Temple University still hasn’t commented on a student’s racial slur
Temple’s NAACP branch expressed its disappointment with Temple at a press conference yesterday
After last week’s tweet calling out a student’s racial slur, Temple’s Progressive NAACP branch held a press conference to discuss the situation with Mal Sary, the student who revealed her roommate’s racist slur on Twitter, and how the university has yet responded to the situation.
Temple’s Progressive NAACP’s mission is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality and rights of all persons and organizations on the Temple University campus, and after Mal’s tweets went viral on Twitter and the university still hadn’t made a pubic statement, it, too, took to Twitter to express concern over the incident.
The statement released by The Progressive NAACP reads:
“The Progressive NAACP does not condone the use of racial slurs to demean or harass any person or party no matter their race or gender. The violent and traumatic history associated with the n-word makes its use by Pocceschi unacceptable and intolerable.
It is our belief that the actions of Pocceschi are not reflective of Temple University and its overall mission. Being that Temple University strives for diversity and inclusion among students and staff and is located in North Philadelphia, a predominantly African American community, we urge Temple University to take disciplinary action against Pocceschi.”
Yesterday, Mal Sary spoke at the press conference where students were able to ask her questions regarding the situation. She said the story is about more than just her exposing her roommate’s racism.
Mal told the audience she didn’t feel she deserved this type of attention after simply drawing attention to racism and said she felt overwhelmed with the attention because she believed she was just doing the right thing by trying to educate her roommate.
Victoria Goins, the Political Action Chair of Temple’s NAACP, said, “We are urging that the administration publicly acknowledge the issue and as well publicly condemn the issue. This request is not out of the ordinary- Temple University has managed to publicly condemn similar issues before without mentioning the name of the accused or the accuser.
“192 hours and counting and Temple has yet to release a public statement. Why is this issue not being treated to anything similar?” said Goins, “Why hasn’t Temple responded to NAACP’s statement privately, letting us know that they are aware of the issue and condemn the disparagement of any person based on religion, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation or identity- but has not issued a public statement on it. Why does the NAACP have to contact Temple on an issue that was made public a week ago on social media and various social media outlets.”
Goins went on to express the differences of how Temple University is handling this situation compared to other similar instances where student’s have publicly made derogatory remarks.
“In April 2015, the National Panhellenic Council, the union of predominantly African American sororities and fraternities, dropped out of the annual Greek Olympics because a white student and also a member of Delta Zeta sorority used the n-word during a Greek Week activity,” said Goins.
“Twenty-four hours after the council withdrew from the events, Temple University released a statement. In August 2014, a member of the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi was assaulted at Welcome Week and then called various religious slurs. That same day, Temple University reached out to Jewish leaders on campus in order to discuss the incident further and for a path to moving forward. Within 24 hours, a statement from Temple University was in the inbox of all Temple Students.”
Temple’s Progressive NAACP finally encouraged students to flood the inboxes of Temple Faculty about this incident by asking Temple University to publicly acknowledge the situation, imploring that especially because we are located in a predominantly African-American community, we should condemn the use of racial slurs towards any student or member of the community.