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Comedian Jay Mohr calls for professor to be fired over insensitive comments about Barbara Bush

He addressed the professor's divisive comments on Twitter

Ilana Kaplan
Friday 20 April 2018 20:22 BST
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Jay Mohr. Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Jay Mohr. Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images (Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Jay Mohr called out a professor for insulting Barbara Bush on Twitter.

The comedian saw Randa Jarrar - a professor and author at California State University, Fresno - tweet about the late former First Lady and was outraged.

Jarrar wrote, "Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal. F*** outta here with your nice words."

(Credit: Twitter (Credit: Twitter)

Mohr tweeted at Fresno State President Joseph Castro requesting Jarrar’s termination.

"COWARD," he wrote. "I’m a comedian, huge free speech advocate. Randa Jarrar should be fired 4 her sheer arrogance. A garbage person that cannot possibly be shielded through your terrible+weak PC statement today. Protecting her hate isn’t why you make 300k a year."

Mohr was referring not just to the initial tweet, but the flurry of posts thereafter.

Jarrar continued to criticise the Bush family and the war in Iraq, standing by her tweets regardless of backlash.

"PSA: either you are against these pieces of s*** and their genocidal ways or you're part of the problem," Jarrar wrote in another tweet, "that's actually how simple this is."

She added, "I'm happy the witch is dead. can't wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise the way 1.5 million iraqis did."

(Credit: Twitter (Credit: Twitter)

In response to her controversial remarks, she seemed to imply that she couldn't be fired over her tweets.

"Sweetie i work as a tenured professor. i make $100,000 a year for doing that. i will never be fired," she said to a Twitter user who said she wouldn't find any of this funny when she was "loosing writing gigs."

In response to Jarrar's tweets, Cal State Fresno made a statement earlier this week giving their condolences to the Bush family and separating themselves from Jarrar.

"We share the deep concerns expressed by others over the personal comments made today by Professor Randa Jarrar, a professor in the English Department at Fresno State," Castro said in the statement.

He went onto say that Jarrar's words "were made as a private citizen not as a representative of Fresno State."

They also said they didn't represent the university's "core values."

Since Jarrar's tweets have gone viral, she has made her account private and said she is "currently on leave from Fresno State."

It is unclear if her leave has to do with this particular situation.

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