Trinity College Sociology Professor Johnny Eric Williams has been placed on leave after racially charged comments he made on social media led to threats against the campus.
Williams made two Facebook posts in response to a fatal police shooting in Seattle. In those posts, he had called for an end to white supremacy and the “destructive mythology of whiteness.”
That prompted a backlash from right-wing media and led to threats of violence from across the country against Trinity College. Williams said he had to leave the state in order to protect himself and his family.
Williams said he was “heartbroken” over the college’s decision, which came without a faculty review. Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney said that the leave is in the best interest of both Williams and the college and that a dean’s review of Williams’s case continues.
House Republican Leader Themis Klarides of Derby and State Senator George Logan of Ansonia, both Trinity alumni, wrote to Berger-Sweeney asking that Williams be fired.
