Fear of Ebola: Texas College rejects applications from Nigeria, others

A TExas institution, Navarro College, has turned down admission applications received from countries affected by the Ebola Virus Disease, the CNBC reports.

The decision, which is coming on the heels of global move towards eradication of discrimination against people affected by the disease, has already affected two Nigerians.

Kamorudeen Abidogun, a Nigerian who lives in Texas, said he received two rejection letters from Navarro, a two-year community college with a campus about 58 miles of Dallas. Abidogun has five relatives in Nigeria who applied to the school and used his home in Richmond, Texas, as a US mailing address.



The college was said to have rejected the applications, citing confirmed Ebola cases in the country as the reason for the decision.

The letter says, “With sincere regret, I must report that Navarro College is not able to offer you acceptance for the Spring 2015 term. Unfortunately, Navarro College is not accepting international students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases.”

But the college dismissed the claim, saying it only changed its ongoing foreign student admission catchment in favour of China and Indonesia.

Abidogun said his five relatives who applied to Navarro live in Ibadan, Oyo State, which has not recorded any case of EVD.

Navarro talks about the Ebola virus on the section of its website devoted to admissions information for international students, but it does not mention any policy regarding its role in the admission process.

Idris Bello, a Nigerian who lives in East Texas, tweeted a photo of the letter to bring attention to the situation. Bello, in an interview with CNBC, described the college’s purported policy “embarrassing.”

In his tweet, Bello noted the irony of the school having such a policy for foreign students when 26-year-old nurse, Nina Pham, in nearby Dallas, recently contracted the disease after treating a Liberian victim Thomas Eric Duncan.

After repeated requests for comments on the situation, Navarro’s Vice President for Access and Accountability, Dewayne Gragg, sent an email to CNBC.com.

The email reads: “Our college values its diverse population of international students. This fall we have almost 100 students from Africa. Unfortunately, some students received incorrect information regarding their applications to the institution.

“As part of our new honours programme, the college restructured the international department to include focused recruitment from certain countries each year. Our focus for 2014-15 is on China and Indonesia.

“Other countries will be identified and recruitment efforts put in place once we launch our new honours program fall 2015. We apologise for any misinformation that may have been shared with students. Additional information regarding our progress with this new initiative will be posted on our website.”

When asked for further clarification, and to answer whether in fact there had been a policy to reject students based on the presence of Ebola in their countries of origin, Gragg said, “The prior email speaks for the college.”

There have been no new reported cases of Ebola in Nigeria since Sept. 8.

Out of 20 people reported infected as a result of contact with the Liberia-American, Patrick Sawyer, who was in the country for a conference with the virus, eight died.

But the virus was successfully contained in both Lagos and Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The containment of the disease in Nigeria had attracted commendation from different parts of the world, including the United States.