The Morgan Bettinger case is gaining national notoriety. After Reason magazine detailed the travesty of the University of Virginia student who was punished for using the words “speed bumps” in a way that militant leftist protesters construed as threatening, the Daily Mail has picked up the story. The Daily Mail does not add much new information, but it does crystallize the insanity of the episode, in which rumors spreading on social media panicked UVa officials into running Bettinger through a flawed student disciplinary system.
As the Daily Mail summarized the travesty: “Celebrated BLM activist ruthlessly destroyed white student’s life by accusing her of saying racial justice protesters would ‘make good speed bumps’ — only to later admit she may have MISHEARD.” The chief accuser was Zyahna Bryant, who had been awarded numerous honors in recognition of her student activism. She spread vitriol against Bettinger online, and then demanded that UVa discipline her.
Although UVa’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights (OECR) found no evidence to confirm the allegation that she had verbally threatened the protesters, the student-run judiciary committee compelled her to write an apology to Bryant and perform social justice-related community service if she wanted to graduate.
Bettinger has asked President Jim Ryan to scrub the unverified allegations from her student record but he has declined to get involved, expressing a reluctance to override a decision made by the student judiciary.
Now that Bettinger’s case is getting national attention, The Jefferson Council urges him to reconsider. Bettinger has no intention of letting the matter die. Her attorney has circulated a draft lawsuit to University Counsel Cliff Iler and the Office of the Attorney General. The more Ryan drags out a resolution of the case, the more he will make a mockery of his formulation that UVa is “great and good.”
— JAB
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