Merrimack Reviews Social Media After Anti-Thanksgiving Post

NORTH ANDOVER, MA -- Merrimack College is reviewing its social media policies after a student who work in the school's library posted a politicized anti-Thanksgiving message on the library's Facebook page. The student used the library Facebook page to call attention to National Day of Mourning, a protest by Native Americans who view the holiday as time to remember the suffering their ancestors suffered at the hands of Pilgrims.

The posts included links to resources highlighting Day of Mourning and the hash tag #NationalDayofMourning. Conservative pundits used the incident as an example of liberal bias in higher education, according to the Eagle-Tribune, which first reported this story.

"We're not a political organization," college spokesman Jim Chiavelli told the newspaper. "What was political to me was depicting (Thanksgiving) as some sort of a celebration of genocide and offensive to the college's views."

Earlier this year, Merrimack made headlines King's College London professor Richard Ned Lebow refused to apologize for a joke he made in an elevator at a San Francisco conference last month that offended Simona Sharoni, a gender studies professor at Merrimack. At the time, Sharoni said she could not "remain silent when misogyny is at play," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Lebow maintained her complaint was frivolous.

For more on this story, see the Eagle-Tribune. Subscribe to North Andover Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

File photo by Merrimack College.