University of New Hampshire professor accused of posing as Black woman online

A professor at the University of New Hampshire is exposed by anonymous sources on social media

A University of New Hampshire professor has been anonymously outed for posing as a Black woman online. According to The University of New Hampshire’s student newspaper The New Hampshire, assistant professor Craig Chapman was posting on an account as The Science Femme under the handle @piney_the.

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The deception was discovered when one of Chapman’s own colleagues in the school’s chemistry department sent screenshots of since-deleted tweets from the account to Reddit and Twitter, the outlet says.

Glenn Miller, the chair of the UNH chemistry department, confirmed in an email to colleagues that the account was run by Chapman but says he is still supportive of him as a person. The account was reportedly uncovered via its links to a brewery named Pineland’s View, owned by Chapman’s brother, and other tweets that linked Chapman’s personal and private accounts.

The Science Femme purported to be both an immigrant woman and a person of color according to the Reddit thread, which includes a history of the deleted tweets. The account used to share anti-BLM sentiments, transphobia, debate with people of color who called them on the tweets and bragged about derailing a statement of support for diversity from his department.

The tweet, posted as the Science Femme, shared that they were successful “removing all woke terminology from the statement including anti-racism, white supremacy, white privilege, and claims of systemic racism.”  

A Twitter user also shared some of the tweets which no longer appear as the professor has now deleted both his personal and professional accounts.

https://twitter.com/drama_science/status/1310688504876273664

The account pointed out the similarities between posts from Chapman’s personal account and the account credited to the Science Femme:

https://twitter.com/drama_science/status/1310688509393592321
https://twitter.com/drama_science/status/1310688519493431296

Chapman also allegedly posted revealing photos of an woman he didn’t identify on the Science Femme account.

This comes as the University of New Hampshire sought to create new diversity initiatives on the 80% white campus whose faculty is also 77% white.

“We were recently made aware of allegations on social media about a member of our faculty,” UNH spokesperson Erika Mantz said in a statement to The New Hampshire. “We are deeply troubled by what we’ve learned so far and immediately launched an investigation.”

According to Fosters, other notable tweets included a post to former California congresswoman Katie Hill’s account who resigned in 2019 after nude photos of her were released online. The Science Femme account posted some of the leaked photos to HIll’s account saying “You should know, you’ve had plenty caught on camera” in response to a post.

In an email obtained by the outlet, Miller told his colleagues in the chemistry department that Chapman was remorseful about his posts after acknowledging he was behind the account.

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“The fake twitter account was in fact set up and run by (the professor,” Miller said in the email. “There were a large number of things written by (the professor) that ranged from unfortunate to hurtful to deeply offensive.”

Miller concluded:

“As I mentioned, I spoke to (the professor), twice actually. (The professor) is embarrassed and overwhelmed and shell shocked. He fears that this could be the end of his academic year.”

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