Former Alabama gymnast says assistant coach made racist comment

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Former Alabama gymnast Tia Kiaku in a social media post Tuesday evening accused one of the Crimson Tide’s assistant coaches of making a racist comment toward her and two other African-American teammates.

“We are limited by law on what we can speak about regarding equal opportunity matters, however we can elaborate on what steps were taken," Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne said in a statement released on Wednesday. "When the complaint was received, it was immediately reported to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX Programs on campus as well as the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. From there, an investigation, completely separate from athletics, took place. Once the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX Programs gathered all of the facts, an outcome was determined, reported back and action steps were taken. We are a department that is committed to providing a just and inclusive community for all of our student-athletes, coaches and staff, operating with integrity and respect.”

Here is the [partial] text of Kiaku’s Instagram post:

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"Do we stand together? Why not use this opportunity to be transparent? I would be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to address a very disturbing and grave incident that occurred last year while I was on the Gymnastics team at the University of Alabama. During a practice, only the three African American girls (including myself) just happened to be on vault drills together. While practicing, one of the black gymnasts said “look all the black girls are all on the same event” responding to the statement, the Assistant Coach walked over and said “What is this, the back of the bus?”.

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Kiaku, who indicated she decided to leave the program because of the incident, said the school conducted a Title IX investigation and deemed the comment a “bad joke."

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