during a recent game with Roosevelt High School- Early College Studies. Collectively, we do not and will not tolerate hate speech of any kind from our students and community. The antisemitic rhetoric reportedly made against the student athletes of The Leffell School are abhorrent, inappropriate and not in line with the values we set forth for our young people."
"As soon as the School Administration learned of the incident, an investigation was conducted involving game officials, coaches and students, including school officials from The Leffell School. After a thorough review of videos taken at the game and interviews with those who witnessed the incident, the Yonkers Public Schools dismissed the coach and one player from the Roosevelt basketball team. The investigation is ongoing. Should the District determine other students were involved in the incident, further action would be taken by the school District where appropriate."
"Along with Mayor Spano’s convening of religious, educational and civic leaders, Yonkers Public Schools also will administer further counseling and guided training sessions amongst the school community so to prevent this from happening again.”