Dartmouth Sorority Cancels Kentucky Derby Party After Protests That It's Racist and Elitist

Daily Caller - A sorority at Dartmouth College has canceled an annual Kentucky Derby-themed party in response to protesters who complained that basing a party on the popular horse race was racist.

Every year, Kappa Delta Epsilon (KDE) holds an invite-only party in the spring. Until last year, the party was held the same weekend as the Kentucky Derby, which was used as the party’s theme.

In 2015, several Dartmouth students protested outside the party as part of a larger protest march, saying the exclusive party was racist and economically elitist. After Dartmouth’s student assembly president (who was attending the party) engaged in a shouting match with a protester, activists launched a petition drive calling for him to resign.

Now, according to The Dartmouth, the protesters have apparently achieved their goal, as KDE’s members have voted to rebrand the party to avoid offending people. Henceforth, instead of having a Derby theme, it will have a Woodstock theme.

“We realized that if anyone on campus felt uncomfortable or upset with the theme, then we obviously shouldn’t have it,” said KDE social chair Jehanna Axelrod.

KDE vice president Nikol Oydanich said house members were convinced by critics that the party was racially offensive because it evoked the aesthetics of the plantation-era South.

“[It is] related to pre-war Southern culture,” she said. “Derby was a party that had the power to upset a lot of our classmates.”

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Ok first of all not to be the fact check police but the Civil War ended in 1865. The first Kentucky Derby was 1875. I know I’m nitpicking here but when the basis of your argument is that the Derby signifies “pre-war Southern culture” I just felt like that should be accurate. I mean the Plantation Era is literally defined as “a period in the history of the Southern United States, from the late 18th century until the start of the American Civil War in 1860,” so how a race that originated 15 years after that “evokes” it, I’m not sure. I guess when you’re a chronic protester you have to bend and stretch the facts a little bit for a more compelling picket sign?

Second of all, and more importantly: it’s a fucking Kentucky Derby party. To watch horse racing. Shut the fuck up.