‘All I Could Hear’: ETHS students describe New Trier fans’ alleged racist language, behavior during and after rivalry game

(Editor’s Note: Bob Chiarito reported this story for Evanston RoundTable, a neighboring independent newsroom. It was shared with The Record as part of an ongoing collaborative effort.)

Adrie Lieberman, a 17-year-old senior, has been a member of the Evanston Township High School color guard for all four years of high school. Friday night’s football game against rival New Trier Township High School at Northwestern University’s new Ryan Field was supposed to be a highlight of her final season.

Instead, Lieberman said, racist, homophobic and vulgar insults directed at her classmates and friends marred her last high school performance.

“As I was marching on the field, all I could hear was their voices in my head,” Lieberman told the RoundTable on Tuesday.

The first of two incidents happened a few minutes before the color guard took the field to perform, she said, explaining that the group was standing in the end zone below the New Trier student section seating.

“We were in a line to do the run-on, and we turned and looked at the New Trier student section, and they all just start screaming at us,” she said. “It was a lot of ‘F— you, f— you,’ ‘Go kill yourself.’ My friends got called the F-slur [a homophobic slur] and the N-word.”

She said the slurs and vulgarities came from many people throughout the New Trier student section.

“It was a huge amount of New Trier students. It was a big group,” Lieberman said. “We were spread out, front to back, filling the entire end zone, and everybody heard different things. Some of my friends had trash thrown at them, empty water bottles and paper. Where I was, they were all yelling, ‘Kill yourselves, kill yourselves.'”

Freshman color guard member Aria Dearman corroborated Lieberman’s account to the RoundTable.

As a new member of the color guard, Dearman said, she had been looking forward to performing at the 35,000-seat stadium. She said New Trier students also directed a homophobic slur at her.

“I was so excited. It was going to be so cool,” Dearman said.

Both girls said neither band nor color guard members could record video of the alleged incident, because most do not carry their forms while performing and color guard uniforms reportedly have no pockets.

Band director Matthew Bufis — who said that because he was not in the end zone at the time, he could not hear the interactions —said multiple band members quickly filed reports with Northwestern University on their phones.

In an email Tuesday, Northwestern spokesperson Eliza Larson confirmed the university received “multiple reports from ETHS students or parents through the weekend. Because the individuals who allegedly made the comments are not NU students, the reports are being referred to New Trier High School.”

Several marching band and color guard members said a second hateful encounter occurred as they walked to the buses after the game.

Lieberman said two of her Black friends said New Trier fans who “appeared to be students” spat on them and told them to “go back to Africa.”

Ifeoluwa Dada, a 16-year-old junior in the marching band, said in an email to the RoundTable that a New Trier student pushed her and that New Trier students directed homophobic slurs at her.

“As we were leaving the stadium, I was walking with one of my friends, and a New Trier student who was wearing their school sweater shoulder-checked me. After that, as we were walking to our buses to head back to ETHS, I was holding hands with one of my friends and we were playing around and skipping when two New Trier girls were laughing and pointing at us, and they said, ‘Look at those f—ing f—s,’” Dada wrote.

Evanston Police spokesperson Cmdr. Chelsea Brown said that no police reports related to alleged incidents have been filed as of Wednesday morning.

Bufis said he did not witness the incidents near the buses but several marching band members backed up the stories.

“We were stretched out pretty far because there’s 135 of us, plus staff, and we weren’t marching out, we were walking out, so we weren’t in any organized ranks. We were mixed in with spectators leaving,” Bufis said. “We had four buses, and when we got back to the high school, (a student) came to our office crying. The student said she [was] spat on and told to ‘go back to Africa.’ We were comforting her, and that’s when 10 students came to us and explained what happened in greater detail.”

Lieberman said Bufis has been supportive of the marching band and color guard throughout the ordeal.

“Our band director, Mr. Bufis, has been doing a really great job listening to all of us, documenting all of our interactions, and I think we have the best director ever. He’s been someone that I’ve worked with for the last four years, and I highly look up to him,” she said.

Bufis said he had students write a document describing their experiences, which he shared with ETHS administrators. They in turn notified New Trier officials.

In a joint statement emailed to families Sunday and posted to the ETHS Facebook page, Superintendents Dr. Marcus Campbell of ETHS and Dr. Peter Tragos of New Trier said their administrations are “working closely together to investigate these reports and determine appropriate next steps.”

On Tuesday, New Trier spokesperson Niki Dixon said the school’s investigation is continuing.

Craig Anderson, executive director of the Illinois High School Association, said in a statement Tuesday that the IHSA “will continue to work closely with both schools” and will decide on any next steps based on what the schools find.

Dearman said she hopes investigators identify those responsible and make an example of them.

“I’d like them to find the kids who did this,” Dearman said. “I’d like them to get at least detention, maybe suspensions, because this is a big deal in our world right now, and we need to make an example of them. Because if we just leave it, people will think it’s OK.”

Lieberman said those responsible should apologize.

“I’d like to see a big apology from the New Trier student section,” she said, “and maybe in the future the New Trier student section should not be able to come to ETHS until we know they won’t do this again.”

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