Student sports fans are banned from attending a Tuesday night boys’ basketball game between Champlain Valley Union High School and Rice Memorial High School after students taunted each other with increasingly crude and personal social media posts.
Administrators from CVU and Rice announced in separate messages to families that the posts in question pose a threat to safety and do not reflect the values their schools seek to uphold. The situation should be seen a learning opportunity, the messages said. They encouraged families to talk to their children about online behavior and the harm it can cause. Champlain Valley administrators said they would hold student dialogues, as well, and were working to identify who made the posts. Both schools said they were committed to modeling how the schools could work together going forward.
The game is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Rice, a private Catholic school in South Burlington. Both CVU and Rice have top-tier basketball teams and a rivalry that goes back years.
Seven Days reviewed around a dozen profanity-laden posts made in recent days, some of which were linked to an Instagram handle that included the abbreviation “CVU.” Some taunted Rice students for being rich and elitist, while others called out specific students by name. One promised $30 and a Chipotle gift card to anyone who got kicked out of Tuesday night’s game.
Lauren Thomas, assistant executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association — the body that governs interscholastic sports — said her organization has a hate speech policy that must be read before all games. But the body does not provide guidance around acceptable media use related to school sports. She said it typically falls to individual schools or districts to create procedures and policies around the topic.
Thomas said that it is unusual for schools to ban student spectators from games but happens about once a year for different reasons. In 2023, BFA-Fairfax temporarily banned fans from high school basketball games after a Fairfax spectator directed racist remarks toward a member of an opposing team. Tuesday night’s CVU-Rice game will be open to parents and adult fans, and additional law enforcement will be present, according to the schools’ statements.
Hurtful online comments can often spill over on to the court, field or school, Thomas said. While it’s unrealistic for school officials to police the internet, she encouraged students to come forward when they see harmful posts.
“We’re kind of complicit when we stay silent,” Thomas said.
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