Harvard University in the United States has taken back the acceptance offers of at least 10 students after it emerged that they had shared racist and highly derogatory comments and memes on a private and official Facebook group. The chat group ostensibly belonged to the Class of 2021, meaning its participants were all entering Harvard in the academic year that begins in 2017.
The Harvard Crimson — the official student newspaper of the university — quoted two freshmen in a report as saying that "a handful of admitted students formed the messaging group" in December last year. It also said that the offending Facebook group was at one point of time was called "Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens."
The Crimson report said images and messages shared on the group made fun of "sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children." It added: "Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups. One called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child 'piñata time'."
After these exchanges came to light, members of the group told the Crimson that at least 10 people — if not more — had had their acceptance letters rescinded by Harvard. These were the very acceptance letters on the basis of which they had been allowed to join the Facebook group. College spokesperson Rachael Dane, said in a statement: "We do not comment publicly on the admissions status of individual applicants."
This is hardly the first time such a scandal has come to light at Harvard. Some from the 1,100 students who had been accepted into the prestigious educational institution last year too had created such a controversy, sharing offensive and racist content on exclusive but unofficial groups created just by them.
Back then, top college officials had denounced the memes and the messages. "Harvard College and the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid were troubled and disappointed to see a conversation that included graphics with offensive themes. This exchange occurred independently of Harvard College through a link posted by students to a closed messaging group, and we have removed this link from our Facebook group," Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R Fitzsimmons had written on the official Facebook page of Harvard's Class of 2020.
However, no disciplinary action had been taken against the offending students involved in that incident.
