Defiant Carnegie Mellon professor claims her job is NOT in jeopardy and she won’t be fired for sick posts saying the Queen should suffer ‘excruciatingly painful’ death… despite college condemning comments that even Twitter removed

• Linguistics professor Uju Anya says she will not be sanctioned for her vile remarks about the Queen made during her final hours in Scotland last week 
• She says the throughout the period of backlash for her original comments, many in her community have defended her and shown she ‘is wanted’ and ‘belong(s)’
• Following the initial response, Anya doubled down on her comment and called the Queen a representative of ‘white womanhood’ and worse
• Full coverage: Click here to see all our coverage of the Queen’s passing

The Carnegie Mellon professor who wished the late Queen an ‘excruciatingly painful’ death, said her job at the prestigious university is safe despite her outrageous sentiments.

‘From what I’ve been told, there is no plan to sanction or fire me, and my job is not in jeopardy. My university leadership showed very clearly they did not approve of my speech; however, they stand in firm support of my freedom of expression on my personal social media,’ wrote Uju Anya, an applied-linguistics professor at the Pittsburgh college, in a Monday evening Twitter thread.

‘I am not in battle with Carnegie Mellon University. As the letters of support from the students, faculty, staff, and others in my university community clearly show, I am wanted and I belong here.’ 

After learning of the dire state of the Queen’s health last Thursday, Anya tweeted, ‘I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.’

The Queen’s death at age 96 was announced later that same day. 

Anya now says she does not believe her employer – Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – has any interest in retaliating against her for voicing her extensive criticism of the Queen and the Crown

Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022 at the age of 96. The monarch will be honored throughout the week, leading up to her state funeral on September 19

Though Carnegie Mellon expressed disapproval toward Anya’s sentiments, it appears the university will not sanction the linguistics professor meaningfully

She added that she has received ample support from her academic community, proving to her that she is where she ‘belongs’

Anya disparaged the British ruler on Twitter as she was in her final hours in Scotland. 

‘If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.’ 

After backlash against her tweet – including Twitter removing it from the site – Anya  told NBC that her father is from Trinidad and her father is from Nigeria. She described herself as ‘a child of colonization’ whose perspective on the monarchy was shaped by the Civil War in her father’s country of origin.

‘Rebuilding still hasn’t finished today,’ she told the outlet, adding that Queen Elizabeth II represented ‘the cult of white womanhood.’ 

She continued, ‘There’s this notion that she was this little-old-lady grandma type with her little hats and her purses and little dogs and everything, as if she inhabited this place or this space in the imaginary, this public image, as someone who didn’t have a hand in the bloodshed of her Crown.’

The linguistics professor’s controversial tweet immediately received significant backlash online as news broke that Queen Elizabeth II’s health was in dire straits last Thursday

From the outset, Anya was firm in her position of angst and anger toward the Queen and the institution of which she was emblematic

Despite the statement Carnegie Mellon put out distancing itself from what it called Anya’s ‘offensive and objectionable’ messages, the university has now evidently informed Anya there will be no further action from them.

A letter written by university students defending Anya read, ‘Public condemnation of her tweet provides no institutional protection from violence and places her in a precarious position, ignoring a long history of institutional racism and colonialism.

‘Rejecting calls for ‘civility’ that are frequently leveraged against the marginalized to silence dissent, we express our solidarity with Dr. Anya and reject the tone-policing of those with legitimate grievances,’ it continued, providing cover for the professor’s bitter words. 

Anya thanked those who have supported her as she’s faced massive backlash online. ‘You showed me something very important: I have people.’ 

In an interview with New York Magazine’s The Cut, Anya further defended her position.

‘Even the crowns she wears are looted, plundered from the lands they exploited and extracted from. The entire treasury is a legacy of thievery that was achieved by murder, by enslavement, and it didn’t stop after independence,’ she said. 

The Cut is the same outlet that, just weeks earlier, ran a lengthy cover-story about Meghan Markle, her life with Harry, their decision to leave England, and their precarious roles within the monarchy.

In the extensive spread, Markle, who is currently in the UK with Harry at least through the late Queen’s State Funeral on September 19, said she and Harry were ‘upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy … just by existing.’

Anya continued to defend herself in an interview with New York Magazine’s The Cut, the same outlet that weeks before ran an extensive cover story on Meghan Markle and her new life away from the rules and regulations of the monarchy

Harry and Meghan are expected to remain in the United Kingdom at least through September 19, when the Queen’s state funeral will be held

In her interview with the outlet, Anya also claimed that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, ‘incited violence against me.’

In response to her first Tweet, Bezos wrote to his 5.1 million Twitter followers, ‘This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.’ 

‘He rarely tweets in his own voice, but he took the time to single me out when literally half the planet rejoiced over the news,’ she said.

Anya claims Bezos singled her out because she recently met with Chris Smalls, the young black man who led efforts to unionize Amazon.  

Bezos surprised observers last week when he weighed in on Anya’s controversial tweet, criticizing her overtly hostile tone directed at the ailing monarch

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania condemned Anya’s words, but said it would stand by her right to employ Freedom of Speech and will not be taking any retaliatory action against the professor of linguistics

 

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