‘Grow up, ’ tweets former Mizzou football star to students who slammed ‘hero’ professor
Dale Brigham thought he was doing the right thing.
As anonymous death threats against minorities swirled on social media Tuesday night, setting the college town of Columbia, Mo., on edge, the bespectacled Mizzou professor began receiving e-mails from terrified students.
“Good Evening Professor Brigham,” wrote an African American student in Brigham’s Nutritional Science 1034 class. “There are online threats at our school warning the minorities to not step on campus tomorrow. I am scared for my life therefore, I will not be attending class tomorrow. When can I makeup the exam?”
Brigham, a popular professor and fitness buff who volunteered with many Mizzou athletic teams and clubs, responded with a challenge.
“If you don’t feel safe coming to class, then don’t come to class,” Dale Brigham replied in an e-mail that appears to have been sent to his entire class. “I will be there, and there will be an exam administered in our class.
“If you give into bullies, they win. The only way bullies are defeated is by standing up to them. If we cancel the exam, they win; if we go through with it, they lose.
“I know which side I am on,” Brigham wrote. “You make your own choice.”
Dale Brigham (University of Missouri)
Many minority students responded with anger and disbelief.
“That’s our lives in danger,” said Triniti, 19, an African American student of Brigham’s who asked The Post not to use her full name for fear of retaliation. “I don’t want to even touch campus. I don’t even want to leave my house, let alone go to campus.”
“My Teacher had the nerve to email me, ‘If we cancel class, then we let the bullies win.’ Like this is a game or something,” wrote another student
on Twitter.
Soon the anger spilled beyond the confines of Brigham’s classroom. People posted his office phone number and e-mail address on Twitter
“How can [you] tell a student to face bullies when there are threats that he will die?” reads another e-mail
posted to Twitter. “He is fear for his life and you are telling him to still risk his life to come to YOUR class to take a test? Are you kidding? These aren’t bullies we are talking about…”
By late Tuesday night, Brigham had apologized to students.
“I could have and should have used much better words in trying to say that we must stand up to hatred and not let those kind of people who make threats run our lives,” he
wrote at least one class member.
But it was too late.
By Wednesday morning, the flood of criticism had become too much for the Missouri professor, whose most high-profile previous interaction with the media was an interview on the inelasticity of demand for peanut butter.
“The exam is cancelled,” Brigham
wrote. “No one will have to come to class today. And, I am resigning my position.”