Earlier this week we took a look at the scant evidence to support one Duke volleyball player's allegations that she had been heckled with racist taunts at a recent match against Brigham Young University:
As we noted, "most major news outlets around the country reported on the allegations as if they were fact." Yet now Brigham Young University is announcing that, after an intensive review of the facts, there is no evidence to support the claims at all:
We reviewed all available video and audio recordings, including security footage and raw footage from all camera angles taken by BYUtv of the match, with broadcasting audio removed (to ensure that the noise from the stands could be heard more clearly). We also reached out to more than 50 individuals who attended the event: Duke athletic department personnel and student-athletes, BYU athletic department personnel and student-athletes, event security and management and fans who were in the arena that evening, including many of the fans in the on-court student section.
From our extensive review, we have not found any evidence to corroborate the allegation that fans engaged in racial heckling or uttered racial slurs at the event. ...
Well, that seems like...
It's worth pointing out that the student who made the claims, Rachel Richardson, publicly criticized staffers at BYU — people who could easily be identified by name — for "fail[ing] to take the necessary steps" to stop the slurs. All of which is to say that Richardson could have easily damaged the reputations of readily identifiable BYU employees for something the school is now claiming was a hoax.
Meanwhile, they apologized to the fan they punished over the claim:
As a result of our investigation, we have lifted the ban on the fan who was identified as having uttered racial slurs during the match. We have not found any evidence that that individual engaged in such an activity. BYU sincerely apologizes to that fan for any hardship the ban has caused.
If I were the school I'd consider putting a ban on Richardson ever returning to the campus, given that she, you know, appears to have wantonly endangered the personal and professional reputations of innocent staffers.
Kudos to Brigham Young for doing all this work.
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