Harvard Rescinds Parkland Survivor Kyle Kashuv’s Admission After Racist Messages

The teen called the deci­sion “deeply dis­turb­ing,” argu­ing that Harvard has hired “big­ots and anti­semites” historically. 

By Andy Campbell

Kyle Kashuv, a pro-gun sur­vivor of the mass shoot­ing in Parkland, Florida, says Harvard College rescind­ed his admis­sion after racist mes­sages he shared among his high school peers sur­faced last month. Kashuv, an 18-year-old high school senior who sur­vived the shoot­ing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School ear­ly last year, post­ed a pho­to of a pur­port­ed let­ter from Harvard with­draw­ing his admis­sion. “After care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, the [Admissions] Committee vot­ed to rescind your admis­sion to Harvard College,” the let­ter reads. “We are sor­ry about the cir­cum­stances that have led us to with­draw your admis­sion, and we wish you suc­cess in your future aca­d­e­m­ic endeav­ors and beyond.” The let­ter fol­lows HuffPost’s report of Kashuv’s text mes­sages, shared in a Google doc­u­ment for a class study guide, in which he made racist remarks. In the doc­u­ment, seen by class­mates and obtained by HuffPost, he repeat­ed­ly uses a racist slur:

Kashuv, who apol­o­gized last month for mak­ing the slurs, post­ed a series of tweets on Monday call­ing Harvard’s deci­sion “deeply dis­turb­ing.” “Throughout its his­to­ry, Harvard’s fac­ul­ty has includ­ed slave own­ers, seg­re­ga­tion­ists, big­ots and anti­semites,” he said. “If Harvard is sug­gest­ing that growth isn’t pos­si­ble and that our past defines our future, then Harvard is an inher­ent­ly racist insti­tu­tion. But I don’t believe that. I believe that insti­tu­tions and peo­ple can grow.” 

Kyle Kashuv✔@KyleKashuvReplying to @KyleKashuv

7/​Harvard decid­ed to rescind my admis­sion with the fol­low­ing letter.

Asked to con­firm the letter’s authen­tic­i­ty, a Harvard spokesper­son said the col­lege doesn’t com­ment on indi­vid­ual cas­es, but pro­vid­ed a list of rea­sons the school might rescind admis­sion, includ­ing “behav­ior that brings into ques­tion their hon­esty, matu­ri­ty or moral char­ac­ter.” Conservative pun­dits decried Harvard’s deci­sion on Twitter. “Harvard’s auto-da-fé sets up an insane, cru­el stan­dard no one can pos­si­bly meet,” wrote com­men­ta­tor Ben Shapiro. NRA spokes­woman Dana Loesch tweet­ed: “NEW RULE: Everyone will be retroac­tive­ly adju­di­cat­ed for their past child­hood sins and made to pay the price now.” Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito tweet­ed: “Shameful of Harvard. Kyle Kashuv’s bet­ter off not going there and instead of get­ting a mean­ing­ful and qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion elsewhere.”This sto­ry first appeared in the Huffingtonpost​.com.