Alan Jacobs:

After a fan spent an entire match calling a Duke volleyball player a n****r and threatening her, Brigham Young University released a statement saying, “We will not tolerate behavior of this kind. Specifically, the use of a racial slur at any of our athletic events is absolutely unacceptable and BYU Athletics holds a zero-tolerance approach to this behavior.” But here’s the thing: you did tolerate it, for an entire volleyball match. No one did anything, no one said anything to the abusive fan. Your fans and your officials, including police, silently tolerated it for hours. The offending fan was banned only after the match and after the Duke player who was the primary target of his abuse went public. Saying that “BYU Athletics holds a zero-tolerance approach to this behavior” is therefore a plain old lie.

That does beggar belief, doesn’t it? A crowded sporting event, filled with college students, and someone was able to yell The Slur of All Slurs repeatedly without being confronted, let alone recorded on a hundred smartphones? It almost makes one wonder…but no…surely not again…

Once again, it appears the supply of racism has failed to keep up with the insatiable demand. I mean, I suppose it is technically possible that the guilty party may have escaped undetected and hidden down a well alongside Jussie’s attackers, O.J.’s “real killers,” and the twelfth imam, but it’s looking increasingly improbable. Whenever we encounter one of these too-bad-to-be-true stories which just happen to confirm our priors, it would probably be a good idea to wait at least 48 hours before saying anything publicly. Incidentally, how about those young gumshoes at the student newspaper who somehow got it in their heads to go out and, you know, interview as many people in attendance as they could find rather than just pass along salacious rumors from journalist-infested social media? You’re never going to make it to an industrial narrative-laundromat like NPR with an attitude like that, kids!