Calls for the expulsion of the white University of Mississippi students caught on camera appearing to make racist gestures are understandable—the footage is appalling. But expulsion might not be the answer. What these students need is education, not just removal.
On November 6, a Ring doorbell camera captured two white female students allegedly making monkey noises and beating their chests as they walked past an apartment occupied by three Black Ole Miss students. The footage, shared by student Jakiyra Metcalf, spread rapidly across social media. The university condemned the behavior as “deeply troubling, hurtful, and unacceptable,” and launched an investigation through its student conduct and equal opportunity offices. Online, the consensus has been clear: these women should be expelled.
The call for expulsion makes sense given the context. This is Ole Miss, the university where two people died and hundreds were injured on September 30, 1962, when a violent white mob rioted to prevent James Meredith, a Black Air Force veteran, from becoming the school’s first Black student. The Kennedy administration deployed roughly 31,000 National Guardsmen to enforce order. Until recently, fans showed up to football games waving Confederate flags. The historical weight is real, and Black students’ anger is justified.
But expulsion carries a risk we should consider. It turns perpetrators into martyrs. We’ve seen this pattern before. Remember “Permit Patty,” who threatened to call police on an 8-year-old Black girl for selling bottled water without a permit in 2018? Or “Central Park Karen,” who weaponized 911 in 2020 by falsely telling dispatchers a Black birdwatcher was threatening her after he asked her to leash her dog? The moment they faced consequences, the narrative shifted. Suddenly, they were the victims. Some people sympathized with them instead of confronting their actions.
Expulsion could easily create the same dynamic. These women would leave campus with a story about being destroyed by cancel culture, about how they made one mistake and lost everything. That narrative gets amplified, and the actual harm they caused gets buried.
There’s a distinction worth making: punishing racist behavior isn’t the same as changing racist thinking. Someone can learn not to make monkey noises because they fear expulsion. That’s compliance. What we actually need is for people to understand why anti-Black racism is harmful in the first place. That’s transformation, and it takes work.
If the goal is building a less racist society, shouldn’t changing racist thinking be the priority? These women should confront what they did and why it matters, not simply hide it better.
So what should happen? Make staying more difficult than leaving. The university should require a sustained educational program on the history of anti-Black racism. Include facilitated discussions and written reflections that demonstrate genuine understanding of the harm caused. If they refuse or if they slip up again, expulsion becomes justified and unquestionable.
Black people deserve more than a world where racists learn to mask their beliefs. We deserve fewer of them. Education creates the possibility of that outcome. Expulsion offers only the illusion of justice.
Ole Miss students caught on camera making racist gestures have a choice ahead. So does the university. The question is whether accountability means removal or transformation.
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