A survivor of the Parkland School shooting announced Monday that Harvard University rescinded his admission over racist comments he made nearly two years ago.
What We Know:
- Kyle Kashuv shared several letters from the Ivy League school first notifying him that his admission offer was being reconsidered due to the comments to the offer being completely revoked. The school’s decision comes from comments that have recently surfaced online and that Kashuv says were shared among his friends when he was 16, prior to the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
- Screenshots of Kashuv using anti-Semitic language and a racial slur referring to black people appeared in a Google document and in text messages. Kashuv, now 18, apologized for the comments and claimed he did not remember the comments until they spread online.
- “We were 16-year-olds making idiotic comments, using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible,” Kashuv said in a statement he posted to Twitter. However, a student who considers herself a former friend of Kashuv claims that he is simply racist towards black people. “I honestly think, yeah, he’s racist against black people,” the teen told HuffPost.
- In response to Kashuv’s letter, Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons thanked Kashuv for his honesty but explained the school’s admissions committee voted to withdraw his offer. “The committee takes seriously the qualities of maturity and moral character,” Fitzsimmons wrote in a letter that Kashuv shared on Monday.
- The topic was spread so quickly that the phrase “n-word” was trending on Twitter and had a few people confused as to why. Those who were in the loop voiced their opinions on if Harvard made the right decision or not. See Kashuv’s thread and a sample response below.
Should a student be penalized by a university for private messages exchanged between friends?
1/ THREAD: Harvard rescinded my acceptance.
Three months after being admitted to Harvard Class of 2023, Harvard has decided to rescind my admission over texts and comments made nearly two years ago, months prior to the shooting.
I have some thoughts. Here’s what happened.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
Yikes, Harvard revoked that Parkland student’s acceptance because of deeply racist language he used and he’s saying, “They’re judging me for something I did when I was sixteen!”
That’s literally how university admissions work. They judge you by what you do when you’re sixteen.
— Jennifer de Guzman Strikes Again (@Jennifer_deG) June 17, 2019
