University ‘looking into’ student connected to racial slur sent via Tinder message
June 30, 2017
Northwestern is looking into an incident in which a student appeared to send a racial slur via a Tinder message to a Dartmouth College student last week, University spokesman Al Cubbage told The Daily.
According to a photo circulated on social media, Weinberg sophomore Brendan Amos matched with Anjali, who asked that her last name be withheld from this story, on the popular dating app Tinder on June 18.
After exchanging several messages in which Amos appeared to attempt to disprove Anjali’s claim that she was using the app out of boredom, a message was sent from Amos’ account on June 22 calling Anjali, who is of Indian heritage, a “sand ni—r.”
Anjali told The Daily that Amos has since reached out to her and apologized, claiming the message was sent from his phone by an intoxicated friend.
Amos read a statement to The Daily and declined to answer further questions.
“I did not send the message in question,” Amos said. “I am not a racist person. I am sorry for anyone who has been affected by this incident, and I do not condone the language used.”
A friend of Anjali’s — Devon Kurtz, also a Dartmouth student — posted a screenshot of the conversation and a second screenshot of Amos’s Tinder profile on Twitter, where it was retweeted more than 100 times.
Anjali said she did not report Amos to NU, but that she was aware several other people had filed reports after seeing the tweet. One Twitter user replying to Kurtz’s tweet said he had reported it as a Bias & Hate Incident to the University and encouraged others to do the same.
Cubbage said he could not provide any more information because universities cannot publicly reveal disciplinary actions toward students under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
The Northwestern Student Handbook lists “verbal abuse or insults about, directed at, or made in the presence of an individual … in a protected group” as an example of discrimination and harassment, which the University does not permit.
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