September 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nThe post has gotten more than 24,000 likes and 5,000 replies.<\/p>\n
Anya, a 2023 Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellow and a 2023 Duolingo Research Fellow, could not be reached for comment. An auto reply from her school contact said she is not checking her email frequently while on professional leave.<\/p>\n
Her X account appears to be deactivated as of Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
According to Vanguard News, the public argument between Anya and @TheWuhanClan escalated Friday after the X user shared screenshots and details of their exchange. It started with @TheWuhanClan responding to a Feb. 17, 2021 post by Anya about the late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in which she posted, \u201cRush Limbaugh finally did something positive in life by dropping dead. Good Riddance to bad rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The X user responded, \u201cWeird how you only celebrate the deaths of white people. Why is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her answer: \u201cDie first, white man, then ask yourself why I\u2019m dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carnegie Mellon took to X again Saturday to reiterate their position.<\/p>\n
They posted: \u201cTo be clear: These posts incorrectly imply our university\u2019s endorsement and are contrary to our community standards and values as well as our commitment to fostering a safe, respectful and welcoming campus community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previous controversies<\/p>\n
This is not the first time Anya has been embroiled in social media controversy.<\/p>\n
She received backlash following a September 2022 post, also on X, about Queen Elizabeth II shortly before the monarch\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating,\u201d Anya posted to Twitter.<\/p>\n
It was subsequently deleted for violating the online platform\u2019s rules but it caused a firestorm of both critics and supporters.<\/p>\n
More than 3,000 people signed a letter rallying around Anya at the time.<\/p>\n
She told Pittsburgh-based media company 1Hood that the post was spontaneous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had an emotional reaction and had an emotional outburst. I was triggered by this news,\u201d she said in the interview. \u201cIt went in deep places of pain and trauma for me due to my family\u2019s experience with the rule of this monarch.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that her parents and some siblings lived in a part of Nigeria that was trying to gain independence from Great Britain during the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s. Anya said conservative estimates say the war resulted in the death of 3 million civilians, and that her family was lucky to escape unharmed.<\/p>\n
Carnegie Mellon addressed the 2022 incident with a statement that said her words were offensive and objectionable, but ultimately did not punish Anya, citing her right to free expression.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Anya posted after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler Township, saying, \u201cIt was staged. Like a stupid Tubi movie set in the Bronx with palm trees in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n
She posted most recently on the anniversary of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s death in September 2025, calling it \u201cKirkmas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Carnegie Mellon University professor is on a voluntary sabbatical while school officials review what they called \u201chostile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-284738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}