Donor requested his name be removed after pressure from faculty and students
Following a controversial Facebook post, Dr. Ed Meek, an alumnus and donor, has asked that his name be removed from the University of Mississippi’s journalism school. He made the request after other faculty members called on him to do so.
Meek’s Facebook post called for university and local “leaders” to “get on top of” some unspecified problem related to “fights and scenes” at the university. The post showed two images of black women in revealing attire. “I think it is important that our community see what the camera is seeing at 2 a.m. after a ballgame,” Meek wrote. Meek also cited declining enrollment and dropping real estate values, The Clarion Ledger reported.
“We all share in the responsibility to protect the values we hold dear that have made Oxford and Ole Miss known nationally,” Meek’s post concluded.
Credit: Clarion Ledger
The post was deleted soon afterwards, but Meek received backlash from faculty members and students, including Chancellor Jeff Vitter, who posted on Facebook: “I must condemn the tone and content of Ed Meek’s post from earlier today. The photos in his post suggest an unjustified racial overtone that is highly offensive. Ed, I urge you to withdraw your comment and apologize to anyone offended.”
Meek subsequently posted an apology on Facebook, along with a request that his name be removed from the school:
Today I have asked the University of Mississippi to remove my name from the School of Journalism and New Media. This past week I made a post on Facebook that reflected poorly on myself, the School and our University. It was never my intention to cast the problems our community faces as a racial issue. I do not believe that to be the case. I heartily apologize to all I have offended. I particularly apologize to those depicted in the photographs I posted. I was wrong to post them and regret that I did so.
I have spent my life in service to the Oxford-University community and have prided myself that I was a proponent of integration and diversity at all times. I helped to transform the department of Journalism into a School because of my passion for a free press, free speech, and an independent student media. My desire then and now is for the School of Journalism to be a global leader in Journalism education. I recognize that the attachment of my name to the School of Journalism is no longer in the best interest of that vision. I love Ole Miss too much to be one who inhibits the University and the School from reaching the highest potential and it is with that in mind that I make this request.
One of the women who was pictured in the Facebook post, Mahoghany Jordan, is currently a student at the university and authored a guest column in The Daily Mississippian in response to the controversy. In the column, Jordan wrote that the post “reeks of racist ideology as well as misogyny” and said: “I don’t need your apology. In fact I don’t need anything from the reciprocal guilt you feel after being called out for what you are.”
Meek’s name was attached to the school as part of a $5.3 million donation he had made. The renaming process, if it continues, will take some time, as the Ledger reported that there are four levels of approval that must be confirmed before the name is officially changed.
Read The Clarion Ledger’s report here and Mahoghany Jordan’s column here.
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