Cambridge University promoted a professor to full-time after she received backlash for tweeting “white lives don’t matter.”
“I am therefore delighted to share with you personally, that last night Cambridge promoted me to a full Professorship,” professor Priyamvada Gopal said Thursday on Twitter. “The hate mails & threats are coming in non-stop but @CambridgeCops are following up,” she added. (RELATED: Former Emory University Professor Pleads Guilty To Omitting Chinese Government Funding In Tax Returns)
Thanks to everyone who wrote to @Twitter: the ludicrous ban has been lifted. I am therefore delighted to share with you personally, that last night Cambridge promoted me to a full Professorship. The hate mails & threats are coming in non-stop but @CambridgeCops are following up
— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) June 25, 2020
Gopal received backlash over a twitter post where she said, “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives.”
After the Tuesday tweet went viral, Gopal said that she was the target of a social media mob. “I won’t post them all but I’ve also received racist mail which includes homophobic content as well as, predictably, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic slurs,” she tweeted Wednesday.
Some critics took to Twitter to condemn the professor’s words as racist and inappropriate.
This is a disgraceful racist comment from living @Cambridge_Uni professor @PriyamvadaGopal – she should be dismissed with immediate effect. Never mind Oxford’s long passed Rhodes. @CambridgeNewsUK https://t.co/mOj31Csp1O
— David C Bannerman (@DCBMEP) June 25, 2020
.@Cambridge_Uni supports blatant racism >>>>> https://t.co/Q5L0crFgJp
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 25, 2020
If Dr. @PriyamvadaGopal were White, would she have been relieved of her position by now?
Is her race-based antipathy appropriate? Desirable? Terrifying?
Racist Cambridge Professor Insists ‘White Lives Don’t Matter,’ Calls To ‘Abolish Whiteness’ https://t.co/KhtQbs2Ktx
— Nan Hayworth, M.D. (@NanHayworth) June 24, 2020
A Change.org petition was posted calling for Gopal, who was then a lecturer at the university, to be fired over the June 22 tweet.
“Her statements are racist and hateful and must not be tolerated by Cambridge University leadership,” the petition says. “Cambridge must move to immediately discontinue their relationship with Ms. Gopal in the best interest of all students and the community at large.”
Twitter removed the original tweet for a violation of its rules. Her second tweet, which says “abolish whiteness,” is still up.
Screenshot: Priyamvada Gopal (@priyamvadagopal)/Twitter
Cambridge University defended Gopal.
“The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks,” the university said Wednesday on Twitter. “These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.”
The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks. These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.
— Cambridge University (@Cambridge_Uni) June 24, 2020