A City Council member in Urbana, Illinois made a concerning declaration at a recent City meeting:
Councilwoman Shirese Hursey alleged that the utilization of the Zoom conferencing platform by the City for public meetings during COVID attracted “blatant racism”, and has caused her to be the victim of racially motivated hate speech.
Hursey: “I can be called ‘nigger’ to my face right here, because that is exactly what I’ve been called on Zoom meetings…And I have been called ‘nigger’ more during a [Urbana City Council] Zoom meeting than I have ever been called in my life.”
Hursey said that the City should deny residents the ability to participate in public meetings using Zoom in the future. Her commentary can be viewed here:
The allegation is extremely concerning, but it is not clear to what incident(s) Hursey was referring. A FOIA request sent to the City of Urbana did not reveal any records of instances where Hursey was the target of hate speech.
The only instance of such language being used at an Urbana City Council meeting occurred on June 1st, 2020 when an unknown individual “Zoom bombed” the meeting with a 3-4 second long recording of hateful words directed at the George Floyd murder. That instance can be viewed here:
The June 1st, 2020 incident appears to have been a singular instance and has not recurred since Urbana City staff changed the default microphone setting in Zoom for attendees to ‘off’ – making it impossible for random attendees to “bomb” the meeting.
Hursey said that members of the public were free to use email, postal mail, and the telephone to submit public input, but that Zoom specifically should not be allowed. She did not make clear how these other means of conveyance are fundamentally different from Zoom.
At a prior meeting, Hursey also claimed that Zoom public input would violate the Open Meetings Act, however the Illinois Attorney general disagreed, saying that the OMA does not in any way inhibit remote public input.