University diversity officer keeps job despite ‘kill all white men’ tweet

A UNIVERISTY ‘diversity officer’ who tweeted ‘kill all white men’ is not exactly repentant. But she will keep her job despite a fierce backlash.

A UNIVERISTY diversity officer who allegedly tweeted “kill all white men”, described white people as “trash” and attempted to ban “cis men” from a social gathering has managed to keep her job.

Bahar Mustafa, 27, a student union officer at the UK’s Goldsmiths University, has been embroiled in a months-long row over a series of alleged racist and sexist incidents, but maintains she cannot be racist because she is an ethnic minority woman.

It all began in February, when Ms Mustafa promoted an event on Facebook inviting only BME, or black and minority ethnic women. “[Please] invite loads of BME Women and non-binary people!!,” she wrote.

“Also if you’ve been invited and you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME just cos i invited a bunch of people and hope you will be responsible enough to respect this is a BME Women and non-binary event only.”

Ms Mustafa, who organised the student union event to protest against inequality, celebrate racial unity and challenge the “white-centric culture of occupations”, had earlier posted similar invitations to “BME only” social gatherings.

The original Facebook post which sparked the controversy.

Responding to a storm of criticism over the posts, Ms Mustafa later read a statement defending herself by saying she could not be racist or sexist as she is “an ethnic minority woman”.

“I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist toward white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender and therefore women of colour and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist since we do not stand to benefit from such a system,” she said.

Last week, The UK Telegraph reported Ms Mustafa was being investigated by police over hate speech for allegedly tweeting “kill all white men”. She also used a university Twitter account to call a student activist “white trash”, for which she later apologised.

A three-week petition by members of the student union to remove her from her position failed as it only attracted 165 signatures, which was 1.9 per cent of the membership, below the 3 per cent threshold.

However, a Change.org petition calling for Ms Mustafa to be removed from the university for breaches of the code of conduct and hate speech has attracted more than 20,000 signatures.

“As a cis-gendered white male, I am disturbed to follow this story and if this is what is being harboured in universities in receipt of endowment, further action will be taken,” wrote the petition’s starter, Andy Keene.

“Hate crime is a serious offence, we ask that you follow your rules and also the rule of law, as a university that teaches undergraduate law, we are sure you will follow it. Does Goldsmiths University take racism seriously? Or is it only serious when it is other races than the white race being attacked?”

Progressive website Slate has slammed the petition and defended Ms Mustafa over her “ironic misandry”, writing “a woman tweets #KillAllWhiteMen and the internet explodes”.

“Mustafa is not the first to have her reputation raked across the web on account of some lousy tweets,” Slate wrote. “But she may be the first to crumble over a case of ironic misandry, a tongue-in-cheek form of discourse favoured by the young feminist internet natives.

“This is the time we live in: thousands of people have signed a petition to unseat a woman they’ve never heard of from a position they don’t understand at a school they’ve never visited over a tweet they’ve never seen.”

In a response to the student union petition calling for a vote of no confidence, Ms Mustafa issued a long statement, saying the media controversy was “based on misinformation sparked by the original student ‘freelance journalist’, who we can see historically, appears to target BME women”.

“Since the media storm, I have received death and rape threats, racial and gendered abuse, and had journalists from right-wing publications come to my home where my family live,” she wrote.

Originally published as University diversity officer keeps job despite ‘kill all white men’ tweet