Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California confirmed on Wednesday that a professor seen in a video making racist comments towards an Asian American family no longer works at their university.
Back in March 2018, a video of a woman making racist comments to an Asian American family walking in Long Beach surfaced online. The woman eventually identified herself as Tarin Olson, a professor working at the counseling department, to CBS2.
Tony Kao, a member of the family Olson harassed, took the video on his phone.
“You need to go back to your country,” Olson tells the family in the video.
Kao and his family followed Olson and recorded her. She continued to make comments like “it’s not safe because there are too many people like you here…invading” and “you’re making my culture extinct.”
Golden West College released a statement condemning Olson’s behavior and emphasizing that students of all backgrounds were welcome at their college.
“We are reviewing all internal policies and viable options for next actionable steps,” the college said in a statement. “We do not anticipate the faculty member in question to be on campus this week.”
Kao also posted a statement on Facebook asking people not to use his video to “foster more hatred.”
“We have NO intention of seeking out or besmirching the offender’s personal life or career,” he wrote in his post. “It is our hope the offender is aware and apologetic for what she has said to us, but all we can do is hope.”
Recently, however, Asian Social Network named Olson and Golden West College in a January tweet about racist employees. Golden West College responded on Wednesday, February 3, and said that Olson no longer worked at the college or in the district.
It is unclear when Olson left Golden West College and under what circumstances.
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