I have known IFC President Chip Ray since the first day he stepped on campus at Penn State.
I helped recruit him to our fraternity and was instantly impressed by his passion, selflessness and desire for success.
In regard to the tweets in question, both are quotes from other people. The first is a retweet from a parody account known for offensive humor. I will point out that this is no more offensive then what you see nightly on Comedy Central.
The second, the article admits, had someone else tagged in it. This most likely was an inside joke between them. For what reasons, or in what context the person said this, we do not know.
While neither tweet is something that Ray said himself, it was no doubt a lack of judgment to quote these two comments on his page. He is 21 years old, though, and at 21 everyone errs in their judgment from time to time.
But these errors are clearly not indicative of the man Ray has become, and they clearly do not jive with all that he has accomplished at Penn State.
As a 21-year-old — an age prone to lacks of judgment — we should give Ray the benefit of the doubt that his record and his actions are a true reflection of who he is and what he stands for and not two random quotes that were posted to Twitter.
Brent Whitesell
Class of 2009
