Catholic High School (Virginia)

Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School (known until 2004 as Catholic High School; commonly referred to as "Catholic" or "CHS") is a Roman Catholic secondary school in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It was founded as Norfolk Catholic High School in 1950 and was moved to Virginia Beach in 1993. In 2003, the school was renamed in honor of Walter Francis Sullivan, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Richmond and a significant benefactor during the school's foundation. The Barry Robinson Theater and Fine Arts Center opened that same year. The current principal is Mr. Dennis W. Price, who replaced Monsignor William Pitt following his retirement in 2005. Their athletic teams compete in the Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools (TCIS), and are known as the Crusaders. ^[1]

On February 2, 2007, several students from CHS at a basketball game on the Norfolk Academy campus taunted Jewish Academy players with chants of "We love Jesus". Then at least one CHS student defaced a gym wall that said "Home of the Bulldogs", writing "Jew" underneath it. The writing was approximately 4 inches tall and, when noticed, the "J" was illegible. Price wrote an apology that was read to an assembly of CHS students in the gymnasium on February 6; the same apology was read by Dennis G. Manning, headmaster of Norfolk Academy. Several weeks later, local news channels, the Virginia Pilot, and national newspapers, including USA Today, picked up the story. Most notable is the Pilot article, in which Harry Graber, vice president of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, said, "If you have a sports rivalry and things get heated, why the heck does the rivalry have to take the form of using an ethnic slur, unless the school or the people participating in that rivalry have these kinds of deep-seated issues."

This statement, which was not published in USA Today, implied a condoning and possibly conspiratorial attitude at CHS. Sophomore, junior, and senior students will receive sensitivity training, which was felt by many students to be unnecessary.

• Anti-Semitic actions at basketball game get schools' attention
• Sensitivity training ordered after students taunt Jewish players

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