MSNBC contributor David Jolly alleged on the network Tuesday that the derogatory messages that resulted in Kyle Kashuv’s acceptance to Harvard University being revoked made him seem like a potential school shooter.
The former Parkland, Fla., student, who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February 2018, had his acceptance to Harvard revoked on Monday, months after years-old derogatory posts from Kashuv resurfaced.
6/ I also sent an email to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to seek guidance on how to right this wrong and work with them once I was on campus. pic.twitter.com/3M1UEXXeQm
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
“Stephanie, I take a much harder line on this. I think this is the perfect story for our time, when within our culture, we have leaders who are giving greater permission to racist statements and to people with racist feelings, they are given greater equity,” Jolly, a former Republican congressman, said.
“What the screenshots show he said, according to the Huffington Post, which are not getting enough play, is this young man posted ‘kill the f—— Jews.’ He posted the n-word repeatedly. And he referred to one of the shoot-‘em-up video games and suggested they should put a map of that on his high school,” he continued. “My immediate reaction when I really dug into this, is these are the social media postings we see of a shooter, and we ask, ‘Where were the signs?’ See something, say something. We see a shooter, and then we go back and look at social media posts.”
Jolly did acknowledge, though, that he’s not a mental health professional.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle questioned if his statements went too far.
Jolly proceeded to defend the claim, arguing that “these are the exact posts we find of people, particularly those who advocate for stronger gun rights, who has been given an audience with the president of the United States in the Oval Office, by Nikki Haley as well, by Vice President Mike Pence, who was an invited guest to a rally to speak for Matt Gaetz and Ron DeSantis, who was a speaker at the NRA recently.”
9/ After receiving Harvard’s letter revoking my acceptance, I responded by asking for the opportunity to have an in-person meeting to make my case face to face and work towards any possible path of reconciliation.
Harvard responded by declining my meeting request. pic.twitter.com/rdsGU7BhjD
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) June 17, 2019
In a lengthy Twitter thread Monday, Kashuv revealed that the university turned down a face-to-face meeting with him that he requested, despite him having reached out to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion “to seek guidance on how to right this wrong.”
He apologized for the comments back in May.
