In the span of a week, students at two colleges have found themselves at the center of widespread criticism for posting racially charged photos to social media.
At Belmont University in Nashville, a student was expelled from the school on Tuesday after sharing a photo of football players with the Philadelphia Eagles raising their fists during the national anthem, according to a report from The Tennessean.
The student, a freshman whose name has not been released but who posted under the user name juswoodard97, included a caption using a racist epithet to describe the players and suggested that “every one of them” needed “a bullet in their head. If you don’t like this country, get the hell out.”
Other students quickly reposted that photo, first shared on Snapchat, to other platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. On Tuesday morning, the university said in a statement that it was investigating the source of the post. Hours later, it followed up with another message:
“After investigating a racist social media post that surfaced earlier today, we can report that the person is no longer a student at Belmont. The University rejects comments rooted in racism or bigotry.”
When reached by phone, a spokeswoman, Hope Buckner, would not comment on details of the student’s status, and instead pointed to the university’s statement.
This is the second recent high-profile case of racially charged social media posts from college campuses. A firestorm swept through Kansas State University after a woman posted a photo to Snapchat of herself and her friend wearing blackface and making gang signs, captioned with a word containing racial slang. That photo was quickly circulated on Twitter and Facebook, and people tagged the university in the post.
On Sept. 15, the university said in a statement that the student was not currently enrolled at the school, and that her friend was not affiliated with the school at all. Still, the episode caused such tumult on campus that the school’s Black Student Union held a forum on race relations.
“I feel like the majority of white people on this campus don’t understand where we’re coming from,” a student told people who attended the forum, according to a report from the university’s paper, The Collegian. “They don’t understand how we feel.”
Kansas State did not name the student who posted to Snapchat, but she was later identified as Paige Shoemaker by journalists, including Shaun King of The New York Daily News, on social media. Steve Logback, a spokesman for the university, said on Wednesday that he could not confirm if Ms. Shoemaker was one of the women in the picture.
Source: The New York Times | KATIE ROGERS
BCNN1 WP 