An Arizona State student started a petition Tuesday night to pressure Arizona State University’s Blaze Radio Station Manager Rae’Lee Klein to resign.
As of Wednesday night, more than 300 people have signed the Change.org petition calling for the journalism student to resign after she retweeted a New York Post article on Saturday about the shooting of Jacob Blake by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Outrage from the tweets has quickly grown, causing many organizations on ASU’s downtown campus to put out statements reaffirming their stance against racism and discrimination.
“Her views come off as not only biased but harmful to not only journalists of color, but nearly all journalists at Arizona State University and other schools and locations that are aware of these tweets,” Nicholas Zeler-Singh said in the petition’s description.
The Multicultural Student Journalist Coalition (MSJC) said in a statement yesterday that it “demands” the removal of Klein if she doesn’t resign from her position. Since June, the MSJC has asked ASU and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to “be accountable for leaders within our community.”
The statement said Klein’s comments “undermine” the shooting of Jacob Blake and the Black Lives Matter movement by “encouraging” people to read a New York Post article.
The statement also said she acted “irresponsible” in sharing an article that only sourced police records, “which have been known to be skewed or flat-out incorrect.”
The organization finds Klein’s resignation “necessary” considering her leadership position. Although the Blaze Radio Board of Directors unanimously requested Klein to step down, she refused their request. While the entire Board doesn’t recognize her position, Klein still continues her duties and is receiving a paycheck from the school.
The MSJC called upon the Cronkite School and ASU to take action now, asking, “Do your minority students’ voices matter to you or not?”
Yesterday, Phoenix radio station KFYI 550 AM talked to Klein on-air. She described the ordeal including the accusations of racism and biased journalism practices.
“I’ve been called a racist on multiple occasions for sharing information,” Klein said, along with her claim that many students described the article as “too Fox Newsy” to be correct.
After deleting the original tweet, she offered an apology and said “it’s been a lot less conversational,” but along with the attacks, she’s received some support.
Klein said that she’s contacted the Cronkite School administration, however the school said it wants the matter solved internally within the Blaze Radio Board of Directors.
She said reporting the truth can put people in uncomfortable situations, but Klein’s “moral compass” made put her journalistic ethics over the feelings.
“The facts outweigh the feelings, and the truth needs to be told regardless,” she said.
Every person who enters the Cronkite School can expect to be greeted by a large display of the next to the elevators of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Similar quotes reiterating the duties of the press can be found throughout the school.
Klein said the school’s actions remain contradictory to their curriculum when it literally “shoves [the First Amendment] in your face when you walk in the door.”
She said some students feel the same way and have had to censor themselves from sharing certain information.
“I’ve got a lot of peers that have aligned with me but are scared to speak out because of the repercussions of what they might face,” she said.
Sara Edwards is a co-secretary for the Multicultural Student Journalists Coalition and did not contribute to the editing of this article.
Blaze Radio Production Manager Jordan Spurgeon said that, while Blaze didn’t have a diverse board of leaders this year, one of the first steps the station wants to take is to partner with the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists to hear feedback from everyone involved to see what Blaze can do better.
He said they didn’t know the details yet, but Rae’Lee had brought up that plan before the August 29 incident.
However, student leaders from NAHJ and AWSM said in the Zoom chat during the meeting that they have received no approaches for these plans or heard anything about partnership with AWSM, despite Klein’s claim that Blaze was planning a partnership.
