Termination of Dan Feher as Athletic Director

Springbrook High School has always been known as a unique and diverse school in the Montgomery County area of Maryland. The diversity of the school shows not only in academics, but also in athletics. While performing at Paint Branch High on the 17th of January, the head coach of the cheerleading team was told their performance was a “little too ghetto, tone it down” by the Principal Art Williams.
Two days after the incident, Dan Feher, the Athletic Director held a meeting with the cheerleading team. At the start of the meeting, Feher asked the team not to give input during the conversation. Feher proceeded to inform the team that their routines did not fit into his “new standard” for Springbrook athletics. Then he proceeded to tell the team, which is predominately African-American, that there was no place for a HBCU style cheers in the Montgomery County Public School (MCPS).
Not only did Feher suppress the voices of the young ladies on the cheerleading team, but he essentially told them that there is no room for their culture in MCPS. In an attempt to protest, the cheerleading team boycotted the next two games. In response to this boycott, Feher informed the cheerleaders that if they continued the boycott, they would be removed from the team. The cheers that Feher is attempting to suppress are a tradition of Springbrook High School, passed down through the years from cheerleading team to cheerleading team. Their suppression at the hands of the athletic director not only goes against everything that Springbrook High School stands for, but is an affront to principles of equality and justice.