A student who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has had his acceptance to Harvard University rescinded for using racial slurs in the past.
Kyle Kashuv, 18, admitted on Twitter that Harvard rescinded his admission because of “texts and comments” he made when he was 16. He had previously become popular among conservatives for his opposition to the anti-gun measures supported by his fellow survivors.
Kashuv stepped down as Turning Point USA’s director of high school outreach over the comments, which resurfaced after Kashuv’s classmates shared screenshots of his words with HuffPost.
The remarks date from late 2017 to early 2018, a few months before the shooting, and contain multiple uses of the N-word and making derogatory comments about Jews. Kashuv is himself Jewish and said that though he made anti-Semitic and racist comments, he did not mean any harm by them.
“Everyone knew him [Kashuv] as the vulgar kid that says stuff like that, talked that way out loud,” one former student told HuffPost. “He would talk that way to a lot of people. I don’t think he was trying to hide it or anything, I don’t think he was scared, I think he fell into that Discord, gamer guy that says those vulgar things.”
“We were 16-year-olds making idiotic comments, using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible,” Kashuv said in a statement, according to The Washington Times. “I’m embarrassed by it, but I want to be clear that the comments I made are not indicative of who I am or who I’ve become in the years since.”
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