University of Maryland (UM) students were distressed and demanded an apology after the school’s president stood up for illegal immigrants, and used the Spanish language to do it.
The incident occurred Tuesday night, when UM president Wallace Loh delivered his annual state of the campus address. During his speech, Loh took a moment to defend illegal immigrants who attended the school, and used both English and Spanish to do it.
Echoing other university leaders around the country, Loh said UM would bar immigration officials from campus unless they had a warrant, and would refuse to share any student information with the government unless required to by a warrant or subpoena.
But after his speech, Loh found himself under attack by students during a question-and-answer period. According to The Diamondback, sociology student Ashley Vasquez asked Loh whether he would apologize for delivering part of his address in Spanish, which she said “does not represent the entire immigrant community here.”
Loh ignored Vasquez’s initial complaint, only to be hit a second time by a different student, who also asked for Loh to apologize. (RELATED: Maryland College Says America-Themed Parties Are Offensive)
Loh, who grew up in Peru, refused to do so.
“Are you asking me to apologize because I’m speaking in Spanish, which is the first language I learned?” he said.
Vazquez later told The Diamondback she was offended because, by speaking in Spanish, Loh implied that immigrants were exclusively of a “Latinx” background.
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