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"I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating," Dr. Uju Anya, an associate professor of second language acquisition at the acclaimed Pittsburgh-based university tweeted on Thursday, September 8.
The tweet was removed by Twitter for violating the platform's policies only after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos questioned the reason for Anya posting such a statement.
"This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow," one of the richest people on earth tweeted.
Anya responded by criticizing Bezos' "merciless greed" and refused to apologize.
"If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star," she tweeted in a thread with her original tweet.
Anya joined the university in 2021; she is Igbo, born in Nigeria— a former British colony— as she told WTAE.
The Igbo people were massacred in what is often called the "anti-Igbo pogrom of 1966," led by British-educated rulers who were backed by the British government. This is part of British history that is often "buried," as Frederick Forsyth, a former Reuters and BBC war correspondent pointed out in an opinion article for The Guardian.
"The United Kingdom at one time controlled at least 17 countries in Africa, and British rule is still associated with conflicts, forceful extraction of natural resources and land grabs," Mohammed Yusuf wrote in an article for Voice of America news following the Queen's death. Yusuf highlights experts' opinions on her majesty's role in the final days of the colonies.
Carnegie Melon has responded to the professor's comments by tweeting:
“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account.Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster.”
The Queen has since died "peacefully" at Balmoral, The Royal Family tweeted.
Bezos later shared his condolences with the British people mourning the Queen's passing in a quoted retweet from former-Prime Minster Gordon Brown.
Queen Elizabeth II was the second longest reigning monarch in the history of the world, following Louis XIV, the "Sun King" king of France from 1643 to 1715— ruling for 72 years— the Queen reigned for 70 years, according to BBC history. She was 96 at the time of her death.
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