Social media was awash with condemnations of BYU and the LDS Church over the weekend after a volleyball player from Duke said she was subject to racial slurs “throughout the entirety of the match.”
BYU banned one fan, who was not a BYU student, from all athletic venues on campus and issued a statement saying:
“To say we are extremely disheartened in the actions of a small number of fans in last night’s volleyball match in Smith Fieldhouse between BYU and Duke is not strong enough language. We will not tolerate behavior of this kind. Specifically, the use of a racial slur at any of our athletic events is absolutely unacceptable and BYU athletics holds a zero-tolerance approach to this behavior.”
BYU is of course correct in its statement. The LDS Church has come out with many recent statements against racism, and the Church policy on this issue is clear: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is against racist expressions like this and any other form of racism.
But new information has come out this week. The BYU police looked at the tapes from the event, and the fan who was banned didn’t actually say anything racist. In fact, he was not even in the stands when the racist comments were allegedly made. Even the never-LDS Salt Lake Tribune was forced to admit that the police are baffled. They can’t find the person or people who made the allegedly racist comments.