Insta
Swarajya Staff
Jun 25, 2020, 10:14 PM | Updated 10:14 PM IST
Save & read from anywhere!
Bookmark stories for easy access on any device or the Swarajya app.
An online petition launched on the website Change.org calling for dismissal of Priyamvada Gopal, a reader at Cambridge University, has already garnered over 13,000 signatures. This happened after Gopal said on social media that "white lives don't matter" and called to “abolish whiteness”.
Gopal, who is designated as Reader in Anglophone and Related Literatures in the Faculty of English and Fellow, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, tweeted on Tuesday evening, “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives”.
She also tweeted, “Abolish whiteness”.
.
Abolish whiteness
— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) June 23, 2020
The online petition reads:
"Cambridge must move to immediately discontinue their relationship with Ms Gopal in the best interest of all students and the community at large.”
“Her statements are racist and hateful and must not be tolerated by Cambridge University leadership. Cambridge must move to immediately discontinue their relationship with Ms. Gopal in the best interest of all students and the community at large.”
Responding to criticism over her incendiary tweets, Priyamvada Gopal later defended her position by calling for “abolishing Brahmins and upper caste.”
For those at the back:
— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) June 24, 2020
I'm a Brahmin.
My Brahmin life does not matter
Abolish Brahmin-ness.
.
I'm from a Brahmin family. That makes me a Brahmin.
— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) June 24, 2020
I will say this too then, since Brahmins are the whites of India.
Brahmin lives don't matter-- not as *Brahmin& lives.
Abolish Brahmins and the upper castes.
Still unclear to the petitioners asking Cambridge to fire me?
Priyamvada Gopal has earlier called for the persecution of Hindus and branded them ‘sickos’.
The Cambridge University however appeared to defend the contorversial tweets of its faculty member claiming that academics have right to express opinions and has condemned personal attacks and abuse.
The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks. These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.
— Cambridge University (@Cambridge_Uni) June 24, 2020