Hundreds of Students Sign Letter to Support Professor Who Wished Queen Elizabeth II ‘Excruciating Pain’

Hundreds of scholars have signed an open letter condemning Carnegie Mellon University for publicly throwing professor Uju Anya beneath the bus after tweeting that she wished the late Queen Elizabeth II “excruciating pain” in dying for serving as the pinnacle of a “thieving raping genocidal empire.” Coincidentally, Carnegie Mellon actions got here after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos expressed his displeasure at Anya’s tweet. The e-commerce big is a serious donor on the college.

In their letter, which started circulating on Twitter over the weekend, the scholars stated they believed firmly in Anya’s proper to free speech and security. According to the scholars, the university’s statement on Anya’s tweets—which it referred to as “offensive and objectionable” and never consultant of “the values of the institution”—supplies her with no institutional safety from violence and locations her in a precarious place.

“Rejecting calls for ‘civility’ that are frequently leveraged against the marginalized to silence dissent, we express our solidarity with Dr. Anya and reject the tone-policing of those with legitimate grievances,” the scholars wrote.

Besides rejecting the establishment’s response, the scholars are asking Carnegie Mellon to guard Anya’s place on the college.

As of the time of publication of this text, almost 350 Carnegie Mellon college students and alumni had signed the letter, which was nonetheless open for signatures. Support for Anya has additionally come from folks exterior of Carnegie Mellon, with college students and alumni from universities throughout the world signing the letter.

Gizmodo reached out to Carnegie Mellon for remark a number of instances on Monday however didn’t obtain a response by the point of publication.

What Did the Professor Tweet About the Late Queen Elizabeth II?

On Thursday, the day of Queen Elizabeth’s dying, social media was abuzz with hypothesis and anticipation. Anya, a Black girl who teaches within the subject of important utilized linguistics, added her ideas to the dialog.

“I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying,” Anya stated in a tweet, which was subsequently deleted by Twitter for what it claimed was a violation of its guidelines on abusive habits. “May her pain be excruciating.”

Anya’s tweet shortly started to drum up controversy and pushback, with some people stating she may have “benefitted from the civilizational goals and benefits of colonialism” and others saying that she was from a “lineage of losers.” Yet, the professor’s tweet additionally acquired many messages of help from individuals who echoed her opinions and thanked her for talking up.

The professor’s tweet additionally caught the attention of Bezos. Amazon is one in all Carnegie Mellon’s donors and in 2021 gifted the college $2 million for its Computer Science Academy, a program that gives a free, on-line laptop science curriculum to center and highschool college students.

“This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow,” Bezos tweeted, citing Anya’s tweet.

After Bezos weighed in, Anya, who was born in Nigeria after the country’s civil war within the late Sixties, addressed the topic as soon as extra on Twitter. The United Kingdom supported the federal government of Nigeria within the conflict, supplying it with weapons in its battle in opposition to Biafra, the previous Eastern area of the nation that had declared its independence.

“If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star,” she tweeted.

Although Queen Elizabeth II acknowledged the UK’s darkish colonial previous throughout her lifetime, she by no means apologized for what was finished.

Professor Uju Anya Is Not Sorry for What She Tweeted About Queen Elizabeth II

In response to Anya’s tweets, Carnegie Mellon disavowed her statements with its own message on Twitter.

“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account,” the college stated on Thursday. “Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster.”

Anya spoke concerning the expertise she’s had since her tweet about Queen Elizabeth II in an interview with The Cut on Friday. The professor shared that she’s been getting hate emails calling her the N-word, bitch, and genetically inferior, amongst different horrible issues. On the topic of getting singled out by Bezos, Anya stated that the billionaire’s feedback have incited violence in opposition to her.

She’s not stunned, although, and has a idea on why Bezos tweeted about her. In August, Anya met and took a photograph with Chris Smalls, a former Black Amazon warehouse employee who helped manage the first labor union on the firm in Staten Island, New York. She tweeted out her photograph and referred to as Smalls an “extraordinary, brilliant, and talented young man.”

“We all know Bezos is a small and petty man,” Anya advised the outlet.

In the interview, the professor underscored that the time period “colonizer” will not be an summary one for her. Her mother and father and siblings survived the genocide that occurred throughout Nigeria’s civil conflict. Anya herself was born in Nigeria in 1976 and lived there for 10 years the place “there was always this specter of what was lost.” Half of her household was slaughtered.

Anya will not be sorry for what she stated concerning the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“‘Colonizer’ is not an abstract term for me. It’s not just something I read about in history books or a word I throw around. It’s something that has directly affected my life and continues to through this day,” she stated. “It is deeply offensive for anyone to presume to tell me that I have to cry over the death of somebody who killed my people, or I have to be respectful in their passing. For what? Who are they to me except a violent oppressor?”