Students at a Florida high school have used their collective voices to protest the dismissal of two of their school’s baseball coaches, including one who used a racial slur in a private student group text.
While the effort demonstrated a commitment to the coaches, it resulted in a forfeiture of the rest of the team’s season.
Officials canceled the last six games of the year, impacting the team’s already dismal season record.
Robert Butz, the principal at Fort Myers High School, has removed two key members of the school’s coaching staff, head coach Kyle Burchfield and assistant coach Alex Carcioppolo.
Carcioppolo was fired and is under investigation for violating the civil rights of some of his students when he used the N-word in a team group chat. In February, he typed, “Happy Valentine’s Day, N*****.”
According to WINK, the assistant coach was removed from his position within 24 hours of sending the text.
A Title VI probe was then launched by the Lee County School District on March 8 to investigate whether his comments discriminated against any of the students “on the basis of race, color, or national origin,” particularly since the public school and the sports program “receives in Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance” to run, according to FOX 4 Now.
On April 5, almost two months after the Carcioppolo investigation started, Burchfield was removed as head coach. Officials argued he was ousted from the post “because of the integrity of the investigation.”
Burchfield still remains a social studies teacher on campus.
The next day, in protest of this decision by the district, some team members walked out in protest during a game against Estero High School.
Fort Myers athletics director Steve Cato reported the incident to the district, noting that the walkout essentially was related to the investigations and targeted Black students on the team.
“We are still trying to identify all of…
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