UTSA probing why prof called police to oust black student
A University of Texas at San Antonio professor will be kept from the classroom for the rest of the week as the university investigates why she called police to order an African-American student out of her biology lecture hall.
A viral video posted Monday showed the student leaving the room when approached by officers. UTSA President Taylor Eighmy sent an email to the university community the same day saying the school’s Office of Equal Opportunity Services was investigating the incident as a possible case of discrimination and called it an example of the work the university needs to do to support students of color.
“We are concerned by what the video shows and
have initiated multiple investigations into the matter,” the university said Tuesday in a prepared statement shared on Twitter. “We recognize the importance of promptly gathering the facts and being transparent in the outcomes.”
The student, who identified herself as @FavoritePaigeee on Twitter, said the video, shared by classmate Apurva Rawal, shows police leading her out of class at the request of biology lecturer Anita Moss. The student, who could not be reached for comment and whose full name has not been made public, said she did not disobey any student code of conduct.
Rawal said in his account that Moss was upset that the woman had her feet up on the chair in front of her. Earlier, the professor had delivered “a whole tirade about how uncivil we all were because a few students were on their phone or not paying attention,” Rawal said.
Besides the investigation by the Office of Equal Opportunity Services into possible discrimination, Interim Dean Howard Grimes of the College of Sciences was looking into “the academic management of the classroom,” Eighmy’s email said.
Rawal’s post gained more than 17,300 retweets and 38,5008 likes by Tuesday evening. The tweet from the woman escorted out got more than 22,300 retweets and 55,000 likes.
Many online commenters were quick to excoriate the professor and UTSA, comparing the incident to a number of situations across the country where white people called police to respond to black people barbecuing, napping in a student lounge or selling water.
Of the more than 30,000 students enrolled at UTSA last fall, 2,674 of them were black, according to the university’s website.
The professor and student have met with officials separately, the UTSA statement said. In addition to keeping Moss out of class during the investigation, the university offered the student “multiple” options for continuing her studies, it said.
Once the investigations are completed, “appropriate final action will be determined,” the statement said.
In his email, Eighmy said the matter “concerns me greatly.”
“Beyond this particular incident, I am very much aware that the circumstance represents another example of the work we need to do as an institution around issues of inclusivity and supporting our students of color,” he wrote in the letter.
The university recently announced that it had hired Myron Anderson, the Metropolitan State University of Denver’s associate to the president for diversity, to fill a new position, vice president for inclusive excellence. He starts Jan. 1 and “will serve as a leadership anchor, helping UTSA shape policies, set goals and provide strategic direction for the journey toward improving the campus climate for underrepresented groups,” the announcement stated.