By Sam Laird2013-05-09 20:01:17 UTC
A Columbia University football player has been charged with a hate crime for threatening a fellow student, who is Asian, using racial slurs and pushing him against a wall.
NBC broke the news on Wednesday, but that charge was actually just the beginning of the story, which opened a window into a series of bigoted messages posted by Columbia football players to Twitter.
Campus radio station WKCR compiled an Imgur album of nearly four dozen of the players' tweets from 2011, 2012 and 2013. Below are a few highlights — or lowlights, to be more accurate — of the racist and homophobic posts:
"Idk what has more Asians...nail salons or Columbia U?" — quarterback Sean Brackett.
"Any guy who wears lifting gloves to the gym is a fagget" — freshman running back Mike Gerst.
"almost got thrown out of the SAT room for calling a kid a homo when he was wearing capri jeans...what is wrong with our society" — Gerst again.
"@nytimes: New York's Jewish Population Is Growing Again nyti.ms/KwZalh" #fuckkkkkk" — offensive lineman Tom Callahan.
Sure, any athlete or college kid in general can post something stupid on social media, but this is a decidedly bad look for Columbia as the story of the Ivy League bad boys gets picked up more and more around the web. Making things worse are reports that the official Columbia football account actually follows many of the players who posted offensive messages.
WKCR posted to Twitter a letter university administrators sent to Columbia students in response to the hate crime charge and Twitter posts. It reads in part:
With respect to social media messages reportedly posted by some students, we share fully in the belief that offensive messages in any form are unacceptable and fall far beneath the standards of civility and mutual respect we expect of all our students, including student athletes who represent Columbia. We are addressing this matter aggressively with the individuals involved. We also believe that broad generalizations about any group are unfair and hurtful, and we unfortunately have seen that social media has too often become a forum for such offensive comments.
While Columbia may have dropped the ball a bit here as far as monitoring the image its athletes project to the world, more and more college sports teams are placing an importance on social media training for athletes and recruits. For just one example, check out this recent tweet from Arkansas assistant football coach Brian Early:
How close should colleges monitor their athletes' social media posts? Give us your take in the comments.
Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, Ceneri; logo courtesy of Twitter
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