[ad_1]
Jamie Reece Moore
A Clemson University student is accused of posting intimidating and harassing comments about student protests over diversity issues on the South Carolina school’s campus, WSPA reports.
Jamie Reece Moore, 21, was arrested and charged with unlawful use of a telephone after posting several threatening messages on the social media app Yik Yak regarding the ongoing protests. According to the arrest warrant and police report, messages included the following:
* “What time is the lynch mob tomorrow? I got a couple hundred feet of rope.”
* “Let’s do to the Clemson protesters what Ohio did to the Kent State student protesters 40 years ago.”
* “Drive by at Sikes?”
* Slave auction tomorrow morning at 8am @ Sikes Hall. Lots of good protest workers. Get them while they’re mad!!!”
* “So have they started lynching protesters yet?”
Moore was released on a $470 bond, and the incident was referred to Clemson University’s Office of Community and Ethnic Standards for possible disciplinary action, the news station notes.
According to the Associated Press, the latest protests at the school stem from rotting bananas that were left hanging from a black-history banner on campus. Biology major Brendan Standifer told the newswire that on campus, there is a “quiet racial schism” that is only relieved on one day.
“The only time you see true unity is on game day,” he said, referring to the love for the university’s football team, which lost in the national championship game in January.
The newswire notes that only 6 percent of Clemson students are black, even though nearly a third of people in South Carolina are African American.
According to AP, the protests demanding greater diversitiy on compus started April 13. Initially, five students were cited for trespassing after they refused to leave a building on the campus. After that, protesters moved the sit-in outdoors, camping out in tents. According to AP, many football players came by the protest over the weekend to lend their support.
Clemson President Jim Clements says that the school is aware of the diversity issues and has hired a chief diversity officer, who started work Monday. The university is reportedly also revamping its approach to teaching black history, and new committees are delving into ways to attract more black students and faculty. Clemson is reportedly also allotting more money to scholarships for minority students and recruiting minority faculty.
Some students, however, say that it’s all talk and no action.
“Clemson University tries to hide things and pretend like they never, ever happened or don’t exist. So instead of saying it was bananas on an African-American flag, they say a banner was defaced on campus. You are denying the fact it was racist at all,” Rae-Nessha White, a junior political science major who was arrested during the protest, told AP.
Read more at WSPA and U.S. News & World Report.
[ad_2]
