Morristown-Beard student who uttered racial slur in video won’t be attending Cornell

Nate Panza, pictured in a 38-second video he now regrets.
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Nate Panza, the Morristown-Beard football star heard uttering a racial slur in a video posted online last month, won’t be attending Cornell University in the fall, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.

It was not immediately clear whether the university rescinded Panza’s admission, or if Panza voluntarily withdrew.

A Cornell spokesperson declined to comment on Monday.

Panza was removed from the Cornell football program last month after football coach David Archer viewed the video. “There is no room for this behavior in Cornell Athletics,” Andy Noel, director of athletics at Cornell, said in a statement at the time.

On Panza’s video, posted to Snapchat and shared by others across various social media platforms, the bare-chested Panza can be heard using an expletive and the N-word.

His friend behind the camera, fellow Morristown-Beard graduate Adam Giaquinto, is heard applying the N-word to George Floyd, the black man killed by a Minneapolis policeman on Memorial Day.

The University of Richmond rescinded Giaquinto’s acceptance. Colgate University did the same regarding another Morristown-Beard graduate who posted a TikTok video that made light of African Americans.

UPDATE: Colgate subsequently reversed its position, citing “convincing evidence” the applicant’s TikTok video had been altered. A video forensics expert hired by the student’s family said it appeared someone had doctored the video.

Such incidents are “extraordinarily painful,” Morristown-Beard Headmaster Peter Caldwell and board President John Fay told the school community last month in a joint message, promising a third-party survey of black students about their experiences at the Morris Township prep school, along with creation of a task force and community forums.

“It is shameful that these incidents at Morristown-Beard School have gone unspoken or unheard. We are deeply sorry for the racial injustices and inequities that Black students have endured while being part of the MBS community. Morristown-Beard School believes Black Lives Matter and is committed to becoming an inclusive and anti-racist community,” the statement said.

A petition calling for Panza’s expulsion from Cornell garnered several hundred signatures at the university, and the school’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management tweeted that it was reviewing the matter after it was tagged by the petition, the Cornell Daily Sun reported.

Saying he took full responsibility for his actions, Panza last month told the student newspaper that he apologized for his “offensive and hurtful” language and would spend the rest of his life trying to prove he is not a racist.

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