A White student at the law school at historically Black North Carolina Central University in Durham was suspended for posting racist material on social media.
The student used the word “nigger” in a post on Facebook. She also stated “wish I could take credit” under a screenshot of a story about explosive devices that were sent to the residence of President Obama, other Black office holders, and leading White Democrats.
The student was suspended for the remainder of the week. Black students at the law school demanded her expulsion and some said on social media they did not feel safe on campus with the presence of a person who wanted to take credit for pipe bomb mailings.
If these acts reflect true feelings about Black people, I’m wondering why she chose to attend a predominantly Black university. What’s her point? Just trying to understand.
She should have been expelled. Imagine a lawyer-in-training expressing these kinds of thoughts in a public setting. We are too tolerant of them. Imagine how this would have been had it been a black student at a predominantly white school.
I work at a North Carolina undergraduate HBCU and we recently began drafting a social media policy for our campus. While we already have an Honor Code which holds our students to an expected standard of conduct, the college has seen fit to more specifically publish a standard of expectations for our community on social media.
I sincerely hope that NCCU and/or the law school have a published policy of expected behavior for their community that will permit them to handle this situation with confidence that whatever they do is defensible.
Personally, as an African American female lawyer, I am disgusted by this aspiring lawyer’s behavior!
Her actions may prevent her from being admitted to the North Carolina Bar.
Cancel culture
Why only a week. This student, because she is white, and because the prosecutors, judge’s and police are overwhelmingly majority white–she can easily carry this racist spirit into the legal field as a judge or prosecutor. The public is bent on policing the police, but the police only do what they know that they can get by with with certain prosecutors and judges. To clean up the system you have to start at the top with the judges and then the prosecutors. Peace.