UPDATE and CORRECTION, courtesy of The Daily Wire:

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the employees fired by Aramark were African American. While the NYU dining hall employees who served the meal were black, those employees were not fired over the incident. The food services company fired two different employees, which the on-campus publication NYU Local has confirmed were in fact white and were responsible for planning the meal. This article has also been expanded to provide complete statements from the NYU President and Aramark.

A black student at New York University, which costs a mere $73,000 per year to attend, complained about a meal served in honor of Black History Month which included ribs, corn bread, collard greens, Kool-Aid, and watermelon-flavored water. As The New York Times reported, College of Arts & Science sophomore Nia Harris perceived the menu as racist and demanded an explanation for this atrocity from the head cook at Weinstein Passport Dining Hall. 

He rightly dismissed her petulance and informed the student “that the Kool-Aid was actually fruit punch (it was not, she said) and that the dining hall served fruit-flavored water ‘all the time’ (it does, she said, but not watermelon).” Harris was also informed that the two men who planned the menu were black.

But the 19-year-old student wasn’t satisfied and shouted her plight on Facebook, screaming, “This is what it’s like to be a black student at New York University.”

The bad press from this disgustingly viral outburst got back to NYU, which promptly blamed the food service company Aramark who provided the cooks. Aramark then fired the employees, claiming they violated the company’s “longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion." 

This pleased Harris who gloated over the firings, according to the NYT:

In a phone interview Wednesday evening, Ms. Harris said she chose to believe that the Aramark employees had acted out of ignorance of their menu’s implications, not out of malice. But she added that, while she was glad they had been fired, it should not have been her responsibility to point out the problem — one that she said went far beyond a single incident.

Harris must be proud of herself. Check that. Harris is very proud of her elitist, privileged self.

But as The Daily Wire later noted:

NYU Local has since learned that the employees responsible for planning the meal — the head chef and an operations manager at the dining hall — were white. NYU Local reports that those two employees were fired "without conversation with NYU."

In response to the public condemnation of the meal, Aramark issued a statement apologizing and announcing that they had fired the employees responsible for "independently" making the decision to put together the menu. Here's the full statement:

We have zero tolerance for any employee who does not adhere to our values or contradicts our longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Employees at NYU who acted independently and did not follow our approved plan for the celebration of Black History Month have been terminated and are no longer with the company. We are extremely disappointed by this regrettable situation and apologize to the entire NYU community and communities everywhere for their insensitive and offensive actions. We are re-training all our NYU campus employees to ensure an incident like this is not repeated.

The incident also prompted a public apology from NYU President Andrew Hamilton, who said the menu was "inexcusably insensitive." Here is Hamilton's full statement, which includes another statement from Aramark saying they had suspended the director of Weinstein dining for "insensitive and offensive actions":

We were shocked to learn of the drink and food choices that our food service provider -- Aramark -- offered at the Weinstein dining hall as part of Black History Month. It was inexcusably insensitive. That error was compounded by the insensitivity of the replies made to a student who asked Aramark staff on site how the choices were made.

In response, Aramark has suspended the director of Weinstein dining, is investigating how this happened, will be putting in place sensitivity training for staff, and has rightly issued an apology:

"We apologize for an inexcusable menu mistake that occurred at Downstein. We are extremely disappointed by the insensitive and offensive actions taken by one of our employees who did not follow policy and processes. The individual acted independently in a way that runs counter to our values and compromised our longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. We have suspended the employee pending a full investigation. We are also re-training all employees to ensure a regrettable incident like this is not repeated. Again, we apologize for the mistake and commit to do better in the future." -- Victoria Pasquale, Regional Vice President, Aramark

We are grateful to the students who brought this to the attention of the University. We are extremely dissatisfied with Aramark's actions in this instance. The drink and food choices for this meal were not discussed with NYU beforehand. NYU's dining administrators will insist that Aramark put in place a mechanism to avoid a repeat of yesterday's episode, such as consulting the existing student advisory body and campus cultural groups about the menu for special events.