A sorority at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut has canceled a charity event for foster children because one student complained that having maracas on the promotional posters was racist.
“As a Latina student at Quinnipiac I find this incredibly offensive,” student Lexie Gruber commented on the Facebook page of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority member Carly Hviding, according to an article in the Quinnipiac Chronicle.
“I support your mission and philanthropy, but ask that you respect the culture of others and do not appropriate it in stereotypical and offensive ways,” Gruber continued.
The post prompted the sorority’s executive board to cancel the event because apparently not offending a single student is more important than helping foster kids.
“We don’t stand for any discrimination and we wanted to cancel it and revamp it so that it will not be offensive,” sorority president Julia Gonsalves said, according to the Chronicle.
The Panhellenic Council has also told the sorority to take down the offending Facebook posts. (Can’t have those offensive maracas — or should I say m*****s? — out there without a trigger warning!)
The charity event, CASA for Queso, was to benefit the Court Appointed Special Advocates organization and was supposed to be held Tuesday. The sorority has instead started a GoFundMe page to raise money for the cause.
Interestingly enough, the offended student, Gruber, is a former foster child herself, told the Chronicle that she supported the event overall. She reports having been bullied over the situation.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.