At 3 p.m. this afternoon, the Student Government Association (SGA) will host a press conference in the Dukes Room of the Student Union with former athlete Jordan Veney, in regards to her removal from the University of Massachusetts track team because of what she believed to be racial discrimination.

Veney announced last week that she sent a letter to the University asking for the reinstatement of her $20,000 partial scholarship, plus an extra $7,000 that Veney believes she earned through her performance on the track team.

Veney, an African-American sophomore, claims that UMass coach Julie LaFreniere racially discriminated against her when she competed for the track team during her freshman season in 2005 and the first semester of her sophomore season.

In conjunction with the SGA, Veney and freshman Stephanie Mattar – also African-American – will hold a press conference to voice their concerns about what they believe to be a trend of racial discrimination on the women’s track and field team.

“I’m ready to go out there and tell people what happened,” Veney said. “I’m comfortable telling the truth, and that is what it’s going to be. I’m not afraid to tell what happened. I’m not afraid to open my mouth in public about my situation.

“As of now, I’m not happy with the way the administration has been handling things, and I’m not happy with the zero responses that I’m getting,” she added. “I was supposed to get a response from my demands letter last week, and I think that [the administration] is downplaying it because they are waiting for things to settle and blow over. Well, it’s not going to blow over.”

SGA President Aaron Buford will make an opening statement to begin the press conference and will be followed by testimony from Veney and Mattar claiming that racial discrimination exists on the track team. A question-and-answer session will take place after Veney and Mattar speak, and the press conference will conclude with a closing statement.

“I think it will be great for the members of the UMass community to hear directly from the athletes,” said former SGA Trustee Mishy Leiblum, who helped to organize today’s press conference. “They will see for themselves the evidence that [the athletes] have and the different documentation that they have.”

On Veney’s Facebook.com homepage, she posted the press conference under the ‘Event’ section and 50 guests have confirmed attendance, including tennis player Michele Spiess and former basketball guard James Life.

“Over the course of several years certain trends have been detected involving the discrimination of student-athletes of color within the UMass Track and Field Programs,” says the description of the press conference on Veney’s Facebook page.

Veney’s recent allegations have drawn both supporters and critics, with two athletes on the track team – long-distance runners Eilis Kierans and Erin O’Donnell – coming to LaFreniere’s defense; several others close the program backing Veney.

Mattar’s mother, Deborah Hawkins-Mattar, recently suggested that her daughter was the victim of LaFreniere’s racial discrimination, and another former track team member, Marissa Kay Callahan, also claimed that “[LaFreniere] tends to give all of the black athletes a harder time.”

Another former member of the women’s track and field team, Emily Moses, recently voiced her concerns for the state of the UMass track program. Moses was a sprinter who ran the 400- and 500-meter races for LaFreniere from 2001 to 2003 – her freshman and sophomore seasons.

“[LaFreniere’s] decisions and the way she was coaching us were weird in our view,” Moses said. “She wasn’t making decisions that would further the team and help the team win and make the team’s reputation better. I don’t know why that is, but she definitely singled people out in the way that it made them worse competitors.”

Moses, who identified herself as “Middle Eastern,” isn’t sure whether LaFreniere is racist or not, but Moses objected to LaFreniere’s treatment of certain athletes.

“If someone doesn’t outright say the n-word or do something obviously racist, it’s hard to know where to draw the line,” she said.

“But there are patterns, and it’s important to recognize those patterns for what they are,” Moses added. “If a coach is being unfair to people and doing weird things like kicking people off of the team and taking away scholarships when they’ve been breaking records and doing great things for UMass and the women’s track team, then I think that’s a huge problem in and of itself whether the person is black, white, whatever.”

Rob Greenfield can be reached at [email protected].