A University of Alabama student was removed from her sorority and expelled from the university on Wednesday after multiple racist videos, in which she used the n-word multiple times, surfaced on Twitter after she posted them to her private, fake Insta or “finsta” account.
As the Huffington Post reports, in the first video, 19-year-old Harley Barber, a UA student from New Jersey who was reportedly a member of the school’s Alpha Phi chapter, can be seen filming herself in front of a bathroom mirror talking about how she doesn’t waste water, “because of the poor people in Syria.” Things only become more horrible and cringe-worthy from there when she adds, “I love how I act like I love black people because I f*cking hate (n-word).”
In response to the swift backlash she apparently received on the first video, Barber later posted an even more hateful video in which she is cheered on by friends as she repeats the n-word, saying, “I don’t care if it’s Martin Luther King Day. I’m in the south now so everybody can f*ck off. I’m from New Jersey so I can say (n-word) as much as I want.”
Meet white supremacist Harley Barber, a University of Alabama Alpha Phi Member from New Jersey. She goes on a vile anti-Black rant with her fellow white supremacists girlfriends giggling in the background pic.twitter.com/wxRcqI4V3G
— Bishop Talbert Swan (@TalbertSwan) January 17, 2018
For obvious reasons, screen recordings of the videos, which went viral on Twitter, didn’t sit well with Barber’s fellow students, university administration and basically the entire Internet. In response, University of Alabama students held a protest on campus on Wednesday and the university announced Barber’s expulsion not long after.
“The actions of this student do not represent the larger student body or the values of our University, and she is no longer enrolled here,” University of Alabama president Stuart R. Bell said in a statement. “We hold our students to much higher standards, and we apologize to everyone who has seen the videos and been hurt by this hateful, ignorant and offensive behavior. This is not who we are; it is unacceptable and unwelcome here at UA.”
Damien Harris, a running back on Alabama’s football team, took to Twitter to respond to Barber’s videos, pointing out that they make it clear that racism is unfortunately alive and well.
This girl goes to the same university as me but they say, “racism is dead.” Unfortunately, this thread says the opposite. https://t.co/OaYeCVEGUQ
— Damien Harris (@DHx34) January 16, 2018
Linda Kahangi, the executive director of Alpha Phi, confirmed to the Associated Press that Barber had been removed from the sorority. “Alpha Phi is a diverse, values-based organization and condemns the language and opinions in these videos,” Kahangi said in a statement. “They are offensive and hateful to both our own members and to other members of the Greek and campus community.”
Meanwhile, Barber has since apologized for the awful videos, telling the New York Post, “I did something really, really bad. I don’t know what to do and I feel horrible. I’m wrong and there’s just no excuse for what I did.”