On what was supposed to be a pre-homecoming weekend filled with fair competition, tennis, and respect, club tennis players at Howard University were instead met with racist and offensive tournament imagery depicting Ku Klux Klan members from their University of Maryland opponents.
“Let me be unequivocal: There is no place for racism, intimidation, or imagery rooted in hatred and racial violence in collegiate athletics, on our campuses, or anywhere in our society,” Howard University Interim President and President Emeritus Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick said in a press release. “The imagery displayed evoked a painful history of racial terror and exclusion that has no place in an environment dedicated to learning, personal development, and mutual respect.”
The Emancipator is published by the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study and is editorially independent from the university.
This comes as Black high school and collegiate athletes across the country have experienced ongoing racist backlash from opposing players, fans, and schools. In 2022, the NAACP issued a resolution calling on “all Interscholastic Federations and all Federal Agencies that supervise sports under Title IX, across the country to enact proper sanctions toward schools using discriminatory and racist behaviors towards opponents.”
Significance. Club tennis players from Howard University first encountered the image of Ku Klux Klan members in white hoods on the Maryland state flag on tournament materials made by the University of Maryland club tennis team for Saturday’s tournament.
Benjamin Jancewicz, the graphic designer who made the flag, said in an Instagram comment, that he made the image originally to help educate people about the flag’s Confederate origins. The red and white section of the flag, part of the Crossland family coat of arms, was once also used as a banner for Confederate sympathizers living in Maryland, then a Union state where enslavement was legal.
“I created this image as an illustration almost a decade ago to highlight the Confederate roots of the Maryland flag,” Jancewicz commented. “For anyone to use it for actual racist purposes both makes me sick, but also highlights how Maryland never fully reckoning with its racist past is still a problem.”
The Howard University players reported it to the University of Maryland’s club tennis team, which was organizing and hosting the tournament and were told the documents were copied from last year, according to video of the confrontation sent to The Emancipator by Toni Rachal, the president of the Howard University tennis club.
“I think that with everything that’s going on in the world right now, you see Black people being lynched in 2026; I think it’s unacceptable to use that type of imagery when people are dying,” Rachal told The Emancipator.
A team statement, released on Monday, included a list of restorative-justice oriented demands including an official public apology to the team and Howard University, a probe of who created the who used KKK imagery in creating tournament materials, sensitivity training for the tennis team leaders and advisors and cultural awareness through donating funds from the tournament to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
A separate video taken by one of the Howard club tennis players, also shared by Rachal, showed a conversation with a University of Maryland administrator about the racist imagery on Saturday. He said calling it “an accident” was just an excuse and promised that the university was taking action to handle the matter.
The University of Maryland pulled its club tennis team and they were forced to forfeit the rest of the tournament.
Brent Flynn, the head of the Recreation & Wellness division, which oversees the school’s club tennis team, issued an apology letter to all teams participating in the tournament, calling the imagery “awful and unacceptable.”
“While this incident may reflect the actions of a few student team members, we have suspended the entire club tennis team indefinitely pending an investigation,” Flynn said in the letter.
“I am deeply sorry that this image was distributed. It does not reflect our values or our commitment to fostering an inclusive, safe and welcoming environment where everyone is valued and respected.”
The university also opened an Office of Student Conduct investigation into the matter and referred the University of Maryland Police Department to assist.
On Wednesday, the university’s club tennis team released a statement saying they are “committed to engaging in education and training about the history and impact of racism and hate symbols” along with donating to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Overlooked angle. Young Black athletes across the country have been met with racist remarks and harassment.
Two high schools in less than one week have forfeited games against Lutheran High School in Colorado as an act of protest for the school’s lack of addressing multiple allegations of racist comments, mockery, and harassment against Black athletes and families.
Air Academy High School was the first to cancel against Lutheran High School, saying they would not go forward with their homecoming football game scheduled for Oct. 9, due to a lack of staff. According to reporting from Air Academy’s student journalists and a local news outlet, Air Academy football players said coaches chose not to participate in the game following the lack of accountability for the racist harassment.
On Monday, Coronado High School followed suit and announced they were also canceling their game against Lutheran High School in a press release from Colorado Springs School District 11.
“D11 asked both Lutheran High School and Colorado High School Athletics Association for a strong, unequivocal statement denouncing racism,” said the district in its statement. “Neither organization has provided the district with the statement requested. In the absence of the requested statements, we do not believe proceeding with Thursday’s game is consistent with those expectations.”
Power structure. Racism in school sports impacts Black student athletes at every level, experts have found. At the K-12 level, it often appears as a “racial opportunity gap” and inability to take part in sports. Sometimes, the schools they attend don’t have adequate support for athletic teams. And sometimes– and especially at the collegiate level– the student athletes face direct racism, according the National Black Sport Participation Report, which is published by the University of Massachussets, Boston.
What experts say. According to the National Black Sport Participation report “Black college athletes are more likely to report personal experiences with racism and/or racial trauma that negatively impacted their mental health compared to their non-Black college athlete peers.”
They are also “more likely to engage in social justice activism compared to their White college athlete counterparts.”
Experts call this occurance, when Black athletes feels more compelled to call for justice and help enact change, “the Black college athletes’ burden.”
In a 2021 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Student-Athlete Activism and Racial Justice Engagement Study of 24,974 student-athletes across all three divisional classifications, 77% of Black athletes “were more likely to publicly communicate their opinion about a cause on social media, email, or a petition than White college athletes (57 percent).”
