UC Berkeley apologizes for listing xenophobia as a ‘common reaction’ to coronavirus

The University of California Berkeley apologized on Jan. 30 after an Instagram post by the school’s health services listed xenophobia as a “common reaction” to the spread of novel coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China.

The post gave information about “managing fears and anxiety,” The Washington Post reported. It gave resources for mental health and listed “normal reactions” to the spread of the virus. One of them was a xenophobia, which the post described as “fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about those feelings.”

The Instagram post was taken down amid outcry that the school was “normalizing racism.”

Dustin R. Glasner, an Asian-American alumnus of the school, tweeted that the handout was “really, truly unacceptable.”

“Stop normalizing racism,” he continued. “It is not normal, and racist reactions to the current coronavirus outbreak are NOT OKAY.”

UC Berkeley apologized in a statement to CBS.

“The post has been taken down and we regret any misunderstanding it may have caused,” Roqua Montez IV, executive director of communications and media relations at the Berkeley campus, told CBS News.

Adrienne Shih, another Twitter user, tweeted that the handout was also on the school’s website, but appears to have been updated to remove the mention of xenophobia.

UC Berkeley’s apology occurred on the same day the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern.”

Chinese officials said that coronavirus has infected more than 8,000 people and killed 171, according to The Washington Post. China also said there were more than 1,900 new cases on the same day.

The first person-to-person transmitted case of coronavirus in the U.S. was confirmed on Jan. 30, bringing the number of cases in the country to six, according to NBC.

This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 10:51 AM with the headline "UC Berkeley apologizes for listing xenophobia as a ‘common reaction’ to coronavirus."