The co-presidents of the St. Thomas Somali Student Association said they want to disprove President Donald Trump’s “racist” comments on Tuesday.
According to the Associated Press, Trump told reporters that Somalis “contribute nothing” and that they are “garbage” during a Cabinet meeting on Dec. 2. The SSA’s leaders said their best course of action is to prove him wrong.
“Keep doing what we’ve been doing, keep having our events, showcasing our culture,” SSA Co-President junior Hamza Omar said. “Even though we don’t have to, prove what he’s saying to be false.”
President Donald Trump has suggested that a deal struck by Netflix to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share.
“There’s no question about it,” Trump said Sunday, answering questions about the deal and various other topics as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors.
But asked again during a White House event with farmers a day later, Trump said he “didn’t know anything about the deal.”
The Rev. Chris Collins, a St. Thomas alumnus and the current vice president for mission, will be leaving the university for a new assignment in Belize City, Belize, at the end of the academic year.
Collins returned to St. Thomas in 2021 after graduating in 1993, according to the St. Thomas Newsroom. He is also the parochial administrator at St. Peter Claver Church in St. Paul in addition to holding various Catholic board positions around the Twin Cities.
“Within the Catholic Church, there’s different religious orders; there’s Diocesan priests that are local that basically take care of parishes, and then there’s religious orders that do different things in schools. And so I’m a Jesuit, so since we’re not a Jesuit university, I never thought that I would work here,” Collins said.
Sydner Baxter can be reached at baxt9124@stthomas.edu.
