Florida Bar fires employee over racist DMs sent to Canes football player

Instagram direct messages to University of Miami football player Damon Wilson II with racist and homophobic slurs, as well as repeated references to rape, got a Florida Bar employee fired Wednesday despite the employee’s claims of innocence.

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The Bar’s emailed announcement of Kade McLendon’s firing said, “Those messages were reprehensible and inconsistent with the mission, values, and policies of The Florida Bar. While McLendon denies sending the messages, he did not provide evidence sufficient to demonstrate to The Florida Bar’s satisfaction that his Instagram account had been compromised.”

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Screenshots of McLendon’s LinkedIn account, which was shut down Monday along with his Instagram account, said that he’d been a Florida Bar computer technician since June 2024 and had graduated from Florida State University. He could not be reached for comment.

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The 12 DMs to Wilson from McLendon’s account were sent during or after Saturday’s 43-35 double overtime win by the Hurricanes over Florida State. The messages appeared to be reposted by Wilson to his Instagram stories as an example of out-of-control fans and were ubiquitous among college football fans and media by Monday.

The first DM began with “I hope you get raped,” a homophobic slur and ended with “I am going to rape, beat and kill ur family.” Later DMs called Wilson a “cotton picking” N-word and said “I hope my great grand daddy beat urs so hard.”

Wilson transferred to UM this year from the University of Missouri, where he was a second-team All-Southeastern Conference player in 2025.

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