Colleagues of Nigerian-born Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Uju Anya, have started mobilizing to prevent her from being sacked by the institution.
Recall that the academic has been in the eye of the storm since her vitriolic attack on the late Queen of England while she was in the throes of death.
She had tweeted: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving ra*ping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”
The tweet was received with shock from many quarters. Twitter pulled the tweet for violating their guidelines.
Amazon founder, Bezos quoted the tweet and wrote: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow!”
Professor Anya saw the tweet and responded with an Igbo curse: “Otoro gba gbuo gi”, meaning, “May stomach ache kill you!” or “May diarrhoea kill you!”
The university where she works immediately put out a statement to dissociate themselves from the sentiments Prof. Anya expressed.
Many read this as a sign of further troubles down the line for the embattled academic, especially considering the fact that Jeff Bezos is one of the financiers of CMU.
Amazon in 2020 donated $2million to CMU to support the institution’s computer science academy for three years. This appears to be why the institution hurriedly put out a disclaimer the moment Bezos expressed his consternation with Prof Anya’s tweet.
In a bid to stop further blowback for the outspoken Nigerian academic, some of her colleagues have taken it upon themselves to gather signatures of support for her.
One of such support groups is spearheaded by a Professor of Programming Languages and Software Engineering at CMU, Jonathan Aldrich.
He has commenced an aggressive outreach to get his colleagues to throw their weight behind Professor Anya to prevent her from being victimized.
Quoting the statement by CMU, he tweeted: “CMU faculty and staff, join me & others in signing a letter (https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQdIAk_6PE8LxXbpioaZwwGTeiaf-RipPZ-pgCunPB5t_jziWVIR2RQWRLjEOfpda6cmMuNH8mKRXvq/pub) in support of Prof. Uju Anya. CMU’s statement is an attack on academic freedom within the university, and emboldens the prejudiced & powerful interests attacking one of our Black women faculty.”
See the tweet below.
