By Anne Halliwell

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A UK student has created a petition on Change.org to combat allegedly racist comments on social media.

Rashad Bigham, the vice president of Alpha Phi Alpha, responded to the remarks after he said he received a disappointing reaction from the director of student affairs, according to a report by WKYT.

Racist comments were allegedly posted on the UK chapter of the National Pan-Hellenic Council’s Instagram page.

According to WKYT, Bigham complained to student affairs that the remarks constituted harassment and thus violated the student code, which prohibits harassment on university property.

Bigham told WKYT that the director’s original response was that the student who made the remarks was exercising the right to free speech.

The UK student code prohibits harassment on university property.

UK spokesman Jay Blanton wrote in an email to the Kentucky Kernel that the university’s Office of Institutional Diversity is continuing to reach out to all parties, along with Student Affairs.

Blanton quoted university president Eli Capilouto’s response to this semester’s visit from white supremacist write-in Senate candidate Robert Ransdell in his response to the Kentucky Kernel.

“While our University welcomes the free exchange of ideas, it also must be a place where we confront anger and hate that arise from ignorance … We must make clear, as loudly and as often as we can, that our University has no patience for the peddlers of poisonous views,” he wrote in the email.

The petition, called “Help NPHC Fight Racial Harassment,” created by Kevin Cowherd, calls for Denise Simpson in the Office of Student Conduct to change the language of the code of conduct to include racial harassment. The petition alleges that racial slurs were used on a public, university-affiliated social media page.

Blanton wrote to the Kentucky Kernel that the Instagram account in question was private.

The petition had 350 supporters at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. It needed 150 more.

Simpson responded to the petition in between its garnering 50 and 200 signatures.

“The University does have a policy regarding any type of harassment, including any type of racial harassment or discrimination,” Simpson wrote. “It is a policy that applies to all members of the University community and the Code of Student Conduct already enforces this policy as it relates specifically to student behavior.”

Simpson’s response indicated that the incident was addressed outside of the Code of Conduct and that the president of NPHC had been made aware. She added that while the university does not “condone this type of behavior,” the right to free speech had to be respected.

“Although we cannot proceed with the student conduct process regarding this matter at this time, we do engage students around exercising their free speech rights in a respectful way,” Simpson responded. “I also continue to welcome the opportunity for the students of NPHC to meet with me to discuss this issue and to help them develop a plan of action that exercises their right to free speech, as the right to free speech is afforded by all.”