Alabama university student from Marlton stirs backlash with racist videos

The president of the University of Alabama said Wednesday that a 19-year-old student from Marlton who posted racist videos, sparking an angry backlash on social media, was “no longer enrolled here.”

President Stuart R. Bell said in a statement on the university's website that he wanted to express his "personal disgust and disappointment" with the two videos recorded by Harley Barber.

"We apologize to everyone who has seen the videos and been hurt by this hateful, ignorant, and offensive behavior," Bell said.

In an interview with the New York Post, Barber, a freshman, said she was returning to New Jersey after being expelled from the Tuscaloosa university.

"I did something really, really bad," she told the newspaper. "I don't know what to do, and I feel horrible. I'm wrong, and there's just no excuse for what I did."

The videos were first reported by AL.com.

Barber attended Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill, but did not graduate, said Mary Whipkey, the prep school's president.

In the first video, Barber — who could not be reached for comment Wednesday night — is at a bathroom sink and comments about not wasting water to help people in Syria, then jokes about pretending to like black people when she actually hates them. She uses the N-word several times.

In a second video, apparently posted on Monday, she appears to respond to criticism of her first video by saying how much she loves her sorority, Alpha Phi, then repeatedly says the N-word again. There are other women in the video with Barber laughing at what she is saying.

"I don't care if it's Martin Luther King Day," she says.

"I'm in the South now, bitch," she says, adding that she is from New Jersey "so I can say [N-word] as much as I want."

In a statement, the sorority condemned the videos and said Barber was no longer a member.

Alabama running back Damien Harris responded on Twitter to the videos: "This girl goes to the same university as me but they say, 'racism is dead.' Unfortunately, this thread says the opposite," he wrote, referring to another Twitter user who had posted copies of the videos.

In his statement, the university's president said the videos were "not who we are."

"Over the last year, I have had conversations with many of you who shared your UA experiences with me. You have voiced your pride in the progress we have made, but we still have much work to do," Bell said.