San Diego County’s Human Relations Commission will hold a special meeting Monday afternoon to consider the controversy over Coronado High School basketball players throwing tortillas at the opposing team after a game.
The tortillas were tossed at coaches and players from the largely Latino Orange Glen High School from Escondido, which led to claims of racism.
Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey thinks the charges of racism are incorrect. He told local news station KUSI that, “There’s been no evidence that has come forward to suggest at all that this was racially motivated.”
“What we’ve seen all along is that this was, more or less, unsportsmanlike conduct that was also racially insensitive.”
Bailey added, “You have to keep in mind that Coronado’s high school basketball team is also a very racially diverse team.”
The man who gave the tortillas to the players, alumnus Luke Serna, also claims there was no racism motivating his action.
Activists, however, disagree, including Tasha Williamson who said she has witnessed other examples of racist behavior from Coronado High’s sports teams and even the parents.
“They have a history of racism here. When our kids from Lincoln and other areas south of the 8 [freeway] came here, they would chant with their parents and their students, ‘Here comes the prison bus.’ This was in the early 2000s,” said Williamson.
She and other activists held a demonstration in front of the school.
The school district’s Governing Board fired Coronado's head basketball coach last week following the outcry.
Coronado Schools Superintendent Karl Mueller sent a letter to the California Interscholastic Federation executive director Ron Nocetti last Friday to respond to community activists who wanted the federation to strip Coronado of its championship title.
Mueller said he will not require Coronado High to forfeit the championship game it won against Orange Glen.
"In the first-person accounts, audio and video that we have reviewed to date, we have seen no evidence of antagonization by the players actions or behaviors that justify forfeiting the game," Mueller wrote, according to City News Service.
"The young men on the court played hard, fairly, and earned the championship win."
The meeting will be streamed over Zoom at 5 pm on June 28. Meeting details are available on the commission’s website.