USC blasts claim race played role in Chad Baker-Mazaras removal from mens basketball team

Race had nothing to do with Chad Baker-Mazara’s unceremonious exit from USC’s men’s basketball team earlier this year, according to a blistering new statement from the school on the heels of a lawsuit brought by the former player.Hours after the former Trojans star appeared to imply in an explosive lawsuit that his ethnicity played some role in the school’s decision to boot him from its roster, a university spokesperson said in a statement to the California Post that Baker-Mazara was dismissed “based on a number of considerations, none having to do with race.”Baker-Mazara alleged in the suit he filed in Los Angeles on Monday that USC coach Eric Musselman directed racist language his way during a wild postgame tirade just a day before he was kicked off the team.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story Baker-Mazara claimed that following USC’s 82-67 home loss against Nebraska on Feb.28, Musselman told him, “Go back to the f—king Dominican Republic! Nobody wants you here!! F—k you!”“The words ‘Go back to the f—king Dominican Republic’ are generally understood by persons of color in the United States originating from the Dominican Republic — and were in fact taken by Baker-Mazara — to be racist and discriminatory, akin to telling an African-American to ‘go back to Africa,’” Baker-Mazara’s lawsuit stated.“Coach Musselman’s outburst was a direct attack on Baker-Mazara’s national origin and Dominican heritage, made from a position of authority and power by the Head Coach of the team, in front of all of Baker-Mazara’s teammates.

The tirade was unprovoked, vicious, and discriminatory.”Baker-Mazara said in the suit he was never told why he was ultimately dismissed from the team, and he accused the school of parting ways with h...