Ole Miss students occupy building to protest lynching remark

JACKSON, Miss. – Witnesses say dozens of black and white students are occupying the University of Mississippi’s main administrative building in Oxford to protest what they called the chancellor’s weak response to a Facebook comment about lynching.

The comment was from an account listed as belonging to a white student. The Associated Press was not immediately able to confirm that the post was made by the student himself. The comment responded to another student’s post that criticized the people protesting the police killing of a black man in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The sit-in began Friday after Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter issued a statement criticizing social media comments that “suggest or condone actions” inconsistent with the university’s core values.

Student protesters demanded that Vitter label the lynching comment as a “racist threat of domestic terrorism.”