[videowaywire video_id=”5573BC2810907D2D”]
*The University of Florida was in apology mode over the weekend for the way black graduates were treated during a spring commencement ceremony.
As students were on stage receiving their diplomas, some black grads who took a moment to celebrate complained that a faculty member rushed them off the stage in an aggressive manner that was not used with white graduates.
Watch below:
Almost fell when he pushed me pic.twitter.com/98meStYalY
— thugger ? (@mythuggin) May 5, 2018
More details below, via ABC News:
University of Florida graduate Christopher Garcia-Wilde said the usher appeared to only shove black students who wanted to celebrate on stage “by strolling, which is a cultural tradition in historically black fraternities and sororities.” Other students who took slightly more time on stage were rushed, but not in an aggressive manner, he said.
“It’s a tradition to stroll at graduation if you choose to, and people have been doing this for years,” Garcia-Wilde, 22, told The Gainesville Sun on Sunday. “I was actually too afraid [to stroll] because I saw him shove other people.
“But my two friends who graduated with me really wanted to do it, so they tried. They both were pushed and one of them got an entire bear hug,” he added.
Oliver Telusma, one of Garcia-Wilde’s friends who was manhandled on stage, said the usher’s behavior was undoubtedly racist.
“I had just started, and he picked me up and turned me around, which I thought was kind of embarrassing and degrading to be handled in that manner.” The 21-year-old member of the Beta Sigma chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity said he had to shove the usher in order to break free of his grip.
It’s a situation where time and time again the university has made black bodies feel unsafe,” Telusma, a part of UF’s nearly 10,000-member spring 2018 graduating class, told The Gainesville Sun.
As video of the incident went viral over the weekend, University of Florida President Kent Fuchs acknowledged that the school had been “inappropriately aggressive” while rushing graduates across the stage on Saturday.
“During one of this weekend’s commencement ceremonies, we were inappropriately aggressive in rushing students across the stage,” Fuchs said in a tweet on Sunday. “I personally apologize, and am reaching out to the students involved.”
Fuchs reiterated those comments during a speech at another one of the university’s spring commencement ceremonies on Sunday afternoon.
Fuchs said the hands-on removal process would be banned from future ceremonies.
“The practice has been halted for all future ceremonies and we will work to make sure all graduating students know we are proud of their achievements and celebrate with them their graduation,” Fuchs said.
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