CMU faculty claim they fear for their ‘personal safety’ after black professor who calls for death of ‘white man’ placed on leave

"This weekend," they write, "we met with Dietrich College leadership, including Dean Cassidy Sugimoto, and LCAL faculty as well as Faculty Senate leadership. In these discussions, Interim Department Head Adam van Compernolle heard from colleagues, who described 'a sense of fear for our personal safety on and off campus.'

"These colleagues also spoke of being doxxed and receiving an influx of threatening messages that leave them feeling distressed and unsafe," the school states. "As always, the safety and well-being of the university community is a top priority. CMU Police continue to monitor the situation closely, and they have not identified any credible threats to campus."

Dr. Uju Anya was placed on leave after she replied on Friday to a post on X saying "Die first, white man, then ask yourself why I'm dancing." In another post on the same day, she said Charlie Kirk, the assassinated conservative leader and activist, was "a sh*tbag who should rot in piss."

Corey DeAngelis publicized the exchange and reached out to CMU about the professor. In a statement back to him, the school said that "these posts incorrectly imply our university's endorsement and are contrary to our community standards and values as well as our commitment to fostering a safe, respectful and welcoming campus community."

In a post, CMU acknowledged the "voluntary professional leave," saying, "Dr. Uju Anya is currently on voluntary professional leave from the university and is not teaching courses on our campus this academic year."

In that letter to the campus community, they spoke about her social media posts, saying that Anya "repeatedly and prominently invoked her connection to Carnegie Mellon and implied support from university colleagues, blurring the line between personal expression and academic authority. In her posts, she used expletives, racial slurs and derogatory language that demeaned, dehumanized and intimidated."

Anya responded to CMU on X, saying "Carnegie Mellon University knows exactly who they have. They poached me from my previous job, aggressively recruiting me with a massive salary and stellar benefits. So, baby, run tell them they fucked up, and see if they pick up your call."

She also said "Keep crying, loser. My department chair just texted me saying they're throwing all your emails in the trash."

Anya continued her tirade on her Instagram account, DeAngelis reported. In a screenshot he shared, Anya said, "During an entire day of incessant violent threats, racist abuse, and harassment on Twitter—incited by fascist white supremacist MAGA trolls—I was doxxed. I deactivated my account to protect my family. I meant every word I said in my tweets responding to white men and all others insulting and maligning me. I do not retract or apologize. May they all eat sh*t."

She also shared videos on her Instagram, showing her with two of her family members. "She did not run away from Twitter, y'all," said one of her family members in the video after it was revealed that she had deactivated her X account. "I did not!" She said, her finger in the air. The three then agree that family comes first.

In another video with the same family members, she said "these f*cking racist white supremacist pedophile a**holes will not win."

This is not the first time that CMU has had to publicly discuss Anya's posts. They addressed her hateful comments against Queen Elizabeth in 2022, but in 2024 the university awarded her tenure.

In 2022, after the death of England's long-standing monarch Queen Elizabeth, Anya had said, "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excrutiating." England, it should be noted, put an end to slavery within their empire. No other empire had done that.

Her area of expertise is "language learning and Black experiences in multilingualism," while her "primary fields of inquiry include critical applied linguistics, critical sociolinguistics and critical discourse studies, with a focus on how race, gender, sexual and social class identities intersect with language learning."

Her post on Queen Elizabeth was removed under Twitter's terms of service, but CMU backed Anya, saying that while the university does "not condone the offensive and objectionable messages," they uphold free speech. "Free expression is core to the mission of higher education," they said, "however the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster."

Students supported Anya, saying in a letter, "We recognize her immensely impactful role on campus and believe firmly in her right to free speech and safety." They went on to say that CMU's "public condemnation of her tweet provides no institutional protection from violence and places her in a precarious position, ignoring a long history of institutional racism and colonialism.

"Rejecting calls for 'civility' that are frequently leveraged against the marginalized to silence dissent," said the students, "we express our solidarity with Dr. Anya and reject the tone-policing of those with legitimate grievances." Anya backed up her comments by saying that she was "a child of colonization" from Nigeria. Anya was the winner of the 2019 AAAL First Book Award for her "Racialized Identities in Second Language Learning: Speaking Blackness in Brazil."