UK student arrested following assault on campus

 

UK student arrested following assault on campus

Sophia Rosing a white student was arrested and charged with assault after lobbing racial slurs at another student Kylah Spring who happens to be black  in viral video.

By Edward Era Barbacena

 A student at the University of Kentucky has been arrested in connection to a physical and verbal assault against another UK student.

The arrest was made by UK Police at Boyd Hall on UK’s campus.

Sophia Rosing was booked at the Fayette County Detention Center at around 3:50 AM on Sunday morning. Her charges include alcohol intoxication in a public place, disorderly conduct, 4th-degree assault, and 3rd-degree assault (of a police officer). Her bond was set at $10,000.

A video that shows Rosing attacking another student, Kylah Spring. She was on duty as a desk clerk in the dormitory at the time. Spring shared the video on social media explaining the situation and it has been gaining traction online.

“For those of y’all who don’t know me, my name is Kylah. Kylah Spring. I’m a student at the University of Kentucky,” said Spring.

She explained that she was working the front desk in Boyd Hall when Rosing entered the building, appearing to be intoxicated.

“I say, ‘are you okay?’ and she continues to look at me and she starts calling me a n*****,” said Spring. “She bit me along my arm. She punched me in my face.”

In the video, Rosing is heard repeatedly calling Spring racial slurs.

The video quickly spread on campus. Many students say they are ashamed of what they saw.

“I was just real disappointed to see one of my fellow students was acting that way towards another one of my fellow students and I just hope everybody at UK always feels safe and comfortable and obviously that’s not what happened,” said UK freshman Julian Downey.

“The amount of racism that you still see to this day means that people are still teaching their children to still live like the past and that’s not how it is anymore. They need to grow up and live in this century,” said UK sophomore Sienna Edison-Turner.

Tresure Huston is a sophomore at UK. She says she and her friends were in Boyd Hall Saturday night and they just missed the incident but saw the videos.

“It was heartbreaking like it was really...it hit me to my core,” said Huston. She said what she saw in the videos made her feel less safe on campus. “It’s kinda hard because there still could be a potential that it could happen to me and I don’t want to see it happen to anybody else.”

Patricia Luna walked into the lobby just as the situation was getting started.

“I heard a slap and then I heard racial slurs and I was like ‘that’s not okay so I’m not gonna leave and I’m gonna pull out my phone so I can record,” said Luna. She stayed until the police arrived and arrested Rosing.

“The girl that was being harassed, she handled that so beautifully. she was always so professional and kind and didn’t turn to violence even though Sophia gave her every single reason to want to fight back,” said Luna.

Sunday morning, UK has put out an initial statement on Twitter saying that they are conducting a review of the incident, as well as offering support to the victim.

Sunday morning, UK has put out an initial statement on Twitter saying that they are conducting a review of the incident, as well as offering support to the victim.

They later released a statement from UK president Dr. Eli Capilouto:

Early this morning, an incident involving violence against our students, racial slurs and offensive language occurred in one of our residence halls. One of the victims was a student employee who was working an overnight shift at the front desk.

From my view of a video of the incident, the student worker acted with professionalism, restraint and discretion.

UK Police arrested the perpetrator, who faces criminal charges, and the investigation is ongoing. Our Office of Student Conduct also is conducting an immediate review, and our Student Success teams are reaching out to the student victims who were subject to this behavior to offer support.

To be clear: we condemn this behavior and will not tolerate it under any circumstance. The safety and well-being of our community has been — and will continue to be — our top priority.

As we know more details about what happened, we will share more information.

On Friday, I shared with the campus the responsibilities we have to each other as a community — to protect the free expression of ideas and opinions and to respect each other — everyone on this campus — as we strive to create a community of belonging.

The video images I have seen do not honor our responsibilities to each other. They reflect violence, which is never acceptable, and a denial of the humanity of members of our community. They do not reflect civil discourse. They are deeply antithetical to what we are and what we always want to be as a community.

We will fully investigate what happened last night, but we also must learn from this moment and do better as a community.

There is no more important responsibility we have — or commitment we must make — than to treat each person — each person — on this campus as people who have equal intrinsic worth and value.

Let us take this moment, painful and ugly though it is, to remind ourselves of the work we must remain committed to as a community where everyone is welcome and feels that they belong.

Again, we will keep you informed as we know more.

Eli Capilouto

According to Rosing’s LinkedIn page, she was working as a Dillard’s Campus Influencer. She was hired through a program run by College Fashionista and their parent company, Her Campus Media.

Her Campus Media told WKYT that Sophia Rosing was removed from the program.

College Fashionista has also released a statement:

Today we learned of a video involving a College Fashionista member physically and verbally assaulting two Black women. At Her Campus Media and College Fashionista, we vehemently denounce this abhorrent behavior and do not condone racism or hate in any form. We unapologetically stand in support of BIPOC communities and affirm that Black lives matter. Full stop.

Immediately upon being informed of the incident, we removed the member from our community and terminated her affiliation with any of our programs.

We strive to ensure all of our members reflect our values, but in this case we failed. Here’s how we’ll be taking accountability moving forward:

→ Sophia Rosing was removed from the College Fashionista community effective immediately.

→ We will be conducting an immediate detailed review of our member management practices, including our vetting processes, internal training, and beyond.

Thank you to the community for bringing this to our attention. Thank you for raising your voices and holding us accountable. We sincerely apologize for the immense hurt caused to the individuals involved and to our wider community.

Dillard’s also sent a statement to WKYT.

Dillard’s does not condone this behavior. Her relationship with Dillard’s has been terminated immediately.