Harvard pulls pro-gun Parkland survivor’s acceptance over years-old racial slurs

Conservative pundit Kyle Kashuv will not join fellow Parkland shooting survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg at Harvard, saying that school pulled his acceptance over racial slurs he made in private messages when he was 16.

Having been set to attend Harvard in 2020 after taking a year off school, Kashuv announced in a series of tweets on Monday that the Ivy League institute had decided to rescind his acceptance “over texts and comments made nearly two years ago, months prior to the shooting.”

Kashuv was one of the students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, during the February 2018 attack that left 17 students and staff killed and another 17 injured. While Hogg and several other seniors became celebrity gun control activists, Kashuv made public his pro-gun views, including the right to arm school staff.

©  REUTERS/Brian Snyder

He worked for the high-school outreach wing of the pro-Trump organization Turning Point USA, and even met with the president himself. In May, however, someone dug up a private chat from 2016 in which Kashuv repeatedly used a racial slur referring to African-American.

Although he was 16 at the time and the comments were made in private, Kashuv took responsibility in a public apology on Twitter, saying his remarks had been “idiotic,” “callous and inflammatory.”

Harvard seemingly agreed with his assessment, but didn’t feel like his apology was quite enough. After reviewing the apology letter, the school replied saying he would no longer be welcome to attend, citing concerns over his “maturity and moral character.”

Despite seeking guidance from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and requesting a face to face meeting regarding the incident, Harvard had already made its decision. In his tweets, Kashuv pointed out the irony of university’s apparent message that in contemporary society, certain “mistakes brand you as irredeemable,” especially considering the school’s own “checkered past.”

Throughout its history, Harvard’s faculty has included slave owners, segregationists, bigots and anti-Semites.

“If Harvard is suggesting that growth isn't possible and that our past defines our future, then Harvard is an inherently racist institution. But I don't believe that,” Kashuv added.

Harvard has yet to issue any public response to his comments.

Despite the blow, Kashuv has gotten some support from conservative media personality Ben Shapiro, who argued that uncovering things people said when they were teenagers and holding it against them creates an “insane and cruel” standard, and sets a dangerous precedent.

One has to wonder what implications the decision will have for future applicants-- or even those already attending the prestigious institution. Around the same time Kashuv's comments were unearthed in May, the Harvard Lampoon ran an image of Holocaust victim Anne Frank in a bikini which was widely panned as anti-Semitic and even condemned by the New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.

It seems that, at least for the time being, their apology was enough.

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