Students, staff sign petition backing Uju Anya controversial Queen tweets
NEWS DIGEST – Students, faculty and other academics are showing their support for Nigerian born Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Uju Anya in the wake of the university condemning her recent tweets, which wished an “excruciating” death upon Queen Elizabeth II.
The rallying behind Dr Anya comes with letters to the university and petition.
On Thursday, Dr Anya, who teaches second language acquisition at the esteemed Pennsylvania university, tweeted in the runup to the announcement of the Queen’s passing: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating,”
When there was a backlash against her tweet, including criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who quoted her original post, Dr Anya doubled down.
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“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.
Dr Anya, who describes herself on Twitter as an “antiracist” and “feminist,” was born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and mother from Trinidad and Tobago. Both countries were colonised by the British.
Twitter removed her original tweet with a message that it violated company policy. Carnegie Mellon quickly took strides to distance itself from her comments.
“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account,” the university tweeted last week.
“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.”
