After Black alumni strongly denounced his actions, Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. apologized on Monday for a May 27 tweet — which he has now deleted — in which he posted a picture of a blackface mask. Several alumni and staff of the Virginia university called the tweet racist and at least three Black staff members, including a professor, have since resigned.
While Falwell Jr. apologized in his Monday tweets, he also said his earlier Blackface tweet used an image to make a political point, something he claimed that Black alumni “understood.”
Falwell Jr. is referring to the fact that in the tweet in question, he’d included a photograph of a person in blackface who he said — in another tweet he hasn’t deleted — is Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. He said he was criticizing Northam’s “racist past.” However, his blackface tweet was mainly criticizing Northam’s order that face coverings are a requirement in Virginia starting May 29. He didn’t explain how or why a picture of a blackface mask was necessary to underscore his criticism of the governor’s COVID-19 restrictions.
“After listening to African American LU leaders and alumni over the past week and hearing their concerns, I understand that by tweeting an image to remind all of the governor’s racist past I actually refreshed the trauma that image had caused and offended some by using the image to make a political point. Based on our long relationships, they uniformly understood this was not my intent, but because it was the result,” he tweeted on Monday.
Some on Twitter were unhappy with this statement. One tweet called the apology “mealy mouthed,” another said it was a “semi-apology and in yet another, a person said they are leaving Liberty University because they “cannot support a College that supports racism.”
Earlier, several Black alumni said in a petition that they “have been disappointed and deeply grieved by your [Falwell Jr.’s] incendiary rhetoric over the past several years.” As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition has been signed by 37,000 people. The petition, signed by 36 alumni, said Falwell Jr.’s blackface tweet “made light of our nation’s painful history of slavery and racism” and represented “a microcosm of the past several years of divisive rhetoric.”
The alumni used strong words to describe his behavior: “While students, professors, and alumni have urged you to alter your rhetoric and repent, sadly nothing has changed. …We are writing to urge you to stop this infantile behavior and lead our alma mater with dignity.”
