Oregon Football Fans Taunt BYU With Obscene Religious Slurs

National media all-but ignored the bigotry, however, in sharp contrast to their coverage of a Duke University student’s debunked claim that she was racially harassed during a volleyball match at BYU.

AP/Andy Nelson
Oregon head coach Dan Lanning leaves the field after the football game against BYU on Saturday at Eugene, Oregon. AP/Andy Nelson

Players and fans from Brigham Young University’s football team were taunted by fans at rival University of Oregon during Saturday’s game in Eugene with anti-Mormon slurs described as hateful and bigoted by school officials.

Video circulated Saturday on social media showing the Oregon fans chanting, “F*** the Mormons” during the game, which 16th-ranked Oregon won 41-20 over 17th-ranked BYU.

The University of Oregon’s student section later apologized on behalf of the students, saying the school does not “condone or support any hateful speech directed towards one’s religion and [is] ashamed of those who participated.”

Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, also weighed in, tweeting that “religious bigotry” is “alive and celebrated in Oregon.”

Brigham Young, based in Provo, Utah, is owned and managed by the Church of Latter Day Saints. The majority of its student body is Mormon by faith.

National media outlets all-but ignored the bigotry displayed by the Oregon fans, however, in sharp contrast to last month when many of them went into overdrive after a Black volleyball player from Duke University claimed that she was taunted with racist slurs during a match at BYU.

After a lengthy investigation, officials at BYU said they could find no evidence of the player being taunted despite the presence of thousands of fans and multiple video recordings of the match.

ESPN, which posted multiple stories and devoted hours of airtime to Duke student Rachel Richardson’s allegations against BYU, had nothing on its site about the incident in Eugene on Sunday. The New York Times, which also reported Ms. Richardson’s uncorroborated charges, had nothing to say about the incident on Sunday, nor did any of the major wire services such as the Associated Press.

Only a handful of conservative media outlets and newspapers in both Utah and Oregon covered the incident, according to a Google News search.

In addition to the apology by the student section, the University of Oregon itself also apologized on Saturday.

“The university apologizes for the despicable chants made by some University of Oregon fans at today’s football game with Brigham Young University,” said the school’s interim vice president for the Division of Student Life, Kris Winter. “There is no place for hate, bias or bigotry at the University of Oregon. These actions are simply unacceptable. We will investigate, and we call on our students and campus community to refuse to accept or tolerate this type of behavior.”

During last year’s football season, the BYU team was taunted with the same language by fans of the University of Southern California during a game between the two schools.


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