Police Asked To Investigate Racist Incident at Natick High

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NATICK – The Natick School District administration has requested Natick Police launch a hate crime investigation after racist and antisemitic video was found in a student-athlete group chat

“Parents do need to know, however, that when an incident involves potential Civil Rights violations, hate crimes, hazing, sexual harassment, or other actions that violate law, careful, deliberate and ordered notifications and investigations have to happen in order to have such an investigation not be hampered by poor or premature communications.  The police chief, NHS school principal and I have been working for the last 36 hours to ensure accuracy, legality and care for all regarding these recent heinous acts in our high school.  I have filed with the Natick police for a hate crimes investigation which will run concurrent to our own investigation,” wrote Superintendent Anna Nolin and interim Natick High Principal Jason Hoye.

“Principal, Jason Hoye, and his team discovered a racist act (a published video) against our Black students. Through that investigation, an anti-Semitic, anti-Ableism group sports team chat associated with one or more of our winter teams was also discovered; this then led to an additional investigation within the group involving potential violence towards girls,” said the two school leaders.

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“The team who originated the hateful chat group has been shut down from season play and investigations occurred all day today to determine the scope of the hateful behavior.  This team and others may be involved in this type of discriminatory and racist behavior.  Any and all students involved in such behavior, even as bystanders,  will be subject to possible investigation, discipline, and solutions to address this behavior,” wrote Nolin and Hoye to parents. 

“The hateful culture of this chat and messaging will be addressed immediately and in lieu of their practices and games we will require participation in, at the start, training conducted by Northeastern University Center for Sport and Society  in toxic speech prevention and bystander training and additional hours in the Anti-Defamation League’s Removing Bias and Hate in Sport groups. I ask you to speak with your child about these acts.  The core values of the Natick Schools and our vision for our graduates is that they can work and live in diverse and inclusive communities.  Creating a healthy community means that we cannot tolerate such behavior and we cannot act as passive bystanders when these acts occur.  From Kindergarten through Grade 12, we offer training and direct instruction on creating inclusive environments but we need your help as the most important teachers of your children to reinforce that message at home,” wrote Nolin & Hoye 

“As the mother of two teens, I also ask you to inspect your child’s technology and become acquainted with the nature of their online lives.  This often unpoliced area of teen life (and even in elementary and middle school lives) can expose students to hateful acts and in doing so they become party to it or become bystanders with harder than necessary choices to make,” wrote Supt. Nolin. 

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