The ninth-grade volleyball game between Cypress Creek High School and Jersey Village High School had not begun when Santana Harris said her coach summoned her over to speak with a game official.
“I see the referee talking to my coach and pointing to me and making a big scene, and everybody is looking at me, and I felt very embarrassed,” said Harris, a ninth grader at Cy-Creek High School, and a member of the volleyball team.
“She was telling me, and the ref was telling me, yelling at me in my face that I needed to take all my beads out or else I couldn’t play. And [the referee] was saying I knew I couldn’t play with them and that I was doing it on purpose,” Harris said.Harris’s father, Trell Carson, said he didn’t find out about what happened until after the game.“She felt discriminated against.
It hurt Santana, as well. She said it especially hurt after what she said she did in order to comply with the referee’s order.