Former Alabama Gymnast Tia Kiaku Faced Racist Comments From Team

Tia Kiaku speaks out on why she left the Alabama gymnastics team.

Former Alabama Crimson Tide gymnast Tia Kiaku is speaking out about why she left Alabama. Christopher Walsh from Bama Central joins Kaitlin O'Toole to talk about what led to Kiaku's departure, and what Alabama is doing to address the situation. 

Read full video transcript below:

Kaitlin O'Toole: After racist language was directed against her on more than one occasion, Crimson Tide gymnast Tia Kiaku disenrolled from the University of Alabama. Now her and her mother are speaking out. Joining me now from Bama Central is Christopher Walsh. Christopher, Tia opened up with Bama Central on the systemic racism she experienced during her time on the team. Can you tell us more on what she shared with you?

Christopher Walsh: Yeah, the whole thing started when Tia posted on Instagram a lengthy 'I feel I should tell my story' post with everything that's going on with the protests and so forth. And this all came to light about an incident that really originated with one thing last year where an assistant coach said something extremely inappropriate. He thought he was kind of joking and he obviously wasn't. The story that we did for Monday was a follow up where we sat down with Tia and her mother. Tyler Martin wrote the story for us, and it was a seventy one minute interview that we did. And she gets into a lot more of the details and the we really get in the story about just kind of the disconnect that happened between her and the team.

Kaitling O'Toole: So let's talk about this moving forward, you know, how does Alabama plan to handle the situation with Tia moving forward so that this doesn't happen again?

Christopher Walsh: There's not a whole lot that the school can actually say about the incident. We actually got a statement from the diversity head at the University of Alabama. We've included that in the story. But all indications are that when she filed a title 9 complaint, that the school took all the necessary steps that it needed to do. And there was training involved. They brought in the assistant coach and so forth and tried to deal with the incident head on. But obviously, this is a touchy subject. And like we mentioned before, the disconnect just kind of grew and she ended up leaving Alabama.