Ed Meek, the namesake of the University of Mississippi’s journalism school, apologized Thursday for his racist, bigoted and demeaning Facebook post that used photos of two Black female students in short dresses and suggested that those women exacerbated problems that cause real estate values to fall.
Last weekend, Alabama’s Crimson Tide opened the proverbial can of whoop ass on Ole Miss in one of the biggest college football weekends of the year. Ole Miss fans and students, devastated, by the loss began the weekend acting unruly and uncivilized. Fights, violence and drunkenness were abundant the entire weekend.
On Wednesday, Meek weighed in on the debacle by uploading photos of two Black female seniors, Mahoghany Jordan and her friend and fellow student Kiyona Crawford, on his Facebook. He blamed the “late-night” postgame scenes for causing a decline in school enrollment and local real estate values.
The two young women were seen in fashionable, body-conscious dresses but were not involved in any of the ruckus which had taken place that night nor had they been arrested. They were merely crossing the street.
The Daily Mississippian posted the Facebook post and his commentary via its Twitter account below:
Meek’s bigoted and misogynistic commentary didn’t go over to well with Jordan, the student population or staff. In fact, Ole Miss’ African-American population only makes up 13% of the student population , as of 2017, so it stands to reason that the students who were arrested for fighting and disturbing the peace were white students and predominantly male.
Jordan sounded off against Meek’s charge stating: “Ed Meek’s post was not meant for me nor my good friend Kiyona Crawford. We weren’t the ones fighting Alabama fans at a tent in the Grove, we weren’t harassing our LGBTQIA+ counterparts, nor were we the ones fighting in front of bars around the Square. However, somehow for Meek, the blame for the university’s enrollment decline and city’s decline in property value was easier to associate with two women of color as opposed to the particular demographic that has been at the forefront of the school’s most controversial moments by far.”
She further chastised him about his bigoted, archaic and patriarchal point of view of the way women should dress.
“The post reeks of racist ideology as well as misogyny and is not representative of who either of us are,” she shared. “We work tirelessly for the means to have a taste of the college experience many take for granted. Personally, I have worked hard to embrace my voluptuousness — a term that, freshman year, I wouldn’t have been able to confidently use. I have worked hard to accept my rich, melanated skin tone. I have pushed through the injustices brought to me because of being a woman, all of which I have no control over. I relinquish being over-sexualized, scapegoated, and invalidated by anyone. I deserve to feel secure in my skin on this campus and in this town just as my counterparts do and I will continue to carry on as such. The two things that automatically put me at a disadvantage in our society, you’ll never completely understand.”
Well alright, Ms. Jordan!
Chancellor Jeff Vitter also denounced the post as having an “unjustified racial overtone.” In a statement via Facebook, he mentioned Meek’s behavior was unacceptable and that he needed to apologize.
It’s important to note that at one point Meek led Ole Miss public relations for 37 years starting in 1964 and donated $5.3 million to the university in 2009. There is now a change.org petition to remove his name from the school of journalism.
