The BYU women’s volleyball team is still facing backlash for the slanderous verbal attacks they received from Duke women’s volleyball player Rachel Richardson.
As we wrote about in August, Richardson, who is black, accused BYU and their fans of launching racial slurs at her during a game, but her claims were proven to be false through an extensive internal investigation that was corroborated by the West Coast Conference (WCC, where the Cougars play). Despite BYU's vindication, the University of Pacific Powercats (go ahead, laugh at the name if you want), who also play in the WCC, forfeited it's upcoming away game against the Cougars on Thursday.
The university explained it's decision by saying that playing at BYU would be leading their players into a “hostile environment.”
“The team expressed concerns following reports of racist and hostile comments during an August 26 match. Pacific stands with our student-athletes,” a Pacific spokesperson said. “The volleyball team has decided to not play the November 10 game at Brigham Young University.”
The Powercats and the Cougars have already played once this year, a 5-set win hosted by the Powercats on October 15. Before the game, Powercats players could be seen wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts to show support for Richardson (by the way, the story had been debunked for over a month at that point). It was fine for Pacific to compete in their “safe space” at home, but the second they have to go to BYU, the game is off.
So even though BYU took steps to mend the situation and was cleared by an internal and external investigation, University of Pacific is still holding this over the Cougars’ heads for no apparent reason other than to virtue signal, which makes sense given their actions before their first meeting.
The Powercats are proving a consistent tendency of progressives: the people that advocate for “racial justice” are the ones willing to hold onto a grudge for the longest.
BYU told Outkick that they were rightfully disappointed by Pacific’s decisions.
“The University of the Pacific’s decision to forfeit this week’s women’s volleyball match is unwarranted and deeply disappointing,” a Cougars athletics spokesperson said. “As we have stated previously, BYU will not tolerate any conduct that would make a student-athlete feel unsafe in our athletic environments. It is unfortunate that Pacific would make a decision that perpetuates the very challenge we are working to heal in our polarized society."
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