UCLA AD Jarmond Issues Statement on Gymnastics Situation
UCLA Athletic Director Martin Jarmond has issued a statement about what the Athletic Department has done to address concerns from Bruin gymnasts.
The UCLA Athletic Department issued a statement earlier today addressing concerns which have come up regarding an incident of potential racism and/or bias which came up on the UCLA Gymnastics team.
The statement makes it clear that the Athletic Department has been working behind the scenes for three and a half months to address the concerns of team members after an alleged incident with now-former team member Alexis Jeffrey.
A report on ShineMyCrown.com details the alleged incident. It says that Jeffrey was:
using racial slurs against both Black and Asian people. Despite her fellow teammates expressing their offense to her, she continued. Realizing that their teammate obviously didn’t care about their feelings or warnings, they alerted their coaches. However, rather than confronting and penalizing the student for her derogatory language, the coaches told the young women that they needed to embrace her and be more supportive of her because she threatened to harm herself if she were to get in trouble.
Last week, two gymnasts took to Twitter asking Athletic Director Martin Jarmond to respond. Today, the Athletic Department issued the following statement from Jarmond:
The timing of the gymnasts tweets last week is somewhat odd, considering that Jeffery had left the program by entering the Transfer Portal before the Marghzetta Frazier and Nora Flatley had put out their tweets.
Here’s what they tweeted:
An article from The Advocate contains some more information from UCLA Assistant Athletic Director, Athletic Communications Liza David who indicates that “school administrators have met with the Bruins’ gymnastics team ‘multiple times’ over the past 3½ months. She did not say whether Jarmond spoke to the team previously, but said he would be meeting with the gymnasts early this week.
Jarmond’s statement today would seem to indicate that that meeting likely took place today.
With Jeffery having left the program prior to the team’s first meet of the season, it is not clear what the ongoing concerns might be, but considering that Jarmond was meeting with the gymnasts and he has issued a statement, it appears that Jarmond and the athletic department are continuing to attempt to address whatever concerns the team members may have.
Go Bruins!
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This statement from Jarmond seems more like a response to bad press than an actual attempt to address the issues. I agree with Joe, it reads like the team meeting with Jarmond happened today after current players called him out. If the allegations quoted above that the gymnastics coaching staff tolerated racist slurs is true, then I believe the coaching staff should be terminated
Not sure what the issue is??? Please kindly do some more research into the situation. This reaction by Jarmond was way too little, too late. Coaching staff are responsible for making gymnasts feel safe, not asking them to embrace someone making racist remarks who refuses to apologize. Agree with the above comment, the coaching staff should be terminated.