GSU student withdraws after using slur

Petition demanded university expel soccer player.

A Georgia State University soccer player who was suspended from the team after she used a racial slur on social media has withdrawn from the school, officials said.

Some students had called for the expulsion of 18-yearold freshman Natalia Martinez after the slur appeared on her Finsta page, a secret version of Instagram that is growing in popularity among teens.

“As a progressive, diverse university, we ... feel like this sort of behavior should not be tolerated,” said India Bridgeforth, who created a petition demanding the university take a tougher approach with Martinez.

The petition had garnered more than 500 signatures by Monday afternoon, when the university announced Martinez had “officially withdrawn.”

Associate athletic director Mike Holmes told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that officials were made aware of Martinez’s post Friday morning.

In a statement, Georgia State University said the school does “not tolerate the language (Martinez) used in her post.”

The GSU incident happened just days after the University of Alabama expelled a 19-year-old student who posted a video of her racist ranting on her Finsta page.

That student, Harley Barber, uploaded a second video on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in response to people who were upset by the language and threatened those who wanted to report her fake Instagram account, the Washington Post reported.