The target of a news article from the conservative publication Campus Reform was subjected to online harassment after he was identified as the professor who flipped the bird to Trump tower.
The only problem-it wasn’t him, according to Chronicle.com
The article was prompted by the selection of Professor Simran Jeet Singh to lead a panel on “navigating hate and xenophobia in modern America.”
The Campus Reform article has since been corrected.
“I was, unfortunately, fooled by the similarities between him and his brother in that particular picture,” Nikita Vladimirov, the reporter who made the mistake wrote. “I would have appreciated Dr. Singh addressing the matter directly to our formal request for comment that he chose to ignore.”
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However, the editor of Campus Reform, told Inside Higher Ed, that it was still trying to confirm the identity of the person in the picture.
“It happens often that those of us who look different are confused for other people who look different,” said Singh. “It happens to me all the time. And this is a form of racism based on institutional normativity.”
The editor of Campus reform defended the article.
“None of this, of course, changes the fact that a professor who is lecturing on hate declared [on Twitter] that ‘all Trump supporters tacitly condone racism,’ told the president to ‘kiss all of our asses’ and [shared] a picture of a man flipping the bird to Trump Tower,” said Sterling C. Beard. “We have no need to misrepresent his views, as we have no need to misrepresent any professors’ views. They speak quite plainly for themselves.”
 
Singh says the correction is a little too late.
“The correction is a correction to protect themselves, but it doesn’t protect me in any way. And that’s a problem.”
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