See the update at the end of this post with an image of the note stating “Go Back 2 Africa Slave” and the university disclosing it was left in the freshman student's backpack in a lab.
ORIGINAL POST, MAY 9, 2:59 P.M.: A UC Irvine freshman received a note slipped under her dorm-room door* Tuesday night that read, “Go back 2 Africa slave,” her mother has told a San Diego television station. (*The note was actually left in her backpack in a campus lab; see update.) A university spokeswoman later told ABC 10News the incident is now being investigated alongside the continuing probe into an Asian fraternity that posted a video online of students in blackface.
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“It's an indication that we have some work to do in helping our students and our entire campus community understand and value the differences we have,” Cathy Lawhon, a university spokeswoman, reportedly tells the station.
There is apparently no connection between the note under the door and the frat videos, although the mother of Charity Lyons claims an Asian person called her daughter “nigger” on campus last week.
Lawhon would not comment on whether UCI has a race problem between Asians and African Americans, 10News reports. Stephanie Lyons, Charity's mother, apparently does not want her daughter, a track athlete who is attending UCI on an academic scholarship, to stick around long enough to see if relations improve, urging her to transfer.
“If they were brave enough to put that note there,” the mother tells the station, “who knows what extent they'll go to next time?”
UPDATE, MAY 10, 1:02 P.M.: The “Go Back 2 Africa Slave” note was actually left in Charity Lyons' backpack in a campus science lab, a university spokesman tells the Weekly.
It is also being investigated whether the freshman being called “nigger” happened on or off campus a week earlier.
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