A Monroe Community College student's recent social media post that included a racist slur has sparked outrage on both campuses.
Last Thursday, a student tweeted "Shout out to the n***** at MCC who vandalized my confederate flag. You'll be a white man’s property soon enough. Give Trump time."
The post soon spread on social media.
One by one, those who stepped up to the microphone at a forum on the Brighton campus Tuesday all agreed that the tweet was awful and the student should face administrative consequences.
Crystal Knight is the co-president of the Black Student Union at the Brighton campus.
"I understand that now is a time to learn collectively, but why as a student is it my job to teach another student that it’s disrespectful and downright disgusting to insult an entire group of people based on one action?"
Knight said that fact that there is no visual representation of discipline is sending the wrong message to students.
DeMario Brantley is a sociology professor at MCC.
“People have to be held accountable. What about my lived experience? I couldn’t even sleep last night. What about my appetite? Of all the things that are going on in this world where people ignore my voice, to have this happen on my home campus is very disturbing."
Christopher Otero also teaches at the college, hes an English professor. He said there isn’t enough focus on the person who damaged to the confederate flag in the first place.
"Unless our communities collectively own what was wrong to begin with and where we overstepped our bounds on both sides, we're not going to grow."
President of the college Anne Kress originally did not take any action against the student, but says the college will be reviewing how far its code of conduct extends in regards to social media. She did condemn the language of the tweet as “hateful, offensive, ignorant, awful, and deplorable."
Kress also said she feels the school failed this student, who was not representing the values of the college with this post. She said he had taken 12 courses at MCC, so he wasn't new to the college.
"Where did we not help this student understand that inclusiveness, collaboration, integrity, excellence, all of that matters at MCC?"
Kress said they cant publicly discuss disciplinary actions against any member of the student body and said they will also be focusing on more staff diversity. You can read her full statement here.
Right now, less than 9% of full time MCC teaching faculty are minorities.