Navarro College, a community college in Texas, is catching the ire of Nigerian students after rejection letters surfaced that said the school wasn't admitting students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases, Inside Higher Ed reported on Wednesday.
Only three African countries that have been most affected by the Ebola epidemic: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Several Nigerian applicants received the letters from Elizabeth Pillans, the director of international programs at the college.
Kamorudeen Abidogun, a Texan originally from Nigeria, said he received rejection letters from the school after five relatives back in Nigeria were using his Texas address to apply to the school. The applicants were rejected because of the Ebola epidemic.
"I received, last weekend, two rejection letters...saying the reason why they were not giving admission was...Ebola," Abidogun told CNBC, saying he was disappointed by the school's decision.
The letters flew through social media after they were circulated by Idris Bello, an advocate for Africans in America. He tweeted that "it's wrong to discriminate in admission decisions based on #EbolaFear."
He also noted that foreign students are necessarily the ones carrying Ebola, when a nurse named Nina Pham in Dallas contracted the disease after treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who died last week.
Navarro's Vice President for Access and Accountability Dewayne Gragg said the students must have received the wrong information pertaining to their applications.
"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," he said in an email to CNBC.
No new reported cases of Ebola have been reported in Nigeria since Sept. 8. The virus was contained in Lagos, a port city.
