Clemson University Administration Knew the Banana Triggering Was Not Racist, Yet Didn't Say Anything

The Clemson University administration knew that the banana incident that triggered protests across the campus was not a racist act, and yet they chose not to inform the public about it.

As The Daily Wire reported back in May, students throughout the campus were horrified at the fact that there were bananas hanging on a sign that paid homage to blacks that served during the Civil War. The bananas triggered protests across campus, as well as sit-ins, hunger-strikes and a march over a span of nine days. These protests featured a drag show, students being served food and provided with tents and power strips by the administration. Professors would excuse their students from class to join the protests; one professor even held their class at the protests. Five students were arrested, and the administration caved to numerous politically correct demands - such as "doubling minority representation among faculty within a time frame of nine years" and "mandatory diversity training for university employees."

All of this happened because the bananas were perceived as a racist attack on blacks.

But emails obtained by a Freedom of Information Act from a group of students show that the administration knew right away that the banana incident was not racist at all. In the emails, Almeda Jacks, vice-president of student affairs, explains that two students admitted to the administration to throwing the bananas onto the sign but made clear it was not with racist intent, via The Daily Caller: (emphasis bolded)

“Two students came forward and told [sic] they had done bananas,” Jacks said in an email to [Clemson president Jim] Clements. “Not a criminal charge or a student conduct violation BUT Dean of Students has authority to use as a teachable moment.”

“Their claim is they had no idea of pole or banner,” Jacks added. “They were intending to throw in Core Campus [an ongoing campus construction project] due to workers waking them up and decided not to and tried to put in trees and when that failed … Saw pole and tossed them (Nobody will believe that tho our folks think true).”

In other words, despite knowing that the banana incident was not racist at all, the administration didn't think anybody would believe them and thought they could exploit it as a "teachable moment."

The following day, according to political science senior Zachariah Talley, the administrators referred to the bananas as a "biased incident" numerous times and "stirred up anxiety" and "agitated" the Clemson student body into believing the bananas were a symbol of racism.

"Almeda Jacks had to call the arrest of five students because of an incident that she helped create," Talley told The Daily Wire.

In a statement, Clemson University tried to excuse it as simply "an update to an ongoing investigation" and that they were "forthcoming with this information to those who inquired."

Talley didn't buy the university's excuse.

"They didn't address any of the things that were at the heart of it, such as why did you not admit that it was a practical joke?" Talley said. "And that's still a response to, you know, inquiries in response to our stuff. They have done nothing to actually address the student body, nothing to address alum and explain to them the situation. They just finally responded with a weasely statement after several people from several newspapers called them and inquired."

Talley thinks that the reason the university kept the fact that the bananas were a practical joke under wraps was because they wanted to agitate the leftists on campus into calling for more leftist policies and assumed that the rest of the student body would capitulate out of fear of being smeared as racists.

"I don't think the administrators thought that it would blow up into a nine-day sit-in protest and five arrests, but I think they wanted the agitation," Talley said.