PHOENIX (AP) - A student manager at Arizona State University’s student-run radio station has said she was involuntarily removed from her position Thursday after weeks of debate surrounding her tweet in late August about Jacob Blake, a Black man shot and paralyzed by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The school has denied that she was fired.
Debate between students at Blaze Radio and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication began after Station Manager Rae’Lee Klein tweeted a link to a New York Post article containing graphic details from a police report accusing Blake of sexual assault, The Arizona Republic reported.
Klein wrote, “Always more to the story, folks. Please read this article to get the background of Jacob Blake’s warrant. You’ll be quite disgusted.” The tweet has since been deleted.
Klein said the opinion she was sharing is that “sexual assault is disgusting.”
“The Cronkite School has officially removed me from my position as Station Manager, despite refusal to inform me of what university/Cronkite rules I violated,” Klein said in another tweet. She later told The Republic that the school discourages students sharing personal opinions online but she felt she was being disproportionately targeted.
Klein said she was offered a series of alternative positions with Blaze or the university after her firing but does not intend to accept any of the offers.
Cronkite Interim Dean Kristin Gilger released a statement Thursday denying that Klein had lost her job.
Klein is still an ASU employee and “has not been fired or removed from the position of station manager. Any actions that are unfolding are not punishment for a tweet,” Gilger said.
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