WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1896 April 25, 2024
www.thesunflower.com
Volume 128 Issue 29
Graphic by Thy Vo / The Sunflower
Two Black freshmen said white student committed hate crime against them on campus. Here’s how Wichita State responded “ “We didn’t want to have to make this a public thing and
BY COURTNEY BROWN
newsprojects@thesunflower.com
Caden Spaulding, a sports management freshman, regularly played on an intramural basketball team in the Heskett Center at Wichita State. He and his teammates are all Black. On Feb. 28, Spaulding said his team was in a playoff game for intramural basketball. He said the league has a “chill, not really that competitive environment.” Early in the game, Spaulding said he set a screen on Dawson Dreher, a white WSU graduate student on the opposing team, and Dreher grabbed his neck. “(Spaulding) told the ref … ‘Ref, you just gonna let him grab my neck?’” Malcolm Gilmore, a freshman and Spaulding’s teammate, said. “And (Dreher) said, ‘I can do that because I’m white.’” The Sunflower received the police report of the incident through a Kansas Open Records request. Three witnesses, including Gilmore, said a player grabbed another by the neck or the neckline of their jersey — the accounts are inconsistent. According to Spaulding and the police report, the game’s unnamed referee said she didn’t see anything and let Dreher continue playing. Spaulding said he, Gilmore and Dreher “got wrapped up over the ball” later in the game. When he and Gilmore let go of the ball, Dreher fell out of bounds and into the referee. Spaulding and Gilmore said that after falling out of bounds, Dreher threw the ball at Gilmore and called him the N-word. In the police report, four witnesses besides Spaulding said they saw a player throwing the ball; one described it as intentional, and two said it was done “aggressively.” The Sunflower reached out to Dreher multiple times via social media and email from April 4 to April 24 for an interview. Dreher did not respond. In the police report, Dreher denied
go to The Sunflower. We went to every single possibility, every resource that the school gave us, and still nothing.” DONOVAN MCCLELLAN WSU psychology sophomore, Black Student Union president
saying the N-word and grabbing Spaulding’s neck. Spaulding said players from Dreher’s team said they didn’t hear Dreher use the N-word and asked Spaulding what had happened after the incident. Spaulding said the same people were giving police statements about the incident. According to the police report, the referee also didn’t hear the N-word. Spaulding said the referee had Dreher sit out but only for the first half of the game. According to John Lee, the director of campus activities and recreation, those playing intramural games must take a quiz about “sportsmanship rules” beforehand, and a supervisor oversees the gym “at prime times.” The Black Student Union (BSU) had been playing a separate basketball game in Heskett at the time. BSU member Emanuyel Brown said he asked Wesley Horner, who supervises Heskett referees, about the Heskett Center’s policies and if Dreher would be asked to leave. According to Brown and the police report, Horner said Dreher could continue playing because he hadn’t heard him say the N-word. Horner said to police that he “was in the room when the event happened but not close enough to know what was said.” Horner did not respond to The Sunflower’s requests for an interview. “That just shows you at its finest, like, you’re just not listening at all,” Brown said. Spaulding said the rest of the basketball game was played with “too much intensity” and “kinda like a violent atmosphere” from the other opposing side.
Following the game, the teams went downstairs to the main floor of the Heskett Center, where Spaulding and Gilmore addressed Dreher for saying the N-word. Spaulding said that Dreher denied using the word. Donovan McClellan, a psychology sophomore who was recently elected BSU president, told The Sunflower he tried to calm Spaulding and Gilmore down because he initially thought WSU would ensure they “get their justice.” While members of both teams were downstairs, along with BSU members, the police report states Dalton Sporing, whose tie to the situation is unknown, called the police.
WHEN THE POLICE CAME Following Sporing’s call to the police at 10:08 p.m., at least eight police officers arrived at the Heskett Center that night. The incident is described as a “disturbance” in the report. According to the police report, a large group of people were outside Heskett’s main entrance and inside the front doors. Dalton Taylor, who is also described as the calling party in the police report, told officers the game had gotten “heated” but was solely “verbal.” This contradicts the multiple witnesses who mentioned they saw someone grabbing another player’s neck or jersey neckline or throwing the ball. In a follow-up interview on March 1 with the police, Dreher was asked if he grabbed anyone’s neck on Feb. 28, and Dreher said he was simply “boxing out” other players. Dreher also denied saying the
N-word and said the other group called him and his friends the N-word. Sporing said the same in his follow-up interview with the police. Dreher said he thinks his race is why others assumed he was using derogatory language. “(Dreher) didn’t say this originally, but he said later that we were, like, antagonizing him and calling him ‘peckerwood’ and ‘cracker,’” Spaulding said. “And I’ve never used that word in my life.” Spaulding and Gilmore were also both interviewed by police on Feb. 28; their accounts align with what they told The Sunflower. In the report, Spaulding and Gilmore told police they didn’t want to press charges against Dreher but that they still wanted “something done about the incident.” Spaulding told The Sunflower he didn’t think the police were taking their situation seriously.
SENT IN CIRCLES Following Feb. 28, Spaulding and his friends navigated multiple Wichita State resources to “seek justice” for the incident, but they said Wichita State didn’t address the discriminatory event and they didn’t think Dreher faced any meaningful consequences. Instead, Spaulding, Gilmore and McClellan said they felt like WSU departments were sending them in circles, with Gilmore comparing it to “ring around the rosie.” Spaulding said the Heskett Center administration first reached out to him to discuss what happened on Feb. 28. Lee said he was aware of the incident but wasn’t allowed to comment on specific cases to The Sunflower. After the meeting with Wichita State administration and CTAC, Spaulding met separately with CTAC, which redirected him to the police department. SEE HATE CRIME, PAGE 2