12.23.2022/Breaking news

A terrible and growing trend: Natick schools the latest to grapple with racist, anti-Semitic incidents involving sports teams

A Natick High School sports team has had its season suspended and school officials have requested a hate crimes investigation into racist and anti-Semitic material posted online and potential violence toward female students.

High school officials “discovered a racist act (a published video) against our Black students” and upon further investigation, turned up “an anti-Semitic, anti-Ableism” group chat involving one or more winter sports teams, Anna Nolin, superintendent of Natick schools, informed students and parents in a Friday afternoon email.

The probe of the online chat group led to “an additional investigation” by school officials into “potential violence towards girls.”

School officials have asked Natick police to launch their own investigation into potential hate crime law violations, according to Nolin.

“The police chief, NHS school principal and I have been working for the last 36 hours to ensure accuracy, legality and care for all regarding these recent heinous acts in our high school,” Nolin wrote in an email. “I have filed with the Natick police for a hate crimes investigation which will run concurrent to our own investigation.”

The news out of Natick comes less than a day after dozens of superintendents across Massachusetts spoke out against racist graffiti targeting Dr. Omar Easy, Wayland’s school chief.

School sports programs across Greater Boston have been rocked over the past two year by allegations of racist, anti-Semitic and other behavior.

Contrarian Boston will have more on this story later this evening when we publish a full edition of the newsletter.

Stay tuned.