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The University of Texas at Arlington’s student body president was impeached and removed from office Monday after a series of alleged discriminatory online remarks from the president surfaced, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reported.
During Monday’s impeachment session, student senator and impeachment manager Jacqueline Avila said that Caitlyn Burge-Surles had allegedly remarked on Discord, an online messaging app, that Middle Eastern countries should be blown up. “This leads a reasonable voter to believe that President Caitlyn believes we should blow up the homes of some of our students and that she may want us to blow up where they may still have families,” Avila said during the impeachment session. “If this were someone talking about the United States, they would be put on a terrorist watch list.”
Online, a student senator created a document of several screenshots of discriminatory comments Burge-Surles had allegedly made about George Floyd and Caitlyn Jenner.
Burge-Surles defended herself, saying her comments were meant as jokes in a private discussion on Discord and that her conservative ideology was under attack. “The doctored evidence presented in the past week is nothing more than a desperate grasp for reason to remove a conservative that was fairly gained and hard won,” Burge-Surles said during the impeachment hearing. She said that since her reported comments surfaced, she has dealt with online harassment and bullying.
Last week, the university’s Black Student Association and other organizations protested on campus, calling for the removal of Burge-Surles and other elected officials, including the student body chief of staff.
