The and are investigating “incredibly alarming” reports that students at the private Christian school in Parker made racist remarks and took offensive actions toward students from visiting during a football game last month.
Four cheerleaders from Colorado Springs’ Sand Creek and their coach shared their experience at the Sept. 24 football game with The Denver Post, alleging that Lutheran students and community members called Black cheerleaders “Harriet Tubman,” made monkey noises, used racist slurs and told them to “go back to where they came from.”
White students also took off their belts and used them as whips in the Black students’ direction, the cheerleaders and coach said.
The racist harassment was so severe, Sand Creek cheerleading coach Sanaa Ford said, that she escorted a group of her Black cheerleaders to their cars before the game ended while students made monkey noises at them.
“I am pretty disappointed in the admin team over there,” Ford said, adding that she talked with Lutheran executive director Dan Gehrke at the game to explain what was happening, and said he did not take their concerns seriously.
Ford said she asked to speak with Gehrke in a more private place because Lutheran students were filming, pointing and mocking them. Gehrke declined, she said.
“We asked for camera footage to show him we were not false,” Ford said. “We were told there were no cameras.”
On Sunday, Gehrke emailed the school community, saying security footage supported the boys’ claims that they were chasing and hitting each other with their belts and not being racist.
Gehrke did not respond to The Denver Post’s request to share that footage.
“With that allegation cleared, we are still diligently investigating what was said to their cheerleaders and who said it,” Gehrke wrote. “We are still requesting firsthand information from anyone who may have witnessed the interaction. If our students were rude, racist or both — it is unacceptable and will be dealt with. We will apologize for our sin, ask for forgiveness, accept the consequences, and do everything in our power to make it right and avoid it happening again in the future.”
When 16-year-old Sand Creek cheerleader Millani Geeter walked into Lutheran’s football stadium on Sept. 24, she said that the school’s students shouted that she didn’t belong there and called her “Harriet Tubman.”
She told her cheerleading coach but didn’t want to report it right away.
“I didn’t want drama,” Geeter said.
At halftime, Geeter and a few of her teammates walked toward the concession stand when a group of teen boys took off their belts and started hitting the floor where Geeter walked, telling her to go back where she came from and making monkey noises, she said.
When she went to the restroom, Geeter said an older white woman made it clear she would not use the same bathroom as a Black person.
On the way back to their sideline, she said a group of Lutheran students started tugging on the hair of the cheerleading team’s photographer, who is a Black boy.
The coach and the impacted cheerleaders went to speak with Gehrke, who “brushed it off,” Geeter said.
“In school, they always say the first thing to do is go find a trusted adult, because adults are supposed to protect children, but in that moment, they were protecting the aggressor and not the victims,” Geeter said. “For racism to be so in front of your face like that, it’s really shocking. It’s eye-opening. To be a Black student attending a diverse school and you go an hour away and witness something like this. It’s happening in your community. It’s right here. This behavior is tolerated and normalized. Racism is taught.”
CHSAA Commissioner Mike Krueger said in a statement that the organization was aware of the “serious situation.”
“Obviously, the initial reports are incredibly alarming, and they deserve our immediate attention and focus,” the statement read. “Our office has a responsibility to pull together information from multiple sources, including our member schools. That process is ongoing.”
David Nancarrow, director of communications with Sand Creek High School’s District 49, said in a statement that Sand Creek leaders are in close communication with Lutheran High School and CHSAA following the incident.
In 2021, complaints were filed against Lutheran after a football game with Evergreen High School. Attendees alleged Lutheran football players used racist slurs against Evergreen’s Black players and said, “We will bury you like your dead coach,” after a coach on the Jefferson County team had died,
“This is not new behavior,” Ford said. “This is recurring behavior that has been happening for a long time.”
