A Parkland shooting survivor had his Harvard acceptance rescinded after his past racist comments surfaced online
“Harvard deciding that someone can’t grow, especially after a life-altering event like the shooting, is deeply concerning.”
A student who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School says his admission to Harvard was rescinded after racist comments he made “a few years ago” surfaced online.
Kyle Kashuv, a conservative activist who opposes the push for gun control by other survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting, posted a statement on Twitter in May when the comments initially surfaced.
The teen said he was “embarrassed by the petty, flippant kid” illustrated in his comments and said he knew he could do better.
“We were 16-year-olds making idiotic comments, using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible,” he wrote. “I’m embarrassed by it, but I want to be clear that the comments I made are not indicative of who I am or who I’ve become in the years since.”
A quick note on callous comments I made a few years ago in high school that are circulating. pic.twitter.com/E6Ki6XIhtc
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) May 23, 2019
According to HuffPost, Parkland students shared a Google document, texts, and Skype messages where Kashuv wrote racial slurs and racist comments. The messages dated from late 2017 and early 2018, according to the publication.
On Monday, Kashuv said his acceptance to the Harvard Class of 2023 had been rescinded over the circulated comments. Two of his Parkland classmates, David Hogg and Jaclyn Corin, are headed to Harvard.
“Harvard deciding that someone can’t grow, especially after a life-altering event like the shooting, is deeply concerning,’ Kashuv wrote in a series of tweets, describing his back and forth with the university. “If any institution should understand growth, it’s Harvard, which is looked to as the pinnacle of higher education despite its checkered past.”
Kashuv said sharing his experience is “about whether we live in a society in which forgiveness is possible or mistakes brand you as irredeemable, as Harvard has decided for me.”
As for next steps, the teen said he’s “exploring all options at the moment.”
1/ THREAD: Harvard rescinded my acceptance.
Three months after being admitted to Harvard Class of 2023, Harvard has decided to rescind my admission over texts and comments made nearly two years ago, months prior to the shooting.
I have some thoughts. Here’s what happened.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
3/ After I issued this apology, speculative articles were written, my peers used the opportunity to attack me, and my life was once again reduced to a headline.
It sent me into one of the darkest spirals of my life.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
5/ I responded to the letter with a full explanation, apology, and requested documents. pic.twitter.com/yWd6FeKWOJ
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
7/ Harvard decided to rescind my admission with the following letter. pic.twitter.com/P3bLkF3hHn
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
9/ After receiving Harvard’s letter revoking my acceptance, I responded by asking for the opportunity to have an in-person meeting to make my case face to face and work towards any possible path of reconciliation.
Harvard responded by declining my meeting request. pic.twitter.com/rdsGU7BhjD
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
11/ Throughout its history, Harvard’s faculty has included slave owners, segregationists, bigots and antisemites. If Harvard is suggesting that growth isn’t possible and that our past defines our future, then Harvard is an inherently racist institution.
But I don’t believe that.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
13/ So what now? I’m figuring it out.
I had given up huge scholarships in order to go to Harvard, and the deadline for accepting other college offers has ended.
I’m exploring all options at the moment.
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
Sides were quickly taken on social media, with some saying the university had a right to rescind Kashuv’s admission and others decrying the school’s action.
The use of a disgusting word, in private, by a 16-year-old, should not be an unforgivable event. And the idea of teenage idiocy being weaponized in a retaliatory fashion like oppo research — and ‘succeeding’ — is frightening. Harvard’s role in this is reactionary and craven…
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) June 17, 2019
A lot of white people still don’t get it. This isn’t a gaff. You’re not only embarrassing yourself. You don’t owe me, harvard, or twitter an apology. You recorded yourself calling your classmates “n—rjocks.” This isn’t about PC. This is about abuse. Harvard is right to rescind. https://t.co/DvQuJ6rZbE
— Aymann Ismail (@aymanndotcom) June 17, 2019
A white kid calling black athletes “nigger jocks” may very well be a “youthful mistake,” as conservatives are arguing on Twitter, but mistakes have consequences. This is 2019, not 1819. Harvard has every right to rescind that student’s admission.
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 17, 2019
Wherein a bunch of adults decided to excoriate a teen over a bad, stupid joke he made as an even younger teen in an attempt to ruin his life bcse of 2A disagreement. The idea of repentance and forgiveness is dead in our society. It isn’t about persuasion, it’s about destruction. https://t.co/5TRzrCCSbo
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 17, 2019
I got into Harvard by playing to their liberal, statist groupthink biases by not saying anything racist while in high school.
— @petersagal.bsky.social (@petersagal) June 17, 2019
https://twitter.com/CQuintanaDC/status/1140642360294092801
https://twitter.com/rgay/status/1140654288328245248
“We do not comment publicly on the admissions status of individual applicants,” Rachel Dane, a spokeswoman for Harvard, told Boston.com in an email.
Harvard reserves the right to withdraw an admission offer if a student fails to graduate, shows a drop in their academic performance, an application is found to contain misrepresentations, or if the admitted student “engages or has engaged in behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity or moral character.”
In 2017, the university withdrew admissions offers to 10 incoming freshman after discovering that the students exchanged offensive images and messages in a private Facebook group.
