One of the black cadet candidates who claimed to be the target of a racist message admitted to writing the racial slurs weeks after they were discovered on whiteboards at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School, officials said.
The unidentified cadet candidate who wrote the messages — found outside the rooms of five black students at the Colorado Springs Air Force dormitory in September — is no longer enrolled at the school, the Colorado Springs Gazettereported.
“We can confirm that one of the candidates who was allegedly targeted by racists remarks written outside of their dorm room was actually responsible for that act,” academy spokesman Lt. Col. Allen Herritage said in an email. “The individual admitted responsibility and this was validated by the investigation.”
Sources told the newspaper the cadet candidate “committed the act in a bizarre bid to get out of trouble he faced at the school for other misconduct.”
The message, which reportedly read “go home n—-,” prompted a widespread investigation by both academy police and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and additionally sparked an impassioned speech by the academy’s superintendent.
Surrounded by students and staff, Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria blasted the “horrible language” used and said it would be “tone deaf” to ignore “the dackdrop of what is going on in our country — things like Charlottesville and Ferguson, the protests in the NFL” in discussing the racist words.
He wrapped his comments by urging students to record his remarks and share the speech — “Reach for your phones, I’m serious,” he told them.
“If you can’t treat someone with dignity and respect, then you need to get out,” Silveria concluded. “And you can’t treat someone from another race or a different color skin with dignity and respect, then you need to get out.”
The speech, which the Academy also shared on YouTube, went viral with more than 1.2 million views and earned praise from former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. John McCain.