video from the Roosevelt-Leffell game is inconclusive as to whether any slurs were made
By Dan Murphy
The US Department of Education has been asked to investigate a Roosevelt High School girls basketball game on Jan. 4 that ended with a forfeit after girls and parents on the Leffell basketball team claimed that anti-semetic slurs had been made against them by members of the Roosevelt HS team. One of the Lefell players wrote a letter to the media describing in detail what was said.
But video from the game does not include an audible video that can determine if the slurs were actually said. The Yonekrs Public Schools and the City of Yonkers conducted an investigaton which collaborated the Leffell students version.
But a subsequent investigation conducted by the Yonkers NAACP and Rev. Frank Coleman found no evidence of any slurs being made by the girls on the Roosevelt basketball team.
And two recent videos from Brother2Brother in Yonkers, and posted online at the Yonkers Ledger, have parents of the Roosevelt team stadning by their belief that this incident did not happen in the way it way portrayed.
The matter has clearly not been resolved, and we may never get closure.
Now comes word that the US Department of Education may be investigating the matter. A story in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (JTA.org), states that “a screenwriter and conservative activist Justin Samuels, filed a complaint with the US Department of Education
Samuels, who has no affiliation with Yonkers or the Leffell school, has asked for a Title VI investigation which has already begun according to the story from Andrew Lapin. “The investigation will focus on whether the school responded appropriately to reports of discriminatory behavior, rather than on whether the behavior occured in the first place,”
(https://www.jta.org/2024/03/12/ny/feds-investigate-yonkers-ny-school-district-where-girls-basketball-players-yelled-antisemitic-slurs-at-jewish-opponents).
The Yonkers Public Schools and the City did take action after the incident, firing the girls basketball coach and suspending one of its players.
While it is unclear what action if any the US Dept. of Education would or could take at this point, we wonder if they will first conduct an investigation to determin what actually happened.
