BLM activist tarnished U.Va. grad’s reputation with unproven allegation, report says

A Black Lives Matter activist who contended a fellow University of Virginia student said protesters would make “good speed bumps” was never confirmed by a school-led investigation into the comment, according to a report.

Activist Zyahna Bryant, now a 21-year-old student at the university, made the claim in July 2020 about Morgan Bettinger, now a graduate of the university, when the two crossed paths at a street protest in Charlottesville, according to a report in Reason Magazine.

Ms. Bettinger was observing the protest and made conversation with a truck driver who had also stopped.

Ms. Bettinger recalled telling the driver, “It’s a good thing that you are here, because otherwise these people would have been speed bumps.”

Protesters took interest in Ms. Bettinger after they saw her taking a photo of the crowd, according to Reason. The protesters became aggressive and followed Ms. Bettinger back to her car, with one person pounding on her windows. She called 911 in response.

“It’s a Karen, it’s a Karen,” Ms. Bryant can be heard shouting as she filmed Bettinger that night. A person can be heard asking, “What did she say?” Another person replied, “She said we’ll make good speed bumps.”

“Oh! We’ll make good speed bumps?” Ms. Bryant exclaimed in the video, “We’ll make good speed bumps?”

Ms. Bryant then campaigned to have the university expel Ms. Bettinger so it could “stop graduating racists.”

The University Judiciary Committee, a student-run disciplinary system, later reprimanded Ms. Bettinger based on that allegation — despite finding no evidence that she referred to protesters in a threatening way, according to Reason.

Ms. Bettinger was ordered to perform 50 hours of community service with a social justice organization, have three meetings with an assigned professor to teach her about “police-community relations” and write an apology letter to Ms. Bryant.

She was also expelled in abeyance, meaning she was allowed to graduate, but if she committed another violation she would be expelled for good. She eventually graduated with a tarnished reputation.

A follow-up investigation by the university’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights in 2021 found that there was no corroborating evidence to support Ms. Bryant’s most serious claim that Ms. Bettinger said the protesters would make “good f—-ing speed bumps.”

Ms. Bryant also told investigators that she wasn’t sure that Ms. Bettinger had said anything about “speed bumps” that night.

The investigation found that Ms. Bryant made this allegation based on hearing it from someone else, and not from Ms. Bettinger.

Ms. Bryant went on to be listed on Ebony’s “Power 100” list last year. Ms. Bettinger lives and works in the Charlottesville area.