This student may actually be expelled over a misunderstanding on the university’s part.

PR Log reports. Hat tip to Instapundit.

George Washington University Makes Racist Mistake, But Blames and Bans Student

George Washington University officials made a racist or religious mistake but, instead of promptly correcting it, they have blamed a Jewish student for “bigotry,” banishing him from the campus, threatening him with arrest, keeping him from Passover services, and also threatening to expel him at a hearing next Monday, says John Banzhaf, a senior law professor at the University.

Campus officials, mistaking an ancient Indian symbol representing peace, prosperity, and other virtuous qualities for a Nazi swastika symbolizing racism and hate, blamed the Jewish student who posted it on the bulletin board of his own largely-Jewish fraternity, claiming incorrectly that it was in fact a swastika which expressed “bigotry and hatred,” and strongly suggesting that his act might constitute a “hate crime.”

But even ten minutes of investigation on the Internet would have revealed that the Indian religious symbol posted by the student was as different in appearance, as it is in its symbolism, from the Nazi swastika.

“The one Jewish student who saw the symbol could, of course, be excused for temporarily mistaking it for a Nazi symbol signifying racial hatred for Jews – although, once the facts were pointed out to him, he and the Jewish brothers in his fraternity no longer feel that the student who posted the symbol had any malicious, much less racist, intent.

But there is no excuse for a major university, with vast resources including professors who teach Eastern religions, not only to make the same initial mistake, but then to not only refuse to correct it as the truth undoubtedly became known to them, but also to keep punishing the student, says Banzhaf. To this day they are still referred to the symbol as a swastika, which it clearly it is not.


 
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