PHOENIX (AP) - An athletic association is investigating a volleyball playoff halted for safety concerns when Native American players were reportedly heckled with racist gestures and slurs.
The Canyon Athletic Association said it was looking into what happened at Tuesday’s game. In the meantime, a re-match was scheduled at a neutral site for Friday afternoon.
The game involved the girls’ varsity volleyball team from the Salt River High School, located in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Caurus Academy charter school in Anthem, Arizona. Salt River players said they were heckled by spectators imitating war chants and tomahawk chops during the match.
Caurus Academy officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Salt River High School spokeswoman Tate Walker on Thursday referred questions to the athletic association.
Native American students in other states have reported such treatment at high school athletic events and in other school settings.
In early 2015, Native American students from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation who attended a Rapid City Rush ice hockey game in South Dakota alleged fans in the suite above them poured beer onto students and staff and called them racist slurs. They left the game out of fear for their safety.
Last year in Albuquerque, a teacher resigned from her job at Cibola High School after she cut the hair of a teenage Navajo girl during class on Halloween and reportedly referred to another girl as a “bloody Indian.”
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