Students say second woman kept up taunts that drew 13 million views
Three Black University of Mississippi students — Victoria Johnson, Jakiyra Metcalf and Kaiyden Caldwell — described the episode in a “CBS Mornings” interview that aired Wednesday. The Ring camera video at its center shows two white students making monkeylike sounds and gestures outside their front door.
Johnson said one of the women apologized while the other amplified her behavior. “She continued to make the gestures after the girl was apologizing. It was like a slap in the face,” Johnson said.
Metcalf saw the video Friday, and she and Johnson went outside to talk to the two women, who had another friend with them — a person the video shows only glancing at the door. The students said Kunes apologized but that the women said they had been making animallike noises and gestures in front of other doors in the apartment complex. The second woman, who lives in the complex, purportedly kept the antics going off camera, they said.
Metcalf’s TikTok post of the video has been viewed more than 13 million times in four days. Such gestures and sounds are seen as racist because they recall old stereotypes comparing Black people to simians. That the encounter happened at a college community in the Deep South with a long history of racism has added to the raw emotions, and the episode has drawn intense attention on the Ole Miss campus and across social media.
On Monday, the university posted a statement condemning the actions in the video as “offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable behaviors that conflict with our university values.” School officials said the incident is being investigated and that they are dedicated to “maintaining a safe and welcoming environment.”
Kunes, 18, issued a public apology Tuesday through a law firm. “Before the incident on Nov. 6, I never met the women involved and was unaware of their race, however I recognize my actions were insensitive, inappropriate and deeply harmful,” Kunes said in the statement. “I would have never intentionally made those noises or gestures toward a person of color. I have apologized to the women and I pray they will forgive me.”
She has since withdrawn from school, and the statement said she would fully cooperate with any investigation. Kate Gardiner, a spokesperson for the law firm, said the statement was originally posted on the firm’s website but had to be taken down because of ongoing harassment. Kunes will not speak beyond the statement, Gardiner said.
Asked whether they forgive Kunes, the three roommates hedged. “I still have very mixed feelings about it,” Metcalf said. Caldwell said she appreciated the apology but that it does not change what happened. “It’s still hurtful, and it’s still devastating that someone would go to our camera and do that,” Caldwell said.
The outrage directed at Kunes and the second woman, who has not publicly identified herself, has also stirred opposition to using social media to malign them. Tom Hennessey, an influencer tied to online fundraisers for people criticized for making xenophobic remarks, is credited with starting a fundraiser for the unidentified woman on GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising platform. It had raised more than $30,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
The fundraising page states the “online mob (is) treating a juvenile stunt as a hate crime because the residents were Black.” It also says the fundraiser could possibly be canceled if the woman “disavows our support and bends the knee” and apologizes.
Contacted through a direct message on X, formerly Twitter, Hennessey said there is a double standard and that less attention is given to Black-on-white crime. He declined to say whether he had been in touch with the student about the fundraiser.
The university has been the backdrop for a similar episode before. During a May 2024 campus demonstration over the Israel-Hamas war, a counterprotester made monkey sounds and gestures at a Black female student, in an interaction filmed by a student journalist. The video drew the attention of outgoing Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, who appeared to praise the behavior in a tweet.
The campus’s ties to the nation’s desegregation movement run deep. In 1962, activist James Meredith became the first Black person admitted to the school after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Then-Gov. Ross Barnett tried to block his admission but could not disobey federal law, according to the National Museum of African American History & Culture. White objectors instigated a riot on campus; two bystanders died and more than 200 arrests were made.