Racist Text Sparks Outrage on Georgia Campus

White student blames spellcheck
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 23, 2018 11:05 AM CDT
White College Student Blames Spellcheck for Racist Text
An iPhone.   (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

A white Georgia college student is blaming spellcheck for a racist slur she accidentally sent via text message to her new roommate. "Her insta looks pretty normal not too n-----ish," the student, identified by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as Courtney Schaefer, texted after the two exchanged pleasantries, in a text about the new roommate actually meant for someone else, BuzzFeed News reports. She quickly followed up with a message apologizing and blaming her phone's "damn spell check," explaining she really meant to say "triggerish meaning like you seemed really cool nothing that triggered a red flag." Screenshots of the exchange have been shared widely over social media, prompting interim college President Shelley Nickel to release a letter condemning racist comments as "offensive and unacceptable," adding "there is no place for bigotry or racism on our campuses," per WSAV.

Despite the Schaefer's apology—or maybe because of it—others on campus are demanding that she be punished, per Inside Higher Ed. Senior Leon Bowles tells the George-Anne student newspaper that the text was "cause enough for outrage, but the pathetic attempt at an excuse and apology was a flippant insult to [the recipient's] intelligence." Others have tested the spellcheck defense and found it lacking. Senior Dajah Morrison discovered that autocorrect changes "triggerish" to "triggerfish." "So for her to cover those things up, it just didn't add up," she tells WSAV. (More racism stories.)

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