{"id":932048,"date":"2026-10-13T23:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T23:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/932048\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T23:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T23:50:16","slug":"umd-suspends-club-tennis-team-over-racist-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/932048\/","title":{"rendered":"UMD suspends club tennis team over racist image"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Breana<\/a>COLLEGE PARK, Md. \u2014<\/p>\n

The University of Maryland College Park suspended its club tennis team indefinitely<\/a> after a tournament email containing a racist image was sent to other university tennis clubs, including Howard University\u2019s team, prompting widespread backlash and an investigation.<\/p>\n

“I was very surprised and astonished by it,” said Aaron Akolly, a junior at UMD. “I just think that’s wrong,” said Rex Howland, another junior at UMD.<\/p>\n

University President Dr. Darryll Pines addressed the incident in a letter sent to the school community<\/a> Tuesday saying in part, “We condemned the image in no uncertain terms. It was deeply harmful and offensive, and I offer my apology for its detrimental impact on one and all.”<\/p>\n

Pines said the university acted immediately by suspending the team indefinitely pending an investigation and having the club tennis team’s student leaders apologize to the other teams.<\/p>\n

He also said the school reached out to Black leaders on campus like the Black Student Union to offer support.<\/p>\n

“My first initial reaction was just disappointment,” said Aniya Baker, vice president of the Black Student Union at UMD. “I believe on this campus this isn’t the first occurrence where Black students are being targeted, and I just felt like that was continuing. I felt grateful that they reached out to the Black Student Union first but it did not take away from my disappointment from the fact that it made me feel like I didn’t feel safe on my campus, and I wasn\u2019t being heard or respected by my peers.”<\/p>\n

The image, which included what looked like Ku Klux Klan hoods, was part of a shared Google document emailed to club tennis teams participating in UMD’s 2026 Fall Invitational Tournament.<\/p>\n

Howard University’s club tennis team leaders say they confronted UMD’s club leaders after noticing the image and later posted it on social media.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Howard University’s tennis team said:<\/p>\n

“The image is a recognizable symbol of white supremacy, organized hate, and violence. The inclusion of this imagery raises fundamental questions: Why was this racist imagery included in the materials, how long has this image been used in UMD documents, and what review process permitted it to remain there?”<\/p>\n

Howard University’s club tennis team is calling for an official public apology to Howard University and the HU Tennis Club team, a formal investigation into who created the Google document with the KKK imagery, sensitivity training for UMD club team leaders and advisors, and for UMD to donate the funds from the tournament to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.<\/p>\n

Pines said the university will provide sensitivity training for members of the club tennis team.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, UMD students say they’re sad this happened to begin with.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s really unfortunate. It’s a really disgusting display of the university, and I kind of feel like they are embarrassing us all sending that out, especially to Howard, a historically Black college,” said Kailani Williams, a junior at UMD.<\/p>\n

“Even though UMD is a PWI (primarily white institution), it is really diverse. There’s people of diversity all over, so that just puts a bad taste in our mouth,” said Brandon Portillo-Levron, a sophomore at UMD.<\/p>\n

Other students are calling the university to enact more severe consequences.<\/p>\n

“Definitely whoever made the flyer and is responsible should be kicked off the team and maybe even expelled from the school,” said Ryan Mungai, a graduate student at UMD. <\/p>\n

The UMD Black Student Union is calling on the school to commit to “long term systemic accountability”<\/p>\n

“I think for me that goes a little bit deeper than a simple announcement or an email. That looks like actually engaging with your Black student body,” Baker said.<\/p>\n

The university said the Office of Student Conduct and the Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct will investigate the incident. The University of Maryland Police Department is also investigating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE PARK, Md. \u2014 The University of Maryland College Park suspended its club tennis team indefinitely after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[83009,319940,2023,319947,49,34818,48,319949,319933,319943,200258,154409,37327,138317,319944,319936,219601,111655,9177,319935,28461,55648,1451,44892,32619,191548,319942,319946,319934,14394,319948,319945,82,319939,46210,593,319941,305357,4139,794,58081,319938,20578,319937],"class_list":["post-932048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-african-american","tag-apology-email","tag-black","tag-black-student-union","tag-ca","tag-campus","tag-canada","tag-club-leader","tag-club-tennis","tag-club-tennis-team","tag-college-park","tag-college-tennis","tag-email","tag-emails","tag-entire-team","tag-fall-tournament","tag-howard-university","tag-imagery","tag-incident","tag-indefinitely-suspended","tag-investigation","tag-junior","tag-maryland","tag-member","tag-message","tag-pine","tag-racist-email","tag-racist-image","tag-racist-imagery","tag-school","tag-sensitivity-training","tag-sister-station","tag-sports","tag-student-conduct","tag-suspended","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-clubs","tag-umd","tag-university","tag-university-of-maryland","tag-university-police","tag-wbal-tv","tag-weekend","tag-wrc-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}