SWEET BRIAR, Va. ― A Sweet Briar College student who admitted placing racial labels in a dormitory has left the school.
Interim President James F. Jones announced the female student’s departure on Wednesday afternoon in a campus email. The announcement followed a lockdown prompted by a threatening phone call received by the college, The News & Advance reported.
Four labels were discovered last week on bathroom doors and a water cooler in Meta Glass Hall. Two labels read “White Only” and two read “Colored.”
In his email, Jones said the former student is Black. Her name won’t be released due to federal regulations.
He told the newspaper that the student decided to leave the college. He said he revealed her race to clear up what he called “groundless assumptions” in hundreds of messages received by the college since the incident.
“The reactions have been all over the political spectrum, which is completely comprehensible to me,” Jones said. “We are doing the ethical thing by trying to respond with facts and nothing but facts.”
Sweet Briar spokeswoman Christy Jackson said a man called the school on Wednesday from an off-campus location and demanded the student’s identity. He called for justice and said he was coming to the campus.
Jackson said there is no evidence that the man went to Sweet Briar.
