Karnataka Woman at Oxford University Forced to Quit as Students’ Union President Over ‘Racist’ Posts
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Just five days after she was elected as the first Indian woman president of the Oxford University Students Union, a 22-year-old student from Karnataka was forced to step down after some of her old social media posts were termed as “anti-Semitic” and “racist”, leading to outrage.
Despite issuing an open letter of apology for “unintentionally” hurting sentiments, Rashmi Saman, who hails from Udupi and was elected on February 11, was forced to resign, Indian Express reported.
The Oxford Students Union Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality (CRAE) and Oxford LGBTQ Campaign accused her of hurting the sentiments of various communities and insisted that she step down from her new post.
CRAE said Saman’s post were “racially insensitive” and she refused to acknowledge the “the harm caused by her actions” when questioned.
“I wish to ask a question to all who termed me insensitive and racist citing my social media posts of the past. Are you being sensitive when you judge a person’s worth based on social media captions of a non-native English speaking teenager that were posted years before the person formed convictions on issues of race? They were the posts of a teenager who just had access to the world of social media. I again reiterate my apology to those genuinely hurt for my ignorance but not to those with malicious intent,” Saman was quoted in the report as saying.
According to Indian Express, Saman is now weighing her options and is likely to take legal action against one university faculty member who allegedly put up a photo of her mother alongside a ‘Jai Shri Ram’ poster and suggested that the family has Islamophobic tendencies.
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