🏈 Report: Ole Miss football players yell homophobic slurs, disrupt play

[PhillyGirl]

Keepin' it classy as always at Ole Piss ..



Hugh Freeze Comments on Report of Ole Miss Players Using Homophobic Slurs


Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze issued a response to the allegations that members of the Rebels football team used anti-gay slurs and behaved in a disruptive manner during a performance of the play “The Laramie Project” on Tuesday night.

Freeze issued a response on Thursday via Twitter, stating that his program does not condone these types of actions and that he is currently on a fact-finding mission to sort this issue out.

As per Ty Duffy of The Big Lead, there are approximately 20 football players enrolled in a freshman theater class at Ole Miss, and many are being accused of uttering a number of hurtful, homophobic taunts during the play.

A report from Adam Ganucheau of TheDMOnline.com claims that these players disrespected and disrupted a performance of “The Laramie Project”—a play that deals with the 1998 torture and murder of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student.

Using terms like “fag” and other “borderline hate speech” to heckle the cast members, the football players reportedly made it difficult for the actors and director to finish the play. The DMOnline report also claims that the players took pictures of the cast members while mocking them, talked on their cell phones and to other audience members and hollered at several female members of the cast.

Cast member and junior theater major Garrison Gibbons described the painful incident, as per Ganucheau:

I am the only gay person on the cast. I played a gay character in the show, and to be ridiculed like that was something that really made me realize that some people at Ole Miss and in Mississippi still can’t accept me for who I am.

​

Director Rory Ledbetter claimed that the football players were not the only disruptive audience members—most of whom are students at Ole Miss—but insinuated that they initiated others to be offensive:

The football players were certainly not the only audience members that were being offensive last night. But they were definitely the ones who seemed to initiate others in the audience to say things, too. It seemed like they didn’t know that they were representing the university when they were doing these things.

​

Associate Director of Academic Support Drew Clinton was summoned to the play to check on the actions of the students, and after the second act, an unidentified member of the football team apologized for he and his teammates behavior backstage. The apology reportedly made two of the cast members cry. But Theatre Department Chair Rene Pulliam claims that most players had no idea why they were sorry, per Duffy.

“The football players were asked by the athletics department to apologize to the cast. However, I’m not sure the players truly understood what they were apologizing for.”

It’s an ugly, terrible situation, one that coach Freeze must help to get resolved in prompt and proper fashion.

At this time, it's unclear if these players will face any discipline for their actions. The Ole Miss Rebels (3-1, 1-1 SEC) square off with the Auburn Tigers (3-1, 1-1 SEC) in an SEC showdown on Oct. 5.

 

[bamaledge]

This is just stupid. Those players are probably gay and can't admit it. I don't care if the actors are straight, gay or whatever. Was the play any good?

 

[planomateo]

People are way too sensitive to things these days. I don't condone what they said at all, but I find it interesting that only certain derogatory words raise peoples blood pressure, where others don't.

 

[PhillyGirl]

People are way too sensitive to things these days. I don't condone what they said at all, but I find it interesting that only certain derogatory words raise peoples blood pressure, where others don't.

I can understand why it would raise blood pressure, especially given the play's subject matter. It's like shouting hateful slurs at an Anne Frank play.

 

[JoshB]

Good lord, you would think they would have a lil more sense and class especially in public.

 

[rick4bama]

Good lord, you would think they would have a lil more sense and class especially in public.

The days of the internet you would think so.

 

[psychojoe]

Crude behavior, but hardly worth a suspension.

 

[BamaCore]

Disgusting and classless. All I have to say about it.

 

[bama alum]

bamaledge, The Laramie Project is a very good play.

No evidence? So people just heard things? Are the other members in the audience just schizophrenic? smh...

http://espn.go.com/college-football...idence-football-players-used-homophobic-slurs (video interview as well)

After the University of Mississippi investigated allegations that an estimated 20 football players disrupted a university theater production of "The Laramie Project" with "borderline hate speech" on Tuesday night, the university found no evidence that any players used any anti-gay slurs.

Because of what the university's Bias Incident Response Team deemed "conflicting reports" surrounding the incident, all the students and student-athletes in attendance of the show Oct. 1 will be required to attend an educational dialogue session, the response team said in a statement released Friday evening.
"The task of identifying specific individuals who were purported to have disrupted the performance is difficult because of the dark theatre, and initial reports vary in regard to the frequency, volume and source of the comments or disruption," the statement read. "Although initial reports indicate that student-athletes led the action, it is important to note that this has not been verified and they were not the only students present. Reports indicate that comments were made by student athletes and students but no report has singled out a specific student or mentioned any names."

The play is based on the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.
The Daily Mississippian, the university's student newspaper, first reported that the 20 Ole Miss football players were among the disruptive audience Tuesday. Play director and faculty member Rory Ledbetter told the student newspaper that members of the audience were using homosexual slurs and insulting the body types and sexual orientation of cast members.

The student newspaper also reported that Ledbetter said a member of the athletic department sent him an email apologizing for the incident.

Ole Miss theater department chairwoman Rene Pulliam told the paper that the football players were asked to apologize by the athletic department as well.

Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork told ESPN.com on Friday evening that the response team and the athletic department are still gathering information but that he doesn't anticipate any punishment going forward for the student-athletes involved, unless new evidence arises.

"As of six o'clock on Friday night, there are no facts that back up any cause for us to do any further discipline as of now," Bjork said. "If we do get any new information, we will follow up and act accordingly.
"No one finds what happened acceptable. Those acts of that language and that response has no place on our campus. We take that very serious. Regardless of who said what, it's wrong what happened."

Bjork said he and Ole Miss' senior associate athletic director for academic support Derek Cowherd sat down with the players involved for 45 minutes Thursday night to talk about what happened Tuesday. Bjork said he told each player present to divulge any information they had about the incident and what was allegedly said during the performance.

"We encouraged them and we told them that if there's any information that they need to share to share that with the incident response team and make sure that all the facts were on the table," Bjork said.
"We believe that they are good young men, and we need to support them as well in this matter and make sure we understand the truth."

Bjork said there are plans for Ole Miss' student-athletes to engage in multiple programs in the future to help "foster a culture of diversity" on campus.

"We've engaged our athletes and our athletic program in these types of things along the way," Bjork said. "Not only what we've already done and what we have in place for next week, but we will engage in new opportunities for our student athletes moving ahead that shows responsibility and accountability that we have to have respect for all people. Those programs are being developed.

"We want to send a strong message [to student-athletes] that we have to have respect for all people."

 

[PhillyGirl]

Well, at least they're addressing it. I truly hope these guys learn something from it.

 

[Swamptick]

Meh. Doesn't bother me. I am not an overly sensitive person though in terms of being insecure enough to let name calling upset me.

We live in an age of emotional weakness though. Was it cool to name call? It never is. Still, why the selective outrage? If any name calling is enough to whip the weaklings into a frenzy, then all of it should be.

In my opinion, none of it should be. This is only a story because the play dealt with gays.