Boston University Professor Saida Grundy (Boston University)
Boston University, which has already condemned the racist Tweets of an incoming faculty member, has now been sent an outrageous Facebook exchange in which a poster who identifies herself as the controversial sociology professor mercilessly ridicules a white rape victim.
“go cry somewhere. since that’s what you do.”
Saida Grundy, a newly hired professor at Boston University who recently said she regrets tweeting that white males are a "problem population," and other racially charged comments, is now accused of Facebook posts in which she appeared to taunt a white rape victim. That victim, Meghan Chamberlin, told FoxNews.com that the posts, made in a February public chat, felt “like a kick in the stomach.”
The woman who identified herself as Grundy posted the comments after Chamberlin took issue with a controversial article on race that the Facebook thread had linked to.
“I LITERALLY cry and lose sleep over this,” Chamberlin wrote, adding she had been raped as a child and felt that: “what this article did was tell me that I'm not aloud (sic) to ask for help… Because I am a WHITE woman… So when I read this article… you do understand what that does to me, right? It kills me…”
The woman, who identified herself as Sai Grundy in the Feb. 25 thread and uses the same photo the professor uses on tweets she acknowledged last week, responded by making fun of the victim’s crying.
“’I literally cry’…. While we literally die,” she said before adding, “try this article. A white woman explaining this issue to other white women… who manages NOT to cry while doing it!”
Chamberlin, the rape survivor, responded: “No really. I got it. You can take your claws out, thanks.”
To which Grundy exploded:
“^^THIS IS THE S**T I AM TALKING ABOUT. WHY DO YOU GET TO PLAY THE VICTIM EVERY TIME PEOPLE OF COLOR AND OUR ALLIES WANT TO POINT OUT RACISM. my CLAWS?? Do you see how you just took an issue that WASNT about you, MADE it about you, and NOW want to play the victim when I take the time to explain to you some s**t that is literally $82,000 below my pay grade? And then you promote your #whitegirltears like that’s some badge you get to wear… YOU BENEFIT FROM RACISM. WE’RE EXPLAINING THAT TO YOU and you’re vilifying my act of intellectual altruism by saying i stuck my “claws” into you?”
Chamberlin responded by trying to leave the discussion. “I am choosing to “exit” this conversation,” she wrote.
But Grundy posted again, finishing with: “go cry somewhere. since that’s what you do.”
Chamberlin responded: “Will do.”
Grundy then responded to others: “am I mocking her tears or am I saying that her tears are meaningless displays of emotions because they don’t reflect at ALL an intention to understand the issue from the prospective (sic) of women of color or queer women.”
She added, “my name is *Sai*, but you can call me Dr. Grundy.”
The above quotes are excerpts from the Feb. 25 exchange. The extended exchange is here, and the victim’s remark describing how she is a rape victim is truncated in the screenshot, but an extended post can be viewed here. Chamberlin gave permission to publish her name.
The exchange was taken down from Facebook late Wednesday, just hours after FoxNews.com asked Frank William Miller Junior, on whose Facebook page the posts appeared, what he thought of Grundy’s comments.
Grundy did not return an email or a phone call from FoxNews.com about her posts on Thursday morning; within hours of FoxNews.com reaching out, her Facebook page was taken down. Before the deletion, FoxNews.com took a screenshot of her page which shows the exact same name and twitter article as appears in the screenshots.
FoxNews.com talked separately with three different people who also posted comments on that Facebook thread. FoxNews.com was tipped off to the existence of the thread by one of the three posters. Two of the participants in the thread had taken screenshots, which they shared with FoxNews.com.
Chamberlin told FoxNews.com she was shaken by the online run-in.
“What that day did was send me back years,” she said. "I felt like I was being "shhhh'd" again… I didn't know Dr. Grundy was a professor or a doctor until she stated so... when I read that, the kick in the gut felt deeper,” she said.
The woman who alerted FoxNews.com to the Facebook thread said she did so even though she was friends with the original poster (and did not know Chamberlin personally) because she felt no rape survivor should have to go through what happened.
“Self-important and condescending academics are nothing unusual, but mocking a traumatized rape victim crosses a line,” she said.
Another woman involved in the thread told FoxNews.com that she alerted Boston University officials about the Facebook exchange on Thursday, sending them an email with screenshots she took.
“When regarding her continued employment with Boston University, I hope the magnitude of her desensitized ability to have no compassion for a rape victim is considered,” she said in a letter to school officials.
Grundy, an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at the school, previously tweeted that "white masculinity is THE problem for america’s (sic) colleges," white men are a "problem population,” and that she tries to avoid shopping at white-owned businesses. Last week, after several alumni complaints, Boston University president Robert Brown condemned the racist tweets.
“We are disappointed and concerned by statements that reduce individuals to stereotypes on the basis of a broad category such as sex, race, or ethnicity," Brown wrote in an email blast to the "Boston University community." "I believe Dr. Grundy’s remarks fit this characterization,” he said in a statement.
That prompted Grundy, who has not returned repeated requests for comment, to release a statement in which she said the tweets were the result of “personal passion” surrounding unspecified “events we now witness with regularity in our nation.”
“I regret that my personal passion about issues surrounding these events led me to speak about them indelicately," Grundy said. "I deprived them of the nuance and complexity that such subjects always deserve."
Boston University said after the tweets no action will be taken against Grundy. The university did not respond to a request for comment on whether any action would be taken against Grundy in light of the Facebook comments.
The author, Maxim Lott, can be reached at www.maximlott.comor at maxim.lott@foxnews.com
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