Scarsdale Parent Refutes Claim that Racial Slurs Came from the Stands at Basketball Game

A Scarsdale parent is refuting claims of racial slurs that purportedly shut down a Varsity B girls basketball game on February 10 at Scarsdale High School. Jason Paris, a dad who was in the stands for a Girls Varsity B Basketball game against a team from East Ramapo said that no racially charged words were uttered. Contrary to what he heard while at the game, NBC news, the Journal News and News 12 reported that racial slurs had come from the stands.

According to Paris, whose daughter is a junior and plays on the team, it was a referee’s call, not a racial slur that caused the game to end halfway through the fourth quarter.

Paris says, “Nothing remotely close to what is being reported happened at the game. It was the last game of the season for both teams. It was a normal game up to halfway through the fourth quarter when one of the Ramapo girls committed a foul. When the same girl had a second foul called against her the East Ramapo coach began berating the referees about foul calls. He said, “that’s it, we’re done” and the referees declared the game over and left the court. At the time, the score was 34-22 in favor of Scarsdale.

Paris says “There were only 12-14 fans there including grandparents, parents and younger siblings of the players.” He continued, “We were all sitting together and nothing negative of any nature was said. We were cheering good plays of both teams.”

Since the game was a fundraiser for breast cancer, students came in an out of the gym to sell t-shirts and at one point the Varsity A girls were in the gym to hang their senior game banners.

Paris continued, “It ended when the game was forfeited. The East Ramapo coach yelled at the refs who called the game and walked out. The Scarsdale coach gathered her girls on the bench and they left the gym to go to the locker rooms to change and say their season goodbyes.”

Paris explained that the Scarsdale players were unaware of any of these allegations and only learned about them when they received a text from one of the girls on the Scarsdale Varsity A team who was in the gym. She reported that a girl from East Ramapo said someone called her the “N” word. Paris said that girl was on crutches and did not play in the game.

Paris is a longtime Scarsdale resident who has been watching his kids play for the past 15 years. Commenting on the incident, Paris said, “As someone who was there, it’s incredibly frustrating because you can’t prove a negative. There is nothing that can be done to dispel this. The game was livestreamed with audio. The camera and audio were on and all you hear is cheering for all teams* …. Seeing this on the news, from parents who teach their children to never do anything hateful is devastating. Parents and girls are very upset at what appears to be a total fabrication.”

(*It appears that the game video has been taken down.)