Protesters harass Morgan Bettinger in her car after rumors circulated that she said they’d made good “speed bumps,” a supposed allusion to the Unite the Right rally three years previously in which a neo-Nazi ran his car into a crowd of protesters, killing one. Photo credit: WUVA News by way of The Daily Mail.
The Morgan Bettinger case is gaining national notoriety. After Reason magazine detailed the travesty of the University of Virginia student who was punished for using the words “speed bumps” in a way that militant leftist protesters construed as threatening, the Daily Mail has picked up the story. The Daily Mail does not add much new information, but it does crystallize the insanity of the episode, in which rumors spreading on social media panicked UVa officials into running Bettinger through a flawed student disciplinary system.
As the Daily Mail summarized the travesty: “Celebrated BLM activist ruthlessly destroyed white student’s life by accusing her of saying racial justice protesters would ‘make good speed bumps’ — only to later admit she may have MISHEARD.” The chief accuser was Zyahna Bryant, who had been awarded numerous honors in recognition of her student activism. She spread vitriol against Bettinger online, and then demanded that UVa discipline her.
Although UVa’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights (OECR) found no evidence to confirm the allegation that she had verbally threatened the protesters, the student-run judiciary committee compelled her to write an apology to Bryant and perform social justice-related community service if she wanted to graduate.
Bettinger has asked President Jim Ryan to scrub the unverified allegations from her student record but he has declined to get involved, expressing a reluctance to override a decision made by the student judiciary.
Now that Bettinger’s case is getting national attention, the Jefferson Council urges him to reconsider. Bettinger has no intention of letting the matter die. Her attorney has circulated a draft lawsuit to University Counsel Cliff Iler and the Office of the Attorney General. The more Ryan drags out a resolution of the case, the more he will make a mockery of his formulation that UVa is “great and good.”
— JAB
Thank you for the update on an incident that I had not known about. They want to make a lesson of her, and UVA is complicit. If you dissent from the acceptable mode of thinking, we will destroy your life. No graduation, no reputation, no peace. Note the acceptable racist slurs of the left – ‘Karen.’ Imagine what would have befallen Ms. Bettinger if she characterized any physical aspect of Ms. Bryant?
While there is always hope, I would not expect President Ryan to use good judgement and have this matter expunged from Bettinger’s record.
It’s good to know there are legal pathways for Bettinger to get past this, but the incident itself can’t be retrieved. Lasting damage has been done, yet Bryant’s actions and those of the University’s “student-run judiciary committee” are still being condoned by a major University, which seems to have no intention of rectifying its mistakes unless forced to. Truly astonishing.
Thanks to President Ryan, UVA has a new moniker: “Not at all great, and most definitely not good.”
Reminds me of the 51 department of justice members signing a letter indicating the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation without exploring any evidence, and finding out that it wasn’t, and major league baseball pulling the All-Star game out of Atlanta. Never an apology.
Just another downward step for our formerly great university into the DEI cesspool, pushed yet again by a timid president unable to summon the courage to stand up and admit “We were wrong”.
Ms. Bettunger May have a real good defamation case. Rather than dragging the University through an extended and embarrassing legal suit, one can only hope President Ryan takes the high road and expunges Ms. Bettinger’s disciplinary record.
There is also a story on the NY Post website and possibly a print edition as well featuring interesting photos of the accuser. It also mentions that the accuser did not hear the alleged comments nor were there any witnesses who corroborated her allegations.
The genuine villain here is the UVA President who will not correct this manifest injustice.
Agree, but don’t let Zyahna Bryant off the hook. When I attended UVA she would have been expelled for an Honor violation.
But President Ryan is very busy with other important matters, such as coming up with an April Fools video. I bet that required hours of his and his staff’s time. But it was so cute and witty.
It makes me feel good to see people stand up and fight injustice as Bettinger and the Jefferson Council are doing here.
Actually the most shocking aspect of this whole story is that Zyahna Bryant is a student at UVA, which is a very selective institution.