Carnegie Mellon University is backing a professor who said that she hopes Queen Elizabeth suffered an "excruciating" death.
In a statement responding to the massive social media outrage, the university said that "free expression is core to the mission of higher education."
Self-described "anti-racist" professor Uju Anya posted a series of tweets in the hours leading up to, and after, the Queen's death on Thursday.
"I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating," Anya wrote in a tweet that the platform has since removed.
In a subsequent tweet, Anya wrote, "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."
Another said, "that wretched woman and her bloodthirsty throne have f-cked generations of my ancestors on both sides of the family, and she supervised a government that sponsored the genocide my parents and siblings survived. May she die in agony."
The tweets sparked significant outrage on social media, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos even chiming in. This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow. https://t.co/2zoi6CdFMq
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) September 8, 2022
"This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don't think so. Wow." Bezos wrote.
Piers Morgan added, "You vile disgusting moron."
In a statement responding to the controversy, the university said that they "do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her social media account." A statement regarding recent social media posts by Uju Anya. pic.twitter.com/NinpPa4rZg
— Carnegie Mellon University (@CarnegieMellon) September 8, 2022
They added that "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."
According to Anya's bio on her website, she is a "professor and researcher in applied linguistics, critical sociolinguistics, and critical discourse studies primarily examining race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in new language learning through the experiences of African American students."
"Her other areas of inquiry include applied linguistics as a practice of social justice and translanguaging in world language pedagogy. She currently teaches and conducts research as associate professor of second language acquisition at the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Modern Languages."
The professor was born in Nigeria, a nation that was a British colony until 1960.
