Michigan Football’s Glenn Schembechler, Son of Legendary Coach, Apologizes for Liking Racist Tweets That Got Him Fired

Ahmad Austin Jr.May 22nd, 2023, 10:39 am
 
Shemy Schembechler

Tony Ding/AP

Less than a week after being hired as the assistant director of recruiting by the University of Michigan football team, Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler III has apologized for liking a series of racist tweets that led to his resignation.

Schembechler, son of former Wolverines football coach Bo Schembechler, announced on Twitter on May 17 that he had been hired. By May 20, he was out of a job after fans got wind of his Twitter likes.

Among those likes was a tweet crediting slavery and Jim Crow laws for “forcing the black family to strive and create businesses.”

“Any words or philosophies that in any way seek to underplay the immeasurable suffering and long-term economic and social inequities that hundreds of years of slavery and the ‘Jim Crow’ era caused for Black Americans is wrong,” Schembechler said in a statement released Monday. “I was wrong. We must never sanitize morally unsanitary, historical behaviors that have hindered the Black community, or any other community. There are no historical silver linings for the experience of our brothers and sisters.”

Schembechler deactivated his account, but one Twitter user compiled a thread of screenshots. Some of the liked tweets also included anti-trans rhetoric.

The day Schembechler resigned, Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel and coach Jim Harbaugh released a joint statement on the matter.

“We are aware of some comments and likes on social media that have caused concern and pain for individuals in our community,” the statement said. “Michigan Athletics is fully committed to a place where our coaches, staff and student-athletes feel welcome and where we fully support the University’s and Athletic Department’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”

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