The ACLU is STILL spreading the Smith College racism hoax

The ACLU backed up Oumou Kanoute when she publicly claimed Smith College staff persecuted her for “eating while black.” They still do even after a probe proving the college’s innocence is now receiving widespread attention.

The Tucker Carlson show has a refresher course for those first hearing about this story.

So far the ACLU has refused to formally correct their  claims.

In the interim, Smith College capitulated to the demands of “anti-bias training” as so desired by Kanoute and the ACLU. The changes enacted go all the way up to giving black students their own set of dormitories. In the wake of this disaster, Smith College was left in a state of fear: “My perception is that if you’re on the wrong side of issues of identity politics, you’re not just mistaken, you’re evil,” said Smith College’s economics professor James Miller.

CNN, New York Times, and Washington Post all went with the narrative uncritically that a black female student was harassed for simply eating. However it’d later come out that Oumou Kanoute was eating in a deserted, closed dorm where she wasn’t supposed to be, and the school’s janitor followed policy by alerting campus security.

It wasn’t until a few days ago that the New York Times finally cleared up the old record. We have to flashback to July 31st 2018.

The dilemma stems from the fact Kanoute broke the rules about student workers eating in the Tyler Cafeteria that was reserved for young children in a summer program. A worker named Jackie Blair tried warning Kanoute about this but dropped the issue. Oumou Kanoute ignored them and ate lunch around the closed dormitory anyway. So an aging janitor in his 60s reported Oumou for essentially trespassing.

Even so, the security worker who showed up on scene recognized Kanoute and had a polite conversation with her about the misunderstanding.

Oumou Kanoute took to Facebook anyway, to complain:  “All I did was be Black. It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color.”

That social media complaint hit Smith College directly. This was when President Kathleen McCartney immediately capitulated into an apology. She immediately placed the janitor on leave without even speaking to the accused employees involved here.

Oumou Kanoute continued their online tirade by posting the names, photos, and emails of both cafeteria worker Jackie Blair, as well as an unrelated janitor, Mark Patenaude who actually had gone home well before the incident that day. Ms. Blair has lupus and the stress of being called racist triggered an episode. Notes saying: “RACIST,” “you don’t deserve to live,” and “ you should be ashamed of yourself” were sent to both Blair’s home and taped to her car.

Smith College had to step in and clarify that Blair didn’t call security but stopped short of publicly clearing her of blame. Instead electing to quietly apologize to her, privately.

On October 28th 2018 a 35-page report came out from a law firm, and the findings essentially exonerated those involved of wrongdoing.

"The investigation did not find that the evidence was sufficient to show that the Reported Party was discriminated against with respect to the Incident. The investigation did not find that the Dining Employee engaged in the behaviors complained of by the Reported Party. The investigation determined that the Caller had a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for contacting the Campus Police, and there was insufficient information to conclude that the Caller’s stated reason was a pretext for discrimination on the basis of the Reported Party’s race or color, in violation of the Policy. Nor did the investigation find evidence that Responding Officer or Dispatcher violated the Policy by discriminating against the Reported Party on the basis of race or color."

However President McCartney did not apologize to the employees after the report cleared their names.  Rahsaan Hall of ACLU Massachusetts  (and lawyer for Oumou Kanoute) denounced the report’s veracity, citing “subconscious bias” is difficult to prove. However all the meanwhile he downplayed the targeted harassment of those accused in the first place. Hall claimed being accused of racism is not as bad as actual racism in of itself.

“It’s troubling that people are more offended by being called racist than by the actual racism in our society. Allegations of being racist, even getting direct mailers in their mailbox, is not on par with the consequences of actual racism.”

But the smears still followed Jackie Blair even after she was reassigned to a different place on campus, and even still after she tried to get another job entirely. Mark Patenaude on the other hand flat-out quit shortly after Kanoute targeted him on Facebook.

It's unknown why it took roughly two and half years for the public notice to catch-up to this story.