The high school football season ended abruptly for one Northern California team after it was learned that several players had acted out a slave auction.
Members of the River Valley High School football team participated in the slave auction reenactment. An act that Yuba City Unified School District Superintendent Doreen Osumi called a “reprehensible act” after viewing video of the incident Thursday.
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Not all of the players participated in the reenactment. Though enough of them did that, the resulting suspensions will cause River City to forfeit the remainder of their games due to not having enough players.
The Yuba City Unified School District released a statement condemning the act.
“They violated our student athlete code of conduct which they all signed and committed to follow, and that will not be ignored or minimized,” the statement read.
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“Re-enacting 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.”
Sophomores and juniors from the varsity squad will be allowed to play for the junior varsity team if they want to continue to play.