PROVIDENCE
R.I.
Amid outrage from
students, school leaders and legislators over his use of the N-word, the former
chairman of the Roger Williams University
board said Wednesday he wants his name removed from its law school.
Ralph Papitto, who has donated millions of dollars to the university, used the slur during a May
board meeting. He admitted saying it Monday, two days after it was first
reported, and said he had apologized, but then saw demands only intensify to
strip his name from Rhode Island’s only law school.
Papitto, 80, asked that his name be removed from the Ralph R. Papitto
School of Law in a letter to the new chairman of the Roger Williams board,
Richard Bready. Bready said in a written statement that the board accepted
Papitto’s request and “will continue to move forward with its plans to ensure a
more diverse board.”
“I take full responsibility for this matter and ask for understanding from
the community,” Papitto said in a statement read by his spokesman, Mike
Trainor. “I do not want this controversy, which at present is running out of
control, to further the damage already caused to the university.”
“We certainly can come up with a name that the entire Rhode Island
community can agree is something we are all proud of, that our children could
look up to,” said Matt Jerzyk, a law school student who circulated a petition
for the name change.
Papitto, who is white, said Monday that the slur “kind of slipped out”
while discussing the difficulty of finding minorities to serve on the university’s 16-member
board, which then included 14 white men, two women and no minorities.
