An anonymous Twitter account outed them
Two students outed for making racist and anti-Semitic Facebook posts are “no longer enrolled” at Davidson College, the private school said in a statement. An anonymous Twitter account had identified one of the students by name earlier this month.
“Carolina Workers Collective,” an anonymous Twitter account that describes itself as “Working class opposition to white supremacy and the state,” identified a Twitter account that posted racist and anti-Semitic statements, and linked the account to a Davidson student, The Charlotte Observer reports.
The posts “praised Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan,” according to The Observer. The Twitter account was deleted shortly after Caroline Workers Collective surfaced them.
One student was identified as Martha Gerdes, a teaching assistant in the German-studies department and a cadet in the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A tweet from Carolina Workers Collective stated that Gerdes had the slogan, “Hitler did nothing wrong” on her Twitter account.
Carol Quillen, the president of the college, sent an email last Sunday informing the campus population that the students were no longer enrolled at Davidson.
“The anxiety level on campus that many now feel is heightened because past incidents are now seen in light of (the) social media revelations,” she wrote, adding that the college’s police chief located the students who were identified by “Carolina Workers Collective” and “ensur(ed) they would not be on campus,” The Observer reported.
However, Gerdes is still enrolled in the ROTC program on campus. The Chronicle reported that Lt. Col. Christopher L. Belcher, a spokesman for the organization, told the publication, “At this time, Ms. Gerdes remains enrolled in ROTC, a final determination on her status with the ROTC program will be made after all investigations are completed and reviewed.”
Davidson did not respond to an inquiry about whether or not the students had been expelled. It also did not respond to a question about whether the students had been charged with any disciplinary violations.
However, college spokesman Jay Pfeifer told The Observer that federal student privacy laws prevent him from confirming whether or not the students were expelled or left voluntarily.
This is not the only controversial incident to have occurred at the school recently. In mid-October, a student found writing on a library dry erase board that related to a school shooting. However, last week, a professor sent an email that was forwarded to the entire student body explaining that the writing was related to a class project.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education gave Davidson’s speech codes a “red light” rating this year, meaning that it has “at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.”
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