'White Genocide' Professor Resigns, Plays The Victim

A Drexel University professor who received death threats after posting several controversial tweets said Thursday he is resigning because the year-long harassment has made his situation "unsustainable."

George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor of politics and global studies, had been teaching his class remotely via video conference after being put on administrative leave, a move that Drexel said was for his own safety.

The professor said his resignation is effective December 31.



"This is not a decision I take lightly; however, after nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and Internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable," Ciccariello-Maher wrote on his Facebook account. "Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking, and organizing."

The professor said the threats began last December after he posted on Twitter: "All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide." He said the tweet was a joke, a "satirical jab at a certain paranoid racist fantasy and that white genocide does not exist."