Does the University of Rhode Island have a racial problem emanating from its student base into the internet stratosphere?
Recently, a racist Instagram post was allegedly posted by one of its students Sunday toward Miami Dolphins defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah.
Ogbah Claps Back
“When I first saw the DM – it was actually on Instagram – when I saw the DM, it was definitely after a tough loss, and seeing that pissed me off,” Ogbah said. “It’s not the first time I’ve gotten messages like that, but I just wanted to show the world that you can’t do that.
“We’re all human. You can’t come at a person like that, especially I know you can’t come to my face like that, so I just wanted to show the world you can’t do that and then I realized I didn’t want it to be a distraction for this team, so that’s the only reason why I deleted the tweet. I just wanted to show those keyboard warriors, you can’t really do that. We’re still humans at the end of the day.”
URI President Marc Parlange announced that the school had launched a review.
“The university learned today of an offensive, unacceptable and racist comment posted to social media earlier today, allegedly by one of our students,” said Parlange.
“This language is abhorrent and has no place in a community that is deeply committed to anti-racism. Given the significance of the issue, the university has taken immediate action and referred the matter to the university’s student conduct process for review.”
Disrespectful
According to reports, the student’s original post and a separate post by Ogbah that showcased the message have both been deleted.
However, the student has yet to be identified. If found at fault, the student faces possible punishments ranging from a warning to expulsion from the university.
University of Rhode Island student affairs officials could not provide any further details pending the completion of the investigation. URI didn’t offer a timetable for the finalization of the review.
However, per further reporting, URI’s rules are that the student can accept responsibility for the post. In addition, the student can request a panel of university members to review the situation for potential policy violations.
Searching For Solutions
The NFL has been embattled with a racial reckoning as of late. Former Las Vegas Raiders coach, Jon Gruden was recently outed after years of emails exposing his racist views were released.
“I normally ignore stuff like this but this is uncalled for!” Ogbah wrote in his since-deleted Twitter post featuring the racist remarks.
To find out more about how Emmanuel Ogbah is handling this racist act going forward, click here.
