MAYBE B.U. NEEDS TO RETHINK ITS HIRING PROCESS: BU hire set up sex profile for rival: Was ‘jealous’ coed when busted in 2008.
Troubling tweets disparaging white male college students may be just the tip of the iceberg for incoming Boston University professor Saida Grundy, who has a history of Internet misdeeds, the Herald has learned.
Grundy used the identity of a Virginia woman in a jealous fit over a man in late 2007 to create online accounts in the woman’s name, including one on an adult website for people looking for trysts, according to a police report obtained by the Herald under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Grundy got one year of probation after pleading guilty to malicious use of telecommunication services, a misdemeanor, according to online court records and Dan Dwyer, the court administrator at Washtenaw County Trial Court in Michigan. Two felony charges, identity theft and using a computer to commit a crime, were dismissed.
The cyber harassment took place in December 2007 when Grundy was at the University of Michigan, where she earned a master’s degree in sociology and a doctorate of philosophy in sociology and women’s studies in 2014.
The victim told police in Charlottesville, Va., that someone was creating accounts in her name and posting her personal information online, according to the police report.
A detective traced the suspect, identified as Grundy, to Ann Arbor and reached out to police there.
During an interview with detectives at her home in May 2008, Grundy said she had never met the victim but “this was a jealous thing regarding another man,” according to the police report.
A perfect foundation for a career in Women’s Studies.
Plus:
Last week, Grundy, who is black, said she regretted “indelicately” tweeting that white male college students are a “problem population” and that “white masculinity is THE problem for America’s colleges.”
On Monday, BU’s African American Studies faculty posted an online message welcoming Grundy, saying she had been hired after a nationwide search and chosen from over 100 applicants. The post mentioned Grundy’s tweets and said they’ve been “shocked by the number of voicemails left and the hostile emails sent to our office and our individual accounts.”
Did BU know about all these problems when they hired her? If not, why not? And what characteristics did she possess that made her more appealing than the other 100+ candidates?