Parents from Central Dauphin East Middle School are demanding that officials from West Shore School District address a racial incident that happened Friday during a girls’ field hockey game.
William Hines, father of Saniyah Hines, an eighth-grader at CD East Middle School, said a player from Cedar Cliff Middle School hurled a racial slur at his daugher when the two schools played a field hockey game Friday.
“She pushed past my daughter and said move out of the way ‘N word,’” said Hines, who is Black. “All the kids around her heard what happened. The coaches also heard.”
Hines sent an email Monday to the West Shore School District asking officials there to address the incident.
“What we are looking to do is shine a light on this so it doesn’t happen in the future,” Hines said.
Several attempts Monday to contact West Shore Superintendent Todd Stoltz, district spokeswoman Rhonda Fourham and Athletic Director John Kosydar were unsuccessful.
Cedar Cliff in May was at the center of what appears to be a similar incident that also involved a Central Dauphin East student during a junior high school girls’ soccer game. West Shore School District Superintendent Todd Stoltz at that time took to Twitter to apologize to CD East, saying “racist, hateful, denigrating, or otherwise hurtful comments have no place in any of our programs.”
Hines, who is taking this year off from coaching high school football at CD East to focus on his daughter’s field hockey career, said Saniyah was deeply troubled by the incident.
“She was really hurt about it,” he said. “This is the first time she is having to deal with racism directly at her. We have always prepared her for this — that one day someone may say something about you because you have Black skin. We have always prepared her for it but it still took a toll on her. She went home and went straight to sleep and when she woke up, we discussed the incident. She was pretty torn up about it.”
Arianna Turner, a teammate of Saniyah, said the game had been progressing normally when the Cedar Cliff student hurled the racial slur at Saniyah out of nowhere.
“We were just playing the game like normal when the girl walked past Saniyah and said the N-word,” Arianna said.
The Cedar Cliff player was ejected from the game, she said, but only momentarily.
“She came right back in,” Arianna said.
Virginia Travis in May had to deal with a similar incident. Her daughter, an eighth-grade soccer player at the time, was the target of the comments from a Cedar Cliff player that prompted Superintendent Stoltz’s Twitter apology.
“I know it’s something that’s taught,” she said. “But we can’t go to everyone’s house and say you can’t teach that. But we can say that’s not tolerated at school.”
Travis said she was disheartened by the Twitter apology.
“To me that was his way of saying, ‘I addressed this but not really,’” she said.
Travis said a number of Cedar Cliff parents reached out to her to lend her support and apologize for their team. She said she remains dissatisfied at the level of response from West Shore officials, as well as officials all the way up the chain to PIAA.
“I felt everybody was trying to brush it under the rug,” she said. “I was told there was a program that was supposed to be put in place to teach the students and staff. Five months later this happens? I guess it wasn’t put in place.”
Bob Lombardi, the head of the PIAA, on Monday said he was not aware of the incident. However, he said such situations are typically handled first by the school administration, before, if necessary, being elevated to the district or the league.
“It’s quite disgusting obviously and it’s a big issue within Cedar Cliff,” said Beth Turner, Arianna’s mother. “It looks like in that area it’s acceptable and that word is an acceptable vocabulary word. It’s utterly disgusting. There’s no reason that our children should have to be exposed to that... They need to do something. We can’t just blame kids. It goes higher up. What are parents teaching kids?”
In June 2020, Cedar Cliff High School officials used Twitter to issue a statement about a recent racial incident.
“We strive to be a school where students and families feel seen, safe, and supported. Acts of racism, bullying, etc. go against all we stand for at Cedar Cliff, and it is clear our efforts have not been enough. We have work to do to ensure that EVERYONE feels respected,” the tweet read.
Hines said that in his 10 years of coaching for CD East, he has regularly heard racial slurs hurled at his players or other school athletes.
“There’s always been racial tensions and racial slurs thrown at our players,” he said.
Both Travis and Hines said they experienced this kind of racial hatred growing up. They bemoan that their children now have to as well.
“It’s just awful in the time we live in for our kids to have to go through this,” Travis said. “It’s unnecessary. I remember going through this growing up. I never dreamed that my daughter would go through this too.”
Hines wants the West Shore School District to address the issue once and for all.
“It breaks my heart,” he said. “We’ve always taught her to be kind to everyone. We have a saying, ‘I am kind. I am beautiful. I am Black. I am a child of God.’ Those things we say to each other every night. I‘ve had to deal with racial justice all my life, but for my kids to have to go through this as well breaks my heart.”
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