GRAND FORKS, N.D. - A distinguished professor is under fire after remarks about a sixth-grader on social media.
The comments were about the winner of the Scripps Spelling Bee.
Roxanne Vaughan, a professor at the Univeristy of North Dakota, commented Saturday evening, June 3, after sixth-grader Ananya Vinay was announced the winner of the Scripps Spelling Bee. Vaughan is a UND biomedical science professor.
A comment was posted on a story about the winner on ABC news's Facebook page.
The comment came from Vaughan's personal Facebook page, quote, "I'm sure she's an immigrant, not worthy of interacting with our pure Americans. Send her back.”
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UND responded to this, saying this comment is not in keeping up with the university's core values, which includes diversity.
The school says it clearly hase a lot of work to do in diversity which is why it's one of their seven goals.
“The statement that I saw put on a social media site is certainly not in keeping with university statement core values," UND spokesman Peter Johnson said. "We know we have work to do in that area and this underscores the fact that we have a lot of work to do."
WDAZ reached out to Vaughan via email and called her office and have not heard back.
The post has since been taken down.
