Editor’s Note: The following article and its sources refer to a racial slur. Reader discretion is advised.
At 12:51 PM on June 21, 2020, a Twitter account owned by the user @SommerHeyman uploaded a video in which an incoming freshman at the Dyson School and another student engaged in profanity-laced conservation. The video seems to indicate that he and another student were smoking some sort of substance while appearing sleep-deprived or intoxicated. However, during the profanity-laced rant, both students appeared to be using racial slurs, notably the “n-word,” while also saying “George Floyd.”
The video drew immediate condemnation from the Morristown-Beard preparatory school, which both students attended. Morristown-Beard released a statement calling the words in the video “offensive and hurtful.” In an open letter to the high school community, Headmaster Peter J. Caldwell stated that the school’s policies “do not tolerate racism or discrimination of any kind.”
Similar statements were circulated among the Cornell campus community. Around 2:00 AM on June 22, one student posted a screenshot of the video and the student’s Hudl account to the Facebook meme page, “Cornell: Any Person, Any Meme,” calling for current students to alert Dyson School administrators of the student’s remarks. The post read, “Let’s hold Cornell accountable for not allowing more racists onto their campus.” The post has since been removed from the meme page.
Similar posts calling for the incoming student’s admission to be rescinded have been made on Reddit.
As of the publication of this article, the Dyson School has not released a statement regarding the incident, nor has Cornell University, nor has there been an independent investigation into the incident.
This article was written by Managing Editor Samuel Kim.
