Argo DL Fabion Foote has described the systemic racism he faced at McMaster University triggering the university to review anti-Black racism in the school's athletic programs.

McMaster University has announced a review of Black student-athlete experiences following "concerning accounts of anti-Black racism." It comes after Fabion Foote, a defensive lineman with the Toronto Argonauts and a former football player at the university, tweeted Sunday that he'd "experienced a lot of systemic racism during my time at McMaster." ...

He went on to describe a coach who said he must have sold drugs to afford tuition saying, "Keep in mind I never smoked in my life." Foote said "McMaster is a trash place with a system in place for us to fail. Whenever we spoke up they tried to silence us by ignoring the issues we faced."

The review will be carried out by an external advisor, according to a statement from Sean Van Koughnett, McMaster associate vice president and dean of students. It will "explore to what extent racist beliefs, comments, and behaviours have been present within Marauder Athletics and document the impact that this has had on current and former student-athletes," the statement reads, noting the process has the "full support" of Shawn Burt, the school's director of athletics and recreation. "The goal of the review is to better understand what Black student-athletes have experienced so that we can take concrete action to strengthen a culture of equity and inclusivity."....

Foote's shared his experience at the university after the McMaster Marauders twitter account posted a video about the death of George Floyd and anti-Black racism. ...

Foote also said that his attempts to bring up his experiences to Mark Alfano, the department's associate director, and Glen Grunwald, a past-director of McMaster athletics and now CEO of Canada Basketball, were "brushed off."

Grunwald replied to Foote on Twitter saying that he "should have done more to deal with the racism issues" that were raised. He mentioned one incident, where a player used a "horribly offensive phrase" in the team's private chat and admitted that something more should have been done to "begin to deal with system racism." Grunwald said that while the player was disciplined, and though around this time, he met with Black players and talked to the coach about discrimination in the football program, it wasn't enough.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamil...view-1.5632430