Dozens of conservative and independent-minded black leaders, including several prominent professors, are calling on Smith College to make right for its role in a hate-crime hoax that rocked the nation.
“We didn’t march so that Americans of any race could be presumed guilty and punished for false accusations while the elite institution that employed them cowered in fear of a social media mob,” states the memo, put together by the 1776 Unites program and the Woodson Center.
Smith College was home to the infamous 2018 “eating while black” incident in which a female student claimed she was targeted and harassed while eating lunch on campus because she is black.
Several months after the allegations made national headlines, a law firm completely cleared those involved of any wrongdoing, racial or otherwise.
More recently, a lengthy investigative report in the New York Times illustrated how the incident has hurt many of the blue-collar staffers that were blamed and targeted in the whole affair.
Now a coalition of black leaders — educators, scholars, clergy, business leaders and civil rights veterans — is asking Smith College to:
Make a public apology to the accused service workers
Cease forced and accusatory “anti-racist” trainings
Compensate the service workers for the harm they have endured
The group of intellectually diverse black leaders, in their letter, criticize Smith College President Kathleen McCartney “for failing to honor the rights of the accused, publicly shaming them, and completely disregarding the pursuit of truth and justice,” according to a news release.
Here is their letter to McCartney:
Among its co-signers: Brown University Professor Glenn Loury, Columbia University Professor John McWhorter, UT Austin Professor John Sibley Butler, DePaul University Professor Jason Hill, and Vanderbilt University School of Law emeritus Professor Carol Swain.
MORE: Read the Smith College whistleblower’s powerful resignation letter
IMAGE: E. Q. Roy / Shutterstock
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