The University of Mississippi is investigating student conduct after a doorbell camera recorded three white women walking past a Black student’s off-campus apartment door as two of them made monkey noises and gestures at the camera on the night of Nov. 6.
The camera footage, timestamped 8:37 p.m., shows two of the women imitating apes as they pass the door. One appears to beat her chest while another moves closer to the camera. The third woman walks past the camera without gesturing.
UM student Jakiyra Metcalf, a freshman who shares the apartment with two roommates, posted the video to TikTok, tagging the university and asking what it had to say. By Sunday, the clip had drawn more than 11.5 million views. Metcalf later wrote in the comments that the women lived one floor above her.
Metcalf’s mother, Tasha Bolton, posted the video to her Facebook and addressed the university. “This is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. College is supposed to be a place where young adults can learn, grow, and feel safe,” she wrote.
One of the women in the video making the gestures identified herself as Alaina Kunes in an apology issued Nov. 10. “To the women I offended and to the Ole Miss community, I sincerely apologize. I recognize my actions were insensitive, inappropriate, and deeply harmful.” Kunes confirmed to Action News 5 that she has withdrawn from the university.
The two other women in the video, one of whom also makes gestures toward the camera, have not been identified.
‘This Matter Is Being Taken Seriously’
UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce issued a statement on Nov. 12 confirming that an investigation into the conduct is ongoing.
Boyce called the incident “diametrically opposed to our values of dignity and respect that we champion, teach and hold ourselves accountable to” as a university.
“Upon learning about the incident on the evening of Friday, Nov. 6, our staff responded quickly, providing care and resources,” he said in the statement. “We met with the students and their families to discuss our processes, and I can confirm that the university investigation is moving forward. We believe in holding students accountable through established processes. Please understand that federal privacy laws limit what we can share about individual students and any disciplinary outcomes.”
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Shawnboda Mead had previously issued a message to the campus community on Nov. 8.
The Mississippi Free Press requested an interview with the UM Division of Student Affairs this week. Instead of making an official available, a spokesperson replied by email with copies of university policies.
Sorority Says the Women Were Falsely Identified as Members
Within a day of the video’s spread, social media users began circulating names of the women and claiming they belonged to the Iota Omega chapter of Alpha Phi at UM.
In an Instagram post on Nov. 7, the sorority said none of the women in the video are members of the group and have never been affiliated with the sorority. The chapter said people online had confused them with members who have similar names, causing “real distress” to those members and their families. It asked people to remove posts and stop sharing members’ names, photos and personal information.
The chapter said it also condemns racist conduct and is working with UM’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and Alpha Phi’s national executive office to correct the record.
Mead’s statement backed the chapter’s account. She said no members of UM sororities were involved and that one of the three students named online had been identified incorrectly, the student newspaper reported.
‘Feeling Unwelcome and Unsafe’
UM Black Student Union President Demetrick M. Stringer Jr. condemned the incident on Instagram on Nov. 7.
“Comparisons of this kind carry a long and painful history, and directing them at a student where she lives has left her, and many of our members, feeling unwelcome and unsafe.”
The BSU called for discipline proportionate to race-based harassment under university policy. Its statement said the students involved were first-year students and urged UM to strengthen how new students learn the UM Creed, which includes a pledge to respect the dignity of each person.
Vincent Ford, Metcalf’s grandfather, told WAPT that the family first found the video “somewhat laughable” before its weight set in. He pointed to the long history of Black people being stereotyped as monkeys and apes and called on the university to hold the women accountable.
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Mocks Students
On Nov. 11 far-right provocateur Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, came to the UM campus and defended the women in the doorbell video during a demonstration at the student union.
“Three Ole Miss girls did nothing wrong. They did nothing wrong but being unfairly persecuted,” Lang said in the video. “We are tired. We have black fatigue in this country. We are tired of being persecuted for being white. In this country you are allowed to do whatever First Amendment activity you want.” Students seen in the video had little to no reaction to Lang’s activities.
Earlier that day, Lang put on a monkey mask and beat his chest outside an apartment that appears similar to where Metcalf and her roommates live, imitating the conduct in the apartment video. In footage he shared online, he again said the women “did nothing wrong,” and shouted “chimping out!” Lang also included a demeaning remark about one of the students and her Ring camera, on his X account.
Lang, a New York native, was arrested days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and indicted on 11 counts, including charges that he assaulted police officers with a baseball bat. He spent about four years jailed awaiting trial before President Donald Trump pardoned Lang and all other Jan. 6 defendants on his first day back in office in January 2025.
Since his release, Lang has built an online following by staging confrontational demonstrations around the country and regularly makes racist, discriminatory comments in his content. In January 2026, he led an anti-Islam march in Minneapolis, Minnesota that drew a crowd of counter-prostesters, and he was later arrested there after recording himself damaging an anti-ICE sculpture at the Minnesota State Capitol. In March, federal prosecutors charged him with threatening one of the officers he faced at the Capitol. He was arrested again in Frisco, Texas, in June.
UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce addressed Lang in his statement without naming him, saying “an unaffiliated individual” came to campus on Nov. 11 “with the sole purpose to disrupt our university community with racist and detestable behavior.” He said the university supports First Amendment rights as a public institution but “vehemently” denounced the man’s conduct, calling it “an obvious attempt to antagonize and offend our students.”
“In the face of bigotry, I am proud of the way our students demonstrated integrity and resolve,” Boyce wrote.
‘Zero Tolerance Must Mean Something’
The original incident has also drawn pressure from parents of other UM students. Kristina Pluta, whose son is a sophomore at the university, emailed Chancellor Glenn Boyce, Shawnboda Mead, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees and several news outlets late on Nov. 8, calling for the expulsion of any student found responsible.
In a statement to the Mississippi Free Press on Nov. 10, Pluta said she had not received a response from the university.
“Let me be unequivocally clear: Any student found responsible for deliberately engaging in this kind of racist harassment should be expelled from the University of Mississippi. Period,” Pluta said. “Zero tolerance must mean something. It cannot simply be a phrase in a university statement or a promise made when the public is watching.”
Pluta said her own visits to Oxford have been “overwhelmingly positive,” marked by warmth and hospitality from people of every background. But she said she has experienced the town “through the lens of a white woman.”
“I cannot pretend to fully understand what it means to navigate the world, or a university community, while facing racial prejudice or discrimination,” she said. “My positive experiences do not diminish or invalidate the painful experiences of others.”
She said her call for expulsion does not come from hatred toward the women in the video.
“I believe racism is learned, and I believe it can be unlearned,” Pluta said. “I believe these young women can learn, grow, and change. But I do not believe that opportunity for personal growth requires the University of Mississippi to continue their enrollment.”
Given Mississippi’s history, she said, the university has a responsibility to show that “its future
will be defined not by the injustices of its past.” She urged other parents of UM students to speak up.
“Silence should not be an option when students are subjected to such blatant racial degradation,” she said. “Mississippi cannot change its history, but it has the power to define its future.”
UM has had a long struggle with racism, from the deadly riots that followed James Meredith’s 1962 enrollment as the university’s first Black student to internal emails showing officials catering to racist donors.
The university has not said how long its review will take or what sanctions are possible. Because federal privacy law restricts what UM can release about individual students’ discipline, the outcome may never be made public.
Students seeking support can contact the University Counseling Center or UMatter, both free for UM students.
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