Morehouse Fires Employee After Anti-Gay Email Distributed

This news is churning the internets. After a scathing email was widely distributed which bemoaned the implications of a wedding between two Black men on the marital prospects of Black women, the woman who sent the email has been fired.

Morehouse College has fired a woman and reprimanded another for discriminatory comments made via their work e-mail accounts.

The fired woman worked as an administrative assistant in the president’s office, according to reports. After receiving an e-mail forward that included wedding photos of a gay couple, she forwarded the e-mail to others and made comments that were considered discriminatory.

Morehouse College President Robert Franklin issued an official statement from the institution and a personal apology:

It is my sincere hope that the gay and lesbian community, and most specifically Michael Cole Smith and Jamil Smith Cole—whose wedding photographs became the subject of an unkind and intolerant email sent and forwarded by a Morehouse College employee—will accept my official apology on behalf of the College community.

Morehouse College—the institution where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of our nation’s premier champions of human and civil rights, was nurtured—has a history of promoting tolerance and inclusion for all people. Remarks such as the ones made in the e-mail were counter to Dr. King’s—and the College’s—core values and will not be tolerated from any Morehouse employee or student. Effective September 30, the employee who made the offensive comments is no longer working for the College.

I will continue to emphasize to the Morehouse community the message that was shared during an April town hall meeting: On the matter of diversity, Morehouse is committed to being a respectful campus that balances personal liberty with the responsibility of membership in a moral community. This has been and always will be a community dedicated to promoting respect and tolerance between heterosexuals and homosexuals. We encourage everyone to aspire to high ethical standards and we demand responsible community behavior. Those who cannot embrace the Morehouse code of ethics will be sanctioned accordingly.

Morehouse has had a long history of problems with homophobia at the all-male, predominantly Black college, as MadProfesssah has reported in the past.

Kudos to Dr. Franklin and his swift action in this matter. Hat/tip to Rod 2.0