University of Connecticut issues apology over Ultimate Warrior's political speech
Submitted by Stu Starrs on Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 5:38 AM EST







As reported earlier, Ultimate Warrior's political speech at the University of Connecticut didn't go down to well as his comments were described as being homophobic and racist. The University have issued the following statement after Warrior's actions:

Statement to the University Community
Regarding the Warrior Event of April 5, 2005

To the University Community:

Last night, during the College Republican sponsored speech by the "Ultimate Warrior", there were many comments made which were extremely offensive to many members of the UCONN community, including the College Republicans. We immediately recognized our responsibility and fault for the event by issuing an apology on our website, www.uconn-cr.org. We then released that apology to the Daily Campus. Subsequently, the UCONN College Republicans have taken several other actions of which the members of the University Community should be aware.

We have written letters of apology to several groups and organizations on campus that represent the people toward whom many of the Warrior's comments were directed. A short, but not complete, list of these groups would consist of the Rainbow Center, AQUA, QUAD, the African American Cultural Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, the Iranian Students Association, and the Women's Center. Again, this is not a complete list of the groups that will receive a direct written apology from the College Republicans. We hope to have the letters to each of the organizations (or their Student Leader, as listed on the Department of Campus Activities website) by the end of the week.

The President of College Republicans, Emily Salisbury, will be submitting a letter to the editor of the Daily Campus regarding the incident that includes an apology by the end of the day. We will be sending a letter of apology to the UCONN Police Department that also thanks them for their presence at the event.

We brought the Ultimate Warrior to campus because we wanted to host a thought-provoking discussion from an individual who would appeal to a broader range of students than normal, given his background. Sadly, the Warrior's presentation accomplished none of those goals and we were horrified like most of the UCONN community by the display. We hope that we can regain our standing in the University Community by cooperating fully with the Undergraduate Student Government and others in righting this wrong.

Heath W Fahle