Michigan State University Professor Saleem Alhabash is apologizing for sending a slur-filled survey riddled with racist and homophobic language to students. Professor Alhabash claims that his intent for sending out such a survey was to show students that “these messages do unfortunately exist.”
Michigan State University (MSU) is apologizing for an offensive survey that was sent to random students by one of its professors, Saleem Alhabash, which was obtained by one of the school’s independent student newspapers the Morning Watch.
Professor Alhabash said that he along with a group of his students had created the offensive survey in order to study the social reaction to the slur-filled language.
“This was in no way, shape, or form, the intent,” said Alhabash to WILX 10. “The intent was to uncover these messages and shed the light that these messages do unfortunately exist in the real world.”
The professor added that the survey — which contained more than 100 racial slurs and vulgarities — was sent to students at random, and had included a disclaimer, letting participants know that “some of the statements included in this study might be offensive for the use of racially charged and profane language.”
Some of the offensive survey statements included the following:
- “Haha there is nothing ‘positive’ about N*GGERS let alone the word that describes N*GGERS.” [asterisks added]
- “Homos. Faggots. Dick loving pricks. I hate them. There is no room on earth for you queers. Put a bullet in your mouth and suck on the tip of a loaded gun if you love sucking things so much.”
- “What do you call black-on-black crime? Gorilla warfare.”
- “I personally think they should shoot them all at the border and call it good… it’ll save us hard working AMERICANS billions of dollars on our taxes ;)”
- “Asians act like they’re the only people on the fucking planet. If only Hitler was reborn in Asia right now that would be fucking awesome.”
- “Go work on your suicide vest you dirty fucking Muslim.”
Students were then asked to measure how offensive, positive, stereotypical, funny, negative, or prejudiced they found each of the survey statements to be.
“I don’t believe that the psychology department or administration would allow for this to be created,” said MSU freshman Kennedy Parker to the Morning Watch, adding that “every single [survey] comment is a racial stereotype and is extremely hurtful and offensive.”
MSU president Samuel Stanley said in a statement that the incident — as well as several other separate recent instances on campus — have “disrupted a sense of safety that should exist for everyone. Building inclusive communities is at the core of our values, and the impact of recent events cannot be underestimated.”
“Our community has been affected in the past several days by incidents causing concern and anger,” said Stanley. “I, too, am concerned, because a safe, inclusive and respectful campus is my top priority. Hate has no home at Michigan State. We want every individual to feel welcomed, valued and heard.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.
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