SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator of public colleges in South Portland, Maine, has resigned and left the state, saying he fears for his household’s security after receiving a threatening letter from a white supremacist.
The assault on Mohammed Albehadli, who got here to the U.S. a decade in the past from Iraq after it grew to become too harmful, comes at a time when many Republicans are against efforts to recruit and retain college and college students of shade.
Albehadli stated he is aware of from expertise in Iraq how threats can escalate: “You hear one thing first. And the subsequent factor, an motion follows.”
He determined to not wait to seek out out what the motion is perhaps.
The Dec. 29 letter, launched to The Related Press below a freedom of data request, accommodates racist epithets and signifies the New England White Community instructed Albehadli that he ought to “return to the Center East the place you belong.”
Superintendent Timothy Matheney described the letter because the “most vile e mail message I’ve seen in my 35 years in training.”
Albehadli, who introduced his resignation every week in the past, was “an exemplary workers member” who was making a “optimistic influence” on metropolis colleges, Matheney stated.
“As a result of we deeply worth the range of our college students and workers members, this example has saddened all of us who search to make sure protected and welcoming colleges. Nonetheless, we’ll proceed to pursue variety, fairness and inclusion right here as a result of the significance of that work is much more evident and pressing to us now,” he stated in a press release.
South Portland Police Chief Dan Ahern stated a faculty useful resource officer and detectives are investigating and consulting with state and county prosecutors to find out if against the law was dedicated.
Related emails from the identical sender have gone to different individuals of shade — together with Portland, Maine, metropolis councilors Victoria Pelletier and Pious Ali, who lately ran for mayor. In 2022, an e mail to state Rep. Charlotte DiLorenzo in New Hampshire was investigated by the state lawyer basic’s workplace. Not too long ago, one other e mail to a mayor in New Hampshire known as the mayor’s homosexual son an “abomination.”
“Fairly truthfully, these assaults take a toll. How might they not?” Ali wrote in a press release concerning the incident. However Ali vowed that he wouldn’t be intimidated and urged individuals to return collectively to face up in opposition to racism.
The emails’ sender, Ryan Murdough, the New Hampshire founding father of the New England White Community, is lively on Gab, a social networking web site common with white nationalists, the place he stated that he has acquired a no-trespass discover for varsity property in South Portland together with a police officer’s warning that hate speech might be considered as a menace.
“Truthfully, I don’t care about Mohammed,” Murdough instructed The Related Press in an e mail. Murdough claims that by focusing on variety efforts, he is talking up for white households.
Murdough has been concerned in different white supremacist teams and launched the New England White Community in 2022, and ran unsuccessfully for a New Hampshire legislative seat in 2010, in keeping with the Anti-Defamation League.
Albehadli, who holds levels from Trinity School and Boston College and already has left Maine, stated he understands that Murdough has free speech rights. Nonetheless, he stated, there needs to be penalties for crossing a line and making him really feel unsafe, and for inflicting him to uproot his household, flee a state he loves and begin from scratch in a brand new job.
He stated he cherished Maine, the place he lived for six years, and did not need to depart the state.
“If he feels sensible to stroll a superb line on the regulation, if he is capable of navigate the system and say no matter he can say, then I am kind of dropping religion,” Albehadli stated. “There needs to be authorized penalties”.”
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