Office of Student Conduct Investigates Student’s Appearance in Social Media Post with Racial Epithet

As tens of thousands of protestors gathered in cities nationwide, President Dennis J. Murray addressed a social media post featuring a Marist College student and a racial epithet. The Office of Student Conduct is “in the process of investigating and addressing this situation as a disciplinary matter,” according to Murray’s email to the Marist community on Sunday night.  

“Members of our campus community who saw this post were understandably shocked, insulted, and hurt by this egregious display of discriminatory language. I count myself among them,” Murray said. 

A screenshot of the post spread far beyond the Marist community. Its inclusion in a Google document posted by one Twitter user has been retweeted by over 7,200 accounts and shared via Instagram by an influencer with more than one million followers. The Marist Circle has reached out to the student.

Marist College responded directly to a tweet sharing a screenshot of the post and cited the school’s Code of Student Conduct: 

“Marist College is committed to providing an environment that promotes academic learning, institutional and personal integrity, justice, and equality. The College considers all Marist students as partners in the responsibility of creating and maintaining that environment.” 

Murray said he will communicate again with the Marist community in the coming days concerning the unrest in cities across the country following George Floyd's death at the hands of police in Minneapolis. 

“Coming at a time when so many people across the nation are in distress over the continued deaths of African Americans in police custody, this post not only displayed a callous indifference to recent national events, but made a mockery of our institutional values,” Murray said.

In New York City alone, 345 individuals had been arrested and 33 officers injured as of Sunday morning. Protests expanded abroad in cities like Berlin and London, revealing the global influence of the movement. Curfews persist in at least 40 cities and the National Guard has been deployed in multiple states and in Washington, D.C. 

“Whatever difficulties are occurring in our larger society, our College community should be a refuge from bigotry and strife, and all of our members should feel at home,” Murray said. 

“When we reconvene in the fall, we will look for ways to promote meaningful dialogue among our campus community about the racial issues our country is facing.”