Purdue University is standing by a professor who posed in blackface and thought it was funny to post a throwback picture to reminisce about the racist days of ole.
Lisa Stillman, an instructor at the prestigious school posted the picture taken in 1976, with her face painted black, an afro wig with bones in it, and oversized belly to depict a pregnancy, reports News One.
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Stillman and her friends still think the offensive photo is funny.
Why is this person still on the @LifeAtPurdue payroll? Lisa Stillman cannot educate students of all backgrounds with a Facebook profile picture that shows her in #blackface with an #offensive costume. Bring justice to campus! #faceitpurdue @purduemitch @PurdueBSU @SPARCpurdue pic.twitter.com/QuxsxYzm8h
— Jane Doe (@purduejustice) April 19, 2018
Stillman replied: “Nobody knew who we were!” and added, “as long as we didn’t smile.”
A student at the school reported the biology professor’s photo.
The student told NewsOne:
“I found one of my professors made their public Facebook profile picture them in blackface. I found this appalling and I reported it to Purdue University,” the student said. “Instead of firing Lisa Stillman, the Purdue administration covered it up and told her to simply delete the photo.”
And apparently Purdue didn’t see a need to reprimand the teacher for her racist photo and she still has her job. The school responded:
“Purdue received an anonymous “hotline” complaint in November 2017 citing two grievances: one about the way an instructor had reprimanded students to enforce lab protocols, and another about a 2016 Facebook post of a 1974 photo showing the same instructor (then age 12) in a ‘blackface’ Halloween costume,” an email from Purdue News Service said.
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“The university promptly reviewed these complaints, concluding that the instructor had handled the lab incident in a wholly appropriate manner, and that her personal social media post of an old photo was not harassment under Purdue policy. In any event, what we can say firmly is that, at Purdue, we do not punish speech, particularly when off-campus speech is expressed by an employee speaking as a private citizen.”
It’s sad when the whole school doesn’t see the problem with a blackface photo.