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The Wildkits marching band stormed through a crowd of cheering supporters in Evanston Township High School’s auditorium Monday evening, their uniforms a sea of vibrant orange and blue.
The annual Band Day event was a showcase of the high school marching band’s greatest hits, alongside performances by the wind symphony, jazz ensemble and Evanston/Skokie School District 65’s eighth grade band.
For many in attendance, the concert was a much needed reprieve from just three nights prior, when the marching band and color guard were allegedly the target of racist and homophobic comments directed at them during a football game against New Trier High School at the New Ryan Field in Evanston.
The rival matchup hosted in the brand new $875 million stadium felt like a privilege for many of the local high schoolers, parents recalled afterwards, and was supposed to be a celebration of camaraderie and diversity. But for some, the evening was anything but.
Paula Lieberman, the parent of the captain of the ETHS color guard, said her daughter and bandmates were accosted by New Trier fans sitting in the general admission section during the pregame show.
Lieberman said her daughter recalled fans chanting, “go kill yourselves” and using the N-word, while saying “go back to Africa.”
“It’s consumed me since my daughter came home Friday night,” Lieberman said. “The team was really shook up.”
Isaac Rochon, a sophomore saxophone player in the marching band, said he heard racial and homophobic slurs from New Trier’s student section while standing in the end zone before the game.
“Nobody from the band yelled back at them because we had to focus in for [the] pregame,” Rochon said. “I didn’t really process what was being said at first.”
He recalls hearing students telling him to (expletive) and voicing hateful comments. Rochon said he watched his friend get spit on in the face by a New Trier student.
“We are continuing to fight and spread the word as to what happened because we know the band weren’t the only people affected. We also know this isn’t the first time that this has happened,” Rochon said.
Jenima Lyon’s child is a senior in the marching band and also heard most of the slurs and “disturbing” comments made. She said her daughter felt like no one “was standing up for the band” and that “there were no repercussions.”
Because many of the students who heard the comments were actively performing, they weren’t carrying phones and could not record what was being said, Lyon added.
“It was a huge deal for them to be at the stadium and to perform, and you know, they were taking it really seriously,” Lyon said. “It’s just a shame that something that should have been so celebratory was taken down by stupid, ignorant decisions.”
In a joint statement issued Sunday by the two school districts’ superintendents, Marcus Campbell of Evanston Township and Peter Tragos of New Trier, administrators said they are “aware of reports that members of the ETHS Marching Band were subjected to racist and homophobic comments” by New Trier fans during the Oct. 16 game and take these reports “extremely seriously.”
“Our administrations are working closely together to investigate these reports and determine appropriate next steps,” the statement reads. “We encourage anyone with firsthand information to share it with their school administration.”
Niki Dizon, chief communications officer for New Trier, told Pioneer Press the message was sent to all New Trier students, parents and staff members via email over the weekend and posted to the school’s home page.
“Our investigation is continuing,” Dizon said in a statement. “As we have stated, we take these allegations very seriously, and we do not tolerate racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination at school or at any school events.”
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Dizon added that as the investigation unfolds, New Trier plans to work with staff and existing groups like the student Belonging Council to “put our values into action and to come together as a school to learn from this incident.”
According to the New Trier website, the Belonging Council is composed of current students coming together to “create activities and suggest changes and opportunities for New Trier to improve its culture of belonging.”
Dizon did not respond to a follow up request for comment on how students are selected for the council, who the council is composed of and what faculty member oversees the group.
Jamie Deutch Noll, an ETHS alum who attended Monday’s Band Day showcase to watch her eighth grader perform, said the Friday incident feels like a continuation of the behavior she witnessed as a former student.
“I played sports and did activities and encountered a lot of those kinds of comments 25 years ago,” Noll said. “And I think it speaks not just to the school, but to the parents in the community, like that is what their children are doing.”
“It’s the diversity of Evanston and the willingness to uphold the tenets of that that make it so beautiful,” she continued.
“It’s not that those things won’t happen in Evanston, but [that night] was a celebration for both teams and it’s unfortunate that the fans couldn’t take it to that and had to be condescending.”
“It’s abhorrent, and in 2026, how do they think this is okay?” said Raechel Alexander, the parent of a percussionist in the marching band who was also a target of the hateful speech voiced Friday.
“One of the things that I keep thinking of is, and I keep hearing over and over again, is this has been going on for years…no one should be surprised. The fact that we’re allowing ourselves to accept that as something that is okay is not okay.”
Alexander said she feels it’s her responsibility as the parent of a white child to teach her daughter to stand up for those in the line of fire.
“I hope that we recognize that, especially those of us that are not the targets of the hate speech.”