Thursday, March 17, 2016

Aggies are sincerely sorry

Earlier this month, about 60 juniors from the Uplift Hampton Preparatory School in Dallas toured Texas A&M University as part of their charter school's "Road to College" program. Uplift students are mostly black and Latino, and the visit was intended to help them learn about college life. During the campus tour, one white university student showed two of the visiting high school girls her earrings, which were Confederate flags. She asked if they could be worn at the charter school. Then a group of mostly white A&M students yelled racial slurs at the visitors, including "Go back where you came from!"

                                                                    Dave McDermand/Bryan-College Station Eagle/AP
When the incident was reported, most students at Texas A&M were outraged. They arranged to write individual apology cards to the high school juniors. THOUSANDS of Aggies wrote notes, some of which were collected by Hope Beitchman, pictured here. She's a member of Texas A&M Hillel. After the cards were collected, they were delivered to Uplift Hampton Prep personally by university President Michael Young and and student body President Joseph Benigno. Yasmin Bhatia, who is CEO of Uplift Hampton, appreciated the apology notes. She said, "I encouraged our scholars to keep the letters as a symbol of a time when they overcame an obstacle on their journey to a college degree."

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