Facebook post stirs Ole Miss protest
Response to lynching post draws concern
901-333-2019
A University of Mississippi student is in trouble over a social media posting in which he threatened to lynch protesters, as students on campus staged a sit-in to voice their concern with the university’s response to the issue Friday.
Jordan Samson’s post in a Facebook thread discussing protests in Charlotte, North Carolina, said “I have a tree with enough room for all of them if you want to settle this Wild West style.”
A spokesman for Sigma Chi fraternity confirmed Friday that Samson is being expelled from the fraternity over the post. Ole Miss representatives did not immediately reply to a query asking if additional action is being taken, but indicated on social media that the incident would be investigated.
Samson’s Facebook page is no longer available, but New York Daily News reporter Shaun King tweeted an image of the discussion thread, including the post under Samson’s name, along with an image of Samson’s Facebook status information. King tweeted the information to Ole Miss’ official Twitter account.
The university replied to King by tweeting: “Thanks for sending. We do NOT support this type of language that encourages, condones violence. We will investigate thoroughly.”
King also tweeted an image of an email he received from Dan Mathewson, director of accountability and chapter accounts for Sigma Chi.
“I also discovered that he was on a conduct status with us already, so, I just contacted the chapter and told them I expect paperwork for his expulsion by end of the day,” Mathewson wrote in the email. “My apologies — again, this is very embarrassing and completely intolerable.”
Reached by phone, Mathewson said he was not allowed to comment but that the image tweeted by King “was an accurate representation of what I said.”
Later Friday, witnesses said dozens of black and white students occupied the University of Mississippi’s main administrative building in Oxford to protest what they called the chancellor’s weak response to the Facebook comment about lynching.
The sit-in at the whitecolumned Lyceum began after Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter issued a statement criticizing social media comments that “suggest or condone actions” inconsistent with the university’s core values.
“The University of Mississippi condemns the use of language that might encourage or condone violence,” Vitter said in the statement. “Instead, let’s be respectful and civil in our discourse.”
Student protesters said Vitter’s response fell short, and they demanded that he label the lynching comment as a “racist threat of domestic terrorism.”
Two Ole Miss students were found guilty of a 2014 incident in which a noose was placed around the neck of a statue of James Meredith, who integrated Ole Miss in 1962. The two students, along with a third who was not charged, also placed on the statue a former Georgia state flag that included the Confederate battle emblem.
One of the students, Graeme Phillip Harris, was sentenced to six months in prison. The second student, Austin Reed Edenfield, got 12 months’ probation and 50 hours of community service.