Students from the Pittsfield boys’ basketball team were left stunned during and after a final tournament in March 2024. An opposing player spit in the face of one of their top guards, who is Black, and the teenagers, mostly boys of color, were also assaulted by racist comments as they tried to leave the gym.
The racial hostility left players crying in the locker room at Worcester State University. Coach Jerome Edgerton Jr. remembers that spring like it was just a few weeks ago.
“It was really degrading to us …. just a nasty situation,” said Edgerton, who is also Black and works full-time as a teacher at the high school. “Being bullied for what you look like. It just piles on to the trauma that some of these kids come from (and) has a profound impact on how they think about themselves.”
As tens of thousands of Massachusetts middle- and high-school athletes pour into locker rooms and onto fields and courts this fall, some likely have already heard racist taunts during matches, or faced sexist and threatening cyberbullying from teammates or coaches screaming abusively at players.
Four years ago, a state government initiative began specifically to prevent hate and bias in athletics, called Addressing Hate in School Sports. Yet such incidents are mounting across the booming school sports landscape, according to more than a dozen GBH News interviews with child rights advocates, coaches and parents.
Recent headlines include a high school girls’ basketball team in Worcester hit with a barrage of racist social media posts after a game in Andover. Softball players from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School were allegedly body-shamed and screamed at by their coach, according to public records obtained by GBH News. And in April, the only girl on a co-ed golf team in Boxford told school officials how her own teammates threatened her sexually.
“I was subjected to obscene and demeaning sexual comments, including a reference to sexual violence and assault,” Charlotte Rollins, then a ninth grader, told school leaders in April. “When I reported serious misconduct, I was left unprotected, unheard and unsupported by those responsible for student safety.”
State efforts fall short
State law already bans such behaviors. An antibullying measure enacted in 2010 defined bullying as repeated verbal, written or physical acts causing physical or emotional harm, fear and a hostile environment. The statute requires schools to investigate allegations immediately, protect students and inform parents of alleged victims and aggressors. But an ongoing GBH News investigation has found that in recent years, at least one in three schools in Massachusetts have failed to act on bullying allegations lodged by students and families, violating the longstanding antibullying law.
A statewide poll of Massachusetts parents released in August found that Latino and Black students, along with English language learners, experienced bullying at much higher rates than their white peers.
Efforts to protect student athletes also have been stymied. In 2022, the Attorney General’s Office — led then by Gov. Maura Healey — started the project called Addressing Hate in School Sports to target bullying in school athletics. The move came in the aftermath of widespread discriminatory bullying, harassment and hazing by varsity ice hockey players at Danvers High School and antisemitism on the Duxbury High School football team.
Four years later, many child advocates and coaches say the two-pronged program — meant to track hate incidents and train school leaders to combat discrimination and bullying in sports — has failed to meet expectations.
Among the weaknesses is the fact that the organization enlisted to process and address complaints about hate incidents, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, is withholding key information that would help hold schools accountable.
The nonprofit, widely known as MIAA, created an online portal for schools to report discriminatory incidents in athletics. But the association, which is funded partly by schools’ annual dues, has refused to disclose which schools have reported incidents or details about cases and any sanctions, releasing only the numbers of incidents.
Critics say the lack of transparency means there is no way for families and their children who play sports to know how the agency is actually addressing cases of discriminatory bullying and harassment across its more than 380 member schools.
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston, said more oversight is desperately needed to protect young athletes. The civil rights organization sued the MIAA last year in Norfolk Superior Court, demanding records of how the association handles harassment, bullying and racism in school sports. The MIAA filed a motion to dismiss and the case is pending.
Espinoza-Madrigal said state officials should also work harder to make sure the agency is protecting student athletes.
“MIAA has been falling asleep at the wheel while students suffer due to a significant spike in the number of racial harassment and bullying incidents that are happening in schools and spilling over into athletic events,” he said. “Without a functioning MIAA that is actually willing to call foul when students are being harassed, intimidated, and bullied on and off the field, all students remain vulnerable.”
The state also hired Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society to train school leaders to build positive and inclusive sports teams. The state has paid the center more than $255,000 for the work since 2023, according to records provided by the Office of the Attorney General. But four years later, just over half of the public schools in the athletic association have participated in the Addressing Hate in School Sports training, according to state data.
And numbers of new classes are on the decline. Only 21 schools signed up this year for training sessions run by Northeastern, according to state records.
Dan Lebowitz, executive director of the Northeastern’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society, defended the efforts his organization and schools have made. At the same time, he said it is time for a “data analysis” of the program to assess its progress.
“People are always going to criticize no matter what you do,” he said. “We are trying to saturate individual districts one at a time. The program has really been mindfully developed … and operationally excellent, not just because of us, but because of all those partners.”
Mike Rubin, an assistant director at the MIAA, said he too is concerned about sagging school participation in the training initiative. He attributed slowing numbers to a backlash against diversity efforts under the Trump Administration that has fueled some community members to push back against the program.
“It can come down to the district getting pushback from parents. We did a training, and … the parents are coming up, ‘What is this?’” he said. “Since Trump took office, it’s been brutal in terms of the initiatives around DEI. Everybody’s on the defensive.”
A steady stream of child advocates and lawmakers say more needs to be done. Among them, Sen. Cynthia Creem, a Democrat from Newton who is pushing legislation to require the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to create a standard curriculum for school coaches focused on social-emotional learning.
“Healey’s program is going on. The Massachusetts School Bullying Prevention and Intervention Law is there. But they are not doing enough,” she told GBH News recently. “What they are doing is still leaving lots of hazing, bullying and hate in athletics.”
Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the state is working hard to help provide safe spaces for student athletes.
“In addition to trainings, our office has issued updated guidance, trained school administrators, and provided resources to schools, families, and young people,'' she said in a written statement. ”This work must continue, and we will keep pushing for additional investments while using every tool available to ensure students can learn, grow, and participate in safe and respectful environments.”
Seeking more MIAA intervention
For school officials in Pittsfield, a city of some 44,000 people near the state’s western border, the violence that their students allegedly faced went beyond peer-to-peer problems.
Pittsfield schools’ administrators sharply criticized the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s representatives for failing to intervene when the basketball game in Worcester turned racist and violent.
In a two-page letter to the organization, then Superintendent Joseph Curtis and then Principal Maggie Harrington-Esko described a scene where a player from the opposing team “blatantly spit” on a Pittsfield player’s face. When the coach asked the referees to remove the other boy from the game, administrators said, it didn’t happen.
Instead, when the Pittsfield boy went back to play he was called the “N-word” by students sitting in the fan section from Old Rochester Regional High School, according to the letter. Later, school officials asked for help from a MIAA representative and police for assistance but didn’t immediately get help. When the team did leave, with an MIAA escort, student athletes were insulted by adults from the other team, the letter said.
“Pittsfield High School athletes are expressing that moving forward, they are afraid of what it means for a black athlete to compete in the state of Massachusetts,” the administrators wrote.
MIAA would not comment on how it handled the Pittsfield game. But the association did say that after the incident against Pittsfield, Old Rochester schools leadership signed up for three sessions of training with the Addressing Hate in School Sports program in 2024, 2025 and in January. Nobody from Old Rochester could be reached for this story.
Coach Edgerton is still resentful, and said the MIAA is too focused too on generating revenue from selling tickets to its tournaments, and not on diversity and racial harassment in school athletics.
“It’s a business at the end of the day. And what’s bad for business is really to take a stance against racial issues because now you’re starting to ruffle the feathers of a lot of different people,” Edgerton said.
GBH News was unsuccessful in attempts to contact former students on the Pittsfield team. Reluctance to discuss such incidents publicly is unfortunately common: GBH News reached out to former students and parents of several student athletes targeted by discriminatory bullying and harassment across the state, and most declined to talk on the record or to allow their children to do so, saying they wanted to shield them from revisiting traumatic experiences.
But Dustin Rollins, the father of the Boxford golfer Charlotte Rollins, agreed to talk with GBH News, explaining how the bullying and threats against his daughter went on for months. He said when some learned about her official complaints, the situation got worse, including with others sports teams.
“Eventually it escalated to the point where they had threatened to rape her,” he said.
Charlotte eventually changed schools.
Ongoing efforts to combat hate
The MIAA requires schools to reports incidents of hate and discrimination. But it appears many schools are not complying or keeping records.
There were only a dozen reports to the MIAA this year about racist incidents. But even the sports agency says those reports likely don’t reflect much of what’s happening on the courts and fields.
After the MIAA created its portal in 2022 for schools to report incidents of bullying, 34 schools reported issues that first year, according to the agency. In each of the next two years, the MIAA told GBH News it fielded 27 cases of discriminatory incidents. In 2025, there were only 17.
Rubin, the MIAA staffer who handles the complaints coming into the portal, said some schools are likely opting to handle internal incidents on their own. He also said some students who are targeted by bullying and discriminatory harassment may not be reporting that abuse.
“The racist acts that occur on the athletic field are just a microcosm. And it seems to have been an uptick in the incidents … especially in the last couple of years,” he said. “Some of it is very ugly and horrendous. And that’s where I come in trying to bring the schools together to get to a resolution.”
In some cases a school or team is suspended from competition or required to write a letter of apology. Players have been dismissed from a team, spectators banned and coaches fired, Ruben said, although he did not offer more details.
“My first priority is to always make sure that the victim — especially if it’s a student athlete — that they’re OK, because this stuff that goes down is very traumatizing,” he said.
Rubin, who is Black, played basketball for Tufts University in the 1970s and said he has not forgotten the racism directed at him during some games.
“All of the times I heard the N-word coming out of those stands, I remember it like it happened yesterday,” he said. “It makes you feel less-than, and it can stay with you for a lifetime. It does not leave you. My heart goes out to these kids when these things happen to them.”
GBH News requested records from the state’s 35 largest high schools of any incidents reported to the MIAA discriminatory incident portal. Only six schools responded, including two schools that said they had submitted incidents to the portal but kept no records of those reports and had no record of a response or outcome from the agency.
Officials from Worcester Public Schools provided GBH News with three incident reports filed with MIAA since 2023, all of them involving matches against other teams. But school officials redacted the specific sport and name of other schools involved. In one incident submitted to MIAA in 2024, Worcester athletic director David Shea detailed disturbing details about the racism his varsity players faced.
“N-word multiple times during play. Asian players on our team were called Asian slurs directly to their faces (citing the actual slur used),” Shea wrote. “Fu** you, N-word, was said to our players after the post-game handshake. At the last interaction with the coach, when we reported the Asian slurs, she replied, ‘What do you want me to do?’ … she seemed helpless to address the situation.”
Worcester schools said MIAA responded to their reports verbally but would not comment on any outcomes or resolutions.
In the case of the former golf player at Masconomet Regional High School, school officials said they had no records to show they’d reported that allegation to the MIAA portal. School officials would not comment any further.
Dustin Rollins, the father of the golf player, told GBH News that he reached out to MIAA numerous times by email to report the bullying of his daughter in the school athletics program and got no replies.
“When I called them, they said there’s no official pipeline for you to communicate these threats or these complaints. They have to come from the athletic director of the school,” he said. “They need to come up with a way to receive intake from concerned parents.”
MIAA did not respond to a request for comment on Rollins’ cases in Masconomet.
In 2024, a coach accused of bullying, body-shaming and yelling at players on the girls’ softball team at Whitman Hanson Regional High School was fired, according to public records obtained by GBH News.
This was about five months after several parents complained to the school and one lodged a complaint with the Problem Resolution System, the investigatory branch of the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“According to Parent #1, Coach targets and bullies kids — usually the heavier ones. Every year, Parent #1 says it’s been new targets,” the school’s athletic director wrote in an email to the principal, which was cited in the state’s 24-page letter of finding.
One of the players targeted wrote a letter to the coach in April 2024, stating, “I have reached the breaking point, and I am losing the want,” the state’s investigation uncovered.
Whitman-Hanson’s athletic director would not comment on this case and the administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Mitch Lyons, a retired attorney and former basketball coach at Newton North High School, says he has pushed for decades for a state-sanctioned curriculum for coaches that would establish accountability.
He said abusive and bullying coaches are another problem that gets scant attention from schools, the state or the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.
“Coaches that scream at their kids — it’s just terrible, but there’s no rule against it,” he said.
When training works
While less than half of the state’s public schools have not done training, the good news for some is that just over half have undergone the state-funded program meant to quell bullying.
Taunton, a diverse, urban school district about 35 miles south of Boston, has sent more than two dozen of its coaches to trainings hosted by Northeastern in the last two years.
The Northeastern center declined a request to allow GBH News to observe a training session.
But Taunton High School’s athletic director, Raphael Dowdye, said the program focused on bullying prevention and building a deep awareness about how hurtful words can be. He said the training also reinforced his program’s culture of acceptance and support, especially when a student athlete faces racism or discriminatory harassment.
“Our coaches do a good job of creating that culture … of belonging,” Dowdye said. “We’re going to be faced with a lot of situations where somebody might say something in the stands about you, the way you look, the way you speak, the way you dress.”
Amanda Machado, the volleyball coach and biology teacher at Taunton High School, said the sessions got coaches “thinking about different students’ perspectives” and built confidence in talking about racism, bullying and harassment in school athletics.
Machado said her goal in coaching isn’t on trophies but on supporting her players’ well-being. She credited the Addressing Hate training with helping her become the kind of coach she wishes she had in high school.
“Athletics are a means to ‘How do you develop and grow as an amazing person,” she said. “If the culture that we’re trying to instill here were universal, I don’t think we would see as many tragic and sad stories.”
GBH News intern Madelin Acosta contributed reporting. This article was produced with the help of the USCAnnenberg Center for Health Journalism where Burrell was a 2025 data fellow.
Do you have a story to tell about school bullying? reach out to us at investigations@wgbh.org
