At least two students from Nigeria who applied to a Texas
college were told they wouldn't be admitted because of Ebola.
Kamorudeen Abidogun, a Texas man originally from Nigeria,
said he received two letters from Navarro College, a two-year community college
with a campus about 58 miles from Dallas. Abidogun has five relatives in
Nigeria who were applying to the school and who were using his home in
Richmond, Texas, as a U.S. mailing address, he told CNBC.
The college rejected the applications, citing confirmed Ebola
cases in the country as the reason for the admissions decision.
The letter begins: "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.
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, called 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 man, Thomas
Eric Duncan.
When asked for further clarification, and to answer whether
in fact there is or had been a policy to reject students based on the presence
of Ebola in their countries, Gragg said in an email, "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 a Liberian man
traveling there with the virus, eight died. But the virus was contained in the
port city of Lagos.
Abidogun said his five relatives who have applied to Navarro
College all live in the city of Ibadan, in Oyo State, Nigeria, which is about
80 miles from Lagos.
Navarro College 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 to not admit people from countries with cases of
Ebola.
culled from Yahoo News (CNBC News)
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