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Vanderbilt University said Tuesday that its assistant football coach Dan Jackson violated its social media policy. But the university said that the post, which defended Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was made because Jackson did not know at the time of Ye’s racist and antisemitic remarks.
Jackson posted the remark several weeks ago on his personal Facebook page, in response to a friend’s post.
“Unaware of the recent racist and antisemitic remarks by rapper Ye … Coach Jackson used him as an example to show support for the original post’s demand for free expression and equality in the treatment of Black and white public figures. When learning about the nature and content of Ye’s remarks, Coach Jackson realized that his post had been misguided and uninformed and understood why his comment had caused harm,” said a statement from Candice Lee, the athletic director, on the incident.
The university determined that the comments “were not discriminatory nor intended to target any group and did not violate Vanderbilt’s anti-harassment policy. The comments did, however, violate the Electronic Communications and Information Technology Resources policy for staff, which prohibits ‘unprofessional communication that could negatively impact Vanderbilt’s reputation or interfere with Vanderbilt’s core mission.’”
She also released a statement from Jackson. He said, “After being made aware of discriminatory statements made by West, I was sickened to know that my words could be interpreted as hurtful. For this I am saddened and apologetic. In no way do I support antisemitism or any form of discrimination, nor do I condone any forms of bias.”
