The College of South Alabama has positioned three professors on depart and appointed a former federal prosecutor to research their sporting of allegedly racist costumes to a 2014 Halloween social gathering on campus.
College President Tony Waldrop confirmed the suspensions and stated the college has employed Suntrease Williams-Maynard, a former federal prosecutor and lawyer for the US Equal Employment Alternative Fee, to research the matter.
The three professors – Bob Wooden, Alex Sharland and Teresa Weldy – are underneath fireplace after photos of them at a 2014 costume social gathering got here to mild and sparked pupil outrage. Wooden, then dean of South Alabama’s enterprise faculty, wore a reproduction Accomplice uniform, whereas Sharland and Weldy had been proven holding a noose and a whip, respectively.
EXCLUSIVE: The College of South Alabama is responding after controversial pictures of three tenured professors resurface.
One is dressed as a accomplice common, the opposite two are posing with a whip and a noose.
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A change.org petition demanding that the three professors be fired has collected greater than 2,600 signatures. In keeping with the petition, the social gathering pictures had been posted on the college’s Fb web page “with none signal of regret or advice of wrongdoing,” and had been eliminated solely in 2020.
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“The truth that these professors are nonetheless at present employed by the college exhibits a deep failure to decide to a secure, welcoming setting for college students of all backgrounds,” the petitioners stated. “The informal racism portrayed by these professors can not go unpunished.”
College students held two protests close to the campus Bell Tower on Friday. Waldrop, who beforehand introduced plans to retire later this 12 months, stated the college is “treating this example with the utmost seriousness and with a dedication to appearing upon the outcomes of the investigation.”
Wooden, who was named Dean of the Yr in 2020 by Beta Gamma Sigma, the worldwide enterprise honor society, apologized in an announcement for his selection of costume. “Seven years in the past, I rented and wore a last-minute costume that was ill-conceived to a school and pupil Halloween costume contest, at which I served on a panel of judges to pick the winners,” he stated. “I sincerely apologize and am sorry for doing so, and say sorry for this error in judgment.”
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