Bowdoin College pulled alumni-penned city guides from its Web site Monday following complaints about a slur aimed at French Canadians.
A guide about Greater Portland stated: “Unpopular suburbs include Old Orchard Beach, unless you are a dirty French Canadian.”
Scott Hood, Bowdoin’s vice president for community relations and public affairs, said the Portland city guide was edited Monday to remove the offending sentence, then later the college’s entire alumni city guide section was disabled to allow Hood time to review all of the guides.
“Obviously this is not something we would tolerate or condone,” Hood told the Sun Journal Monday afternoon.
“Bowdoin has a long history” of educating people of French descent, he said, and hosts French Canadian students annually.
He said “the young alumni” who wrote that particular city guide was probably making a feeble attempt at humor. The city guides are a project of the college’s alumni association aimed at providing information on area communities for students and others to use.
The guide credits members of Bowdoin’s Class of 2003 as its authors.
Hood said the issue was raised Monday morning by a Bates College student. He pointed out that Bowdoin reacted promptly to the complaint.
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