Nate Panza, who rushed for more than 1,200 yards and scored 17 touchdowns last season for the Morristown-Beard School, has been booted from the Cornell University football team over a racial slur posted online over the weekend.
“There is no room for this behavior in Cornell Athletics,” Andy Noel, director of athletics at Cornell, said in a statement on Tuesday. After viewing the video, head football coach David Archer rescinded Panza’s offer to join the team in the fall.
Another 2020 Morristown-Beard graduate had her admission to Colgate University revoked Tuesday by Colgate President Brian Casey, after more than 2,000 people signed an online petition demanding her ouster over a racially insensitive TikTok video.
“We immediately started an investigation…and considered both its message and its potential impact,” Casey tweeted. “As a result of this review and consistent with both our processes and our principles, the University has revoked our offer of admission to the individual in question, who will not be joining our community in the fall.”
UPDATE: A forensics expert hired by that student’s family concluded someone had doctored her Tik Tok video. Citing “convincing evidence” that the video had been altered, Colgate subsequently said the young woman could re-apply. She enrolled in a different university.
On Panza’s video, posted to Snapchat and shared by others over various social media platforms, the bare-chested teen can be heard using an expletive and the N-word.
His friend behind the camera, fellow Morristown-Beard graduate Adam Giaquinto, is heard applying the N-word to George Floyd, the black man killed by a Minneapolis policeman on Memorial Day.
Panza and Giaquinto’s social media accounts appear to have been deleted and they could not be reached for comment. The University of Richmond, where Giaquinto is bound this fall, has tweeted that it’s investigating the matter.
Caution: This video contains racist language:
guy with no shirt is Nathan Panza @MorristownBeard & is going to Cornell @Cornell in the fall (‘24) and the guy behind the camera is Adam Giaquinto & is going to Richmond @richmonduni in the fall (‘24). both @MorristownBeard graduates !! pic.twitter.com/DMd6uZeQfu
— som (@SommerHeyman) June 21, 2020
Black student organizations at Cornell, and Morristown-Beard students and alumni, have expressed outrage on social media.
In a statement to the Cornell Daily Sun, Panza apologized and said he would spend the rest of his life trying prove he is not a racist.
“A video was taken of me using a word that is offensive and hurtful. The word has a long history of cruelty for the black community and is simply wrong. I am heartbroken I have hurt people; those I know and those I do not. I take full responsibility for my actions,” Panza said.
“I do not believe that my language that night aligns with who I have tried to be as a person, the values I live by or the manner in which I have conducted myself as an athlete. My immediate reaction to the video was to reach out to my entire high school community to offer my sincerest apologies.”
“One word does not define me as a man or human being,” the statement said, “and I can only hope that the Cornell Community will allow me the opportunity to make the appropriate amends and give me that second chance.”
UPDATE: In the case of the Colgate applicant, the student had posted herself in front of a backdrop of a Wikipedia entry on “African Americans.” She then proclaimed: “Hey loser, we’re going shopping!”
This video is no longer available.
A Colgate spokesman called the video “an affront to our core values as a place of higher education.”
Morristown Green has reached out to the student and will update this story with any comment from her.
UPDATE: Spokespersons for the student’s family later asserted the video was a critique of a Google algorithm, and that a minor had doctored it.
On Monday, Morristown Green reported that Morristown-Beard will convene a task force to re-examine its diversity and inclusion programs.
Headmaster Peter Caldwell, referring to the Panza video, described the former students’ behavior as “inappropriate and unacceptable…offensive and hurtful,” and not representative of the Morris Township prep school, which does not “tolerate racism or discrimination of any kind.”
Not one, but several students of Morristown-Beard were caught on camera…how many other students behave in similar fashion but did not post on social media?
I am not commenting specifically on this story, but I will say that three things bring out the stupidity and worst innate qualities in people: A camera, social media, and booze.
Morristown-Beard students are mostly a spoiled, entitled lot whose behavior outside of school is consistently atrocious. They display an effete elitism that makes it nearly impossible to be successful human beings. The school, perhaps without knowing it, encourages the kind of racist behavior we have recently seen. Cornell needs to do the right thing and rescind the acceptance of this brat, Panza. Only then would Panza have a shot at redemption.
At least this article named the students as Morristown-Beard students instead of simply Morristown Students, implying that they came from the Morris School District,
As a Cornell alum, local resident, and teacher, all I can say is Good for Cornell. I swear these guys imbue every entitled stereotype in the book and they never seem to change – even after generations. Perhaps everyone in these parts needs to start worrying about more than athletics, academics and all those other “values” which don’t seem to prevent these things from happening. On the other hand, I do hope these young guys do learn from this, salvage something, and wind up using their privilege to do some good in the world.
Rappers should stop singing songs with the N word.
Where’s all the racists who complained about “political correctness gone mad” on the Ethel Harper article? No opinion on this one?
As he should