Photo of Penn President Causes Stir
Posted on November 7th, 2006
(Source: University of Pennsylvania)
Good ol' alma mater is in the news again. This time it's our president, Amy Gutmann, who's being chastised for appearing in a Halloween photo with a student dressed as a suicide bomber. Evidently, folks assumed it was Gutmann's way of demonstrating her support for such activities.
Read this from InsideHigherEd.com:
Controversial Facebook photographs are supposed to get students - not college presidents - in hot water. But days after hosting her annual Halloween party at the presidential home, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann finds herself the subject of criticism after a photograph of her posing with a student dressed as a suicide bomber circulated online.
Saad Saadi, a Penn undergraduate, came to Gutmann's party wearing camouflage pants and fake dynamite strapped to his shirt. He brandished a fake gun and in some pictures appears to be reading a Koran. Photographs that were posted on his Facebook account show him staging mock executions around campus.
After the pictures began to appear on various Web sites, a number of alumni and students wrote messages to the university expressing anger that Gutmann is seen smiling next to Saadi. Some demanded an apology from the president.
On Friday, Gutmann issued a statement, saying that it is customary for students to seek photographs with her at the party, and that she at first didn't realize what Saadi's costume implied.
"This year, one student who had a toy gun in hand had his picture taken with me before it was obvious to me that he was dressed as a suicide bomber," she said in the statement.
"The costume is clearly offensive and I was offended by it. As soon as I realized what his costume was, I refused to take any more pictures with him, as he requested. The student had the right to wear the costume just as I, and others, have a right to criticize his wearing of it."
Saadi has since apologized for the costume. He wrote on his Web site that he doesn't "support terrorism, violence or anything that is against society," and that the costume - like many others on Halloween - was simply meant to portray a scary character.
You can read President Gutmann's letter to the Penn community here, and draw your own conclusions.
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