PALESTINE PROTESTS
Ole Miss student kicked out of fraternity after viral video caught racist gestures
Ole Miss has launched a student conduct investigation after counter-protesters were caught on video making racist gestures and insults to a Black woman.
A woman who was part of a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), was singled out by counter-protesters who insulted her weight and made racist gestures and insults towards her. The Mississippi Free Press identified the woman as graduate student Jaylin Smith.
Amongst the group of counter protesters, who were mostly white males, one jumped and hooted like a monkey in the direction of Smith while others chanted, “lock her up!” Their actions were caught on video and went viral. On Sunday, the Phi Delta Theta fraternity announced that they’d removed the student who did the racist monkey imitations.
“Phi Delta Theta General Headquarters is aware of the video regarding the student protest at the University of Mississippi,” they said in a statement. “The racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter. The responsible individual was removed from membership on Friday, May 3.”
The fraternity did not name the student and the school itself launched a student conduct investigation into an unnamed student. “While student privacy laws prohibit us from commenting on any specific student, we have opened one student conduct investigation,” said Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce. “We are working to determine whether more cases are warranted.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), however, had no problem naming the student responsible. In an Instagram post, they named him as James “JP” Staples and called for him and two other students (Connor Moore and Rouse Davis Boyce) to be expelled.
“We are committed to ongoing efforts to identify other individuals who PUBLICLY participated in this hateful act therefore should and WILL be PUBLICLY identified.”
Pro-Palestinian protests have been spreading across college campuses throughout the United States with many resulting in violence, counter protests, and arrests. At Ole Miss, there were about 30 pro-Palestine protesters and hundreds of counter protesters, who sang the Star-Spangled Banner to drown out the protesters’ chants.