Two students at Arizona State University were punished after a viral video showed them harassing two white, male students for studying in the university’s multicultural center and are accusing the school of discriminating against them.
Undergraduate student Mastaani Qureshi and graduate student Sarra Tekola posted a video on Instagram saying, “Dear White People, A.K.A. ASU — You openly discriminated against us on November 16 when you handed down your decision from your racially biased investigation”.
According to emails obtained by Campus Reform, they were charged with “interfering with or disrupting university or university-sponsored activities”.
The two students were seen in the video from September approaching two white students and harassing them for studying in a multicultural space. One male had a sticker on his computer that said “Police Lives Matter” and the other male was wearing a “Did Not Vote For Biden” shirt.
“This is the violence that ASU does and this is the type of people that they protect. Okay, this white man thinks he can take up our space. And this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this s**t,” one of the girls said in the video.
An investigation was launched and a third student that was allegedly involved had similar charges against her dropped.
Qureshi and Tekola claimed the investigation was “racially biased” and said ASU is the number one school for “ignoring marginalized students”. “We’re being persecuted for defending our multicultural center from racism and sexism … ASU is a violent place,” they said.
A clip from a rally was included in their video, showing Tekola saying “ASU refuses to protect students of color, and the world needs to know how they treat us here on this campus when we push to make it a better place for all”.
Tekola argued that asking “students of color” to be more civil when confronted by alleged “white supremacy and neo-Nazism” is “actually violent”.
The two students claim they have faced “rape, death and lynching threats” on social media and are suffering from “emotional and psychological violence”.