SINGAPORE – A National University of Singapore (NUS) student is being investigated by the school and has stepped down from her student leadership position after videos of her making racist remarks went viral online.
The probe, which NUS said in a media statement on April 24 it had undertaken, comes after an online petition was started on April 19 calling on the university to take “serious disciplinary action” against the student.
As at 10.30am on April 24, the petition has garnered 686 signatures.
In the first video where the student made the offensive remarks, which appeared to be sent on messaging platform Telegram, she introduced herself as the recruitment head of an orientation programme and said she was residing at a hostel in NUS.
She went on to make comments targeting a specific race and playing up racial stereotypes, and ended the video by saying “I’m not racist”.
The video was later reposted on Instagram on April 2 along with a second Telegram video that featured her.
In the second video, she listed her “pet peeves” against international students from specific countries, claiming that she could not understand the way they spoke.
The videos have since been reposted on various social media platforms, including TikTok and discussion forum Reddit.
In a comment to one of the reposted videos, a user named themiarita said: “You could’ve just called out bad behaviour, but you chose to bring race into it and that says a lot about you.”
The user added: “Not everyone has English as their first language. Maybe be a bit more understanding. Don’t need to generalise an entire race just to make the point.”
The student later made another video to apologise, which was forwarded to a Telegram channel on April 19 created specifically for that purpose. The video was viewed more than 12,000 times as at April 24.
In this video, the student apologised for “sending out… the introduction bubble”.
“I understand that it may have offended a few people,” she said, adding that it was not her intention to do so.
NUS said on April 24 it will “take all necessary disciplinary action” and that it is “committed to the principles of respect and dignity”.
“Clause 7 of the NUS Code of Student Conduct states that conduct which ‘insults, abuses, denigrates, victimises, demeans, embarrasses or disparages others’ is not acceptable to the university,” a spokesperson for the university said.
NUS added that the student has stepped down from the student committee and is no longer residing on campus.
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