University Responds to Insensitive Video

On Tuesday, Feb. 4th, a series of videos were published online of a Frostburg State University (FSU) student containing racially insensitive comments aimed at the African-American community at large, the Black Lives Matter Movement, as well as the history of slavery in the United States of America. The inflammatory videos are rife with expletives and prompted a wide response from both the FSU student community and the university administration, which has universally denounced the videos and views expressed.

The student in question, Rainier Ramos Jr., was expected to graduate from Frostburg State in 2020, according to his personal Instagram page. He has since withdrawn from the university. In the videos, Ramos cited his Palestinian nationality to belittle the strife African Americans face in the United States. Ramos said, “you don’t know what oppression is” and asserted that African-Americans “are getting killed by the police” because they “don’t [expletive] listen.” Ramos also made light of African-American slavery, saying, “it’s [expletive] over.”

The videos, shared on Twitter by Hasan Levithan quickly circulated, reached 56.1 thousand views as of this publication. The Twitter community, many of them Frostburg State students, swiftly denounced Ramos’s views and responded by tagging Frostburg State University’s social media accounts including FSU President Ronald Nowaczyk. Frostburg State’s administration and student organizations promptly responded, condemning the views expressed in the videos by Ramos. President Nowaczyk stated both on his official Twitter page and in a university-wide email the views indicated by Ramos are “abhorrent and not reflective of the values of Frostburg State.” Nowaczyk also affirmed he was working with FSU Student Affairs to follow Frostburg State’s established protocols regarding hate speech.

Frostburg State’s Black Student Alliance (BSA) released an official statement on their Twitter account which condemned Ramos’s thoughts and called on students to “use this opportunity to come together.” BSA presented the idea of openly discussing differences to “grasp a better understanding of one another.” BSA President Korey King could not be reached for comment by publication time.

FSU’s Student Government Association (SGA) also issued a statement calling Ramos’s comments “intolerable” and declared SGA would be working with the campus community to ensure that FSU is a “safe place for all students.” SGA President Jenna Puffinburger issued the following statement to The Bottom Line, “The actions and opinions displayed in the video were concerning and ignorant. We need to set up a plan of action for how we are going to ensure that there is enough room for civil discourse on our campus and that we are constantly celebrating the diversity that makes FSU proud. I look forward to working with other student leaders and Student Affairs in the coming weeks to make sure students’ voices are being heard and change is being made.”

On Wednesday, Feb. 5th, Dr. Artie Travis, Vice President for Student Affairs, sent out a campus-wide email indicating that President Nowaczyk, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, Dr. Jeff Graham, and himself met with leaders of six student organizations to discuss how to handle the situation going forward to ensure a “safe, respectful, and inclusive community.”

The Student Government Association’s opened their first meeting of the semester on Thursday, Feb. 6th with a forum hosted by Dr. Nowaczyk and Dr. Travis where students could ask questions regarding the videos and the subsequent university response. For coverage of the forum and the questions asked, see The Bottom Line’s article on the Student Government Association meeting.