Facebook Group for NYU White Student Union Is a Fake, School Says

A so-called “NYU White Student Union” launched Friday as a platform to “celebrate whiteness” and members of “European descent” turned out to be a hoax, but it didn’t stop people from finding it offensive.

The faux group was among several similar supposed student organizations springing up at colleges nationwide.

“It’s totally inappropriate and insensitive given the conversations going on right now,” international relations student Prem Cohly told the Daily News on Monday. “Racism is still very real, even here in New York City. There’s such a history of white supremacy that this is troubling.”

{snip}

“There is no such organization as this at NYU, the Facebook page is using NYU’s logo illegally and without permission, and we have contacted Facebook to demand the NYU logo be removed,” NYU Director of Public Affairs Matt Nagel said in a statement to The News on Monday. “We reject–and we call on others to reject–efforts such as this to derail or distort candid, thoughtful discourse on race.”

Some social media users pointed to a 4Chan post from Sunday as proof the page might be a sick joke. The anonymous post calls for Internet trolls to make “European students union” pages at “the most leftist colleges and universities in the western world.”

The page says it intends no “harm” to other ethnic groups, calling itself a “community for NYU students of European descent.”

“We condemn the cowardly campaigns of moral subjugation and propaganda that seek to instill self-hatred and surrender within European-American youth and justify the continued invasion and degradation of the lands, institutions, and cultural heritage that is rightly ours,” the Facebook page says.

{snip}