Colorado College student Thaddeus Pryor holds the opinion that black women are "not hot." And during a November 9th conversation on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak during the apex of campus-wide "Black Lives Matter" protests, he expressed as much. Because of that, Pryor was suspended.
The College Fix spoke with the student who gave a few key details about what happened:
What started off as raising awareness quickly became “mud slinging,” Pryor told The College Fix in a phone interview. When someone wrote “#blackwomenmatter,” Pryor said he joined in, anonymously replying, “They matter, they’re just not hot.”
Pryor immediately regretted his crass remark. “I was ashamed, because some people were clearly upset” over the post, Pryor said. “So I deleted it.”
But as he explains, his comment, along with actual racist comments, were screen-captured and blown up onto banners that hung from the student center near the dean's office the next day. Pryor was erroneously reported as being the author of most of them.
With no evidence other than his voluntary admission to only the "not hot" comment, several deans "decided in less than 24 hours that Pryor should be suspended for 21 months – the exact time it would take him to finish his degree – and prohibited from being on campus," The Fix notes. Pryor appealed and received a reduced suspension of just six months.
In his appeal, Pryor indicated that the entire #BlackLivesMatter conversation that day started with slurs aimed at white students and others (strong language alert):
The “entire situation” on Yik Yak Nov. 9 actually began with crass comments targeting white students, calling them “dirty hippies with small dicks” who are “always fucking their cousins,” then moving on to mocking Muslims and even “Smurfs,” Pryor wrote.
Yet, none of those comments were pursued by administrators. It is noted that as a private institution, Colorado College "is not bound by the First Amendment" but has campus speech policies.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) sent the school a letter urging them to honor its "moral and contractual obligation" in allowing students freedom of expression. They also requested Pryor's, and another student's, punishment to be repealed. FIRE has not yet heard back from the college.
The Fix states that Pryor is attempting to transfer to another school that honors free speech.
Good luck with that.
