Researchers at CollegeStats.org examined tweets on the social media platform Twitter made on or near the campuses of 1,537 colleges and universities. More than 2.4 million tweets were analyzed.
The researchers examined the content of the tweets to determine the number of instances where tweets included racist language. By a large margin, the educational institution that had the highest percentage of tweets with racist terms was the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. The editors of CollegeStat.org wrote that The the “University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences could have a serious case of racism on its hands.” About 11 percent of the students at the university are Black.
Lehman College and Fordham University, both in The Bronx, New York, ranked second and third. Lehman College has an undergraduate student body that is 28 percent Black and African American are 5 percent of the undergraduate student body at Fordham University.
Other colleges and universities ranking in the top 10 of institution’s where tweets offensive to Blacks were most common were the South Texas College of Law in Houston, the Mount Sinai Medical School in New York, the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, Marymount Manhattan College in New York, and Hunter College in New York.
It is interesting that seven of the 10 colleges and universities with the highest percentage of tweets with racist terms are in New York City. Only one was in the South. One wonders whether Twitter users in New York City are highly racist compared to those in the rest of the country or is there some flaw with with the methodology of this study?
I think there are some flaws to the methodology of this study. Social media allows for animinity among it’s users. Among those racist tweets, how many of them were at Blacks? Blacks are not immune to being racist towards their own nor to other groups. What is the racial breakdown? Which group did the “racist tweets” target the most.
I’m shocked that most of the tweets came out of places near and at institutions in NYC. Lehman college and Hunter college are mostly commuter schools. The study makes no sense unless it is broken down further for us to give critical analysis.
The methodology can be flawed especially if it doesn’t take into account regional use of language among all races in the geographic area by the apps users. Use of slang, including racist language, can be more common place in urban areas such as NY City as compared to other parts of the country.
The two comments above are most interesting. Chris seems to believe that one must “take into account regional use of language”. James wonders “How many of the tweets were from Blacks? My analysis of the above: Whites are totally innocent of any discrimination until we have a study where every drop of every commentator is evaluated by a committee of 100 scholars “in-depth” with no biases. Oh yes, how many Blacks out there hate other Blacks? Hmmmm…… Until we know “everything” we know “nothing”.
Hmmm oh yes…. what should the composition of the 100 scholars be, to be “correct”?
Your comment is the perfect response to the above! Slang is used frequently everywhere and most anti-black tweets are going to come from non-blacks. Can we ever address racism without trying to remove the guilt from whites? Racist language is more pervasive in the south anyway!
I’m an African-American who has lived all over this country and worked in College administration for 30 plus years. I’m not sure I agree with your perception of the South. Whites in all areas of the country swear “innocence” till caught.