This letter, to South Carolina State University President George Cooper, was submitted also to The Times and Democrat:

I was extremely disappointed to hear that you recently allowed South Carolina State to provide a forum to David Banner, also known as Levell Crump, to speak as a part of the second annual Hip-Hop Symposium, sponsored by the Miller F. Whittaker Library in collaboration with the Campus Activity Board's "Awakening Lecture Series."

This was promoted as a forum about "Black on Black Crime." Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the previous public statements of Crump, but those widely reported statements are inconsistent with anyone who would be interested in reducing black-on-black crime. In fact, any reasonable person could conclude that Crump is in fact a proponent of black-on-black crime.

Had the staff responsible for bringing Crump to your campus done a minimal amount of research prior to Crump being issued an invitation, they would have discovered the following statement from Crump:

On the intimidation of witnesses to violent crime: "We gotta start making the environment in our neighborhoods not conducive to snitching. How I'm doing this song, I'mma make it uncomfortable for snitches."

If you are unfamiliar with the "No Snitching" phenomenon, it is leading to a 1 percent murder clearance rate in some African-American communities.

Consider the story of a Baltimore woman named Angela Dawson. She and her five youngest children were burned to death in their home. The idea that you would invite someone who promotes fire bombing and slaughtering entire black families in their homes for cooperating with law enforcement to speak about black-on-black crime is bizarre.

I was not surprised that Crump compared black women chemically relaxing their hair to black-on-black crime, because Crump has a well-documented history of being a violence-promoting anti-black woman misogynist. You might as well have invited a Klansman to your campus to discuss diversity issues.

What is most disturbing, however, is that it appears that none of your faculty or staff intervened when Crump said that he believes there are circumstances under which it is permissible for a man to brutalize and beat a woman. According to The Times Democrat, Crump said the following at your university: "Chris Brown is being convicted and character assassinated in the media and we don't even know what Rihanna did yet."

I assume that a sizable portion of your student body is comprised of African-American women and I believe that an institution of high learning's position on the abuse of black women should be unequivocal.

I am sure you are aware that intimate partner violence is a leading killer of black women between the ages of 15 and 24 irrespective of their socioeconomic background. That means your student population falls squarely within the group most at risk of death. You have allowed your university to serve as a forum to promote a dangerous message.

Now that Crump has spoken, I would like to know South Carolina State's response. In light of Crump's statements about this issue, you cannot remain silent, because in the African-American community, the cost of silence is too high.

Did any member of the South Carolina State staff or faculty publicly dispute Crump's assertions at this forum? If not, why not?

In 2007, Gina McCauley was named to Essence magazine's list of the "25 Most Influential African Americans of 2007" for her work on her blog, "What About Our Daughters?" The blog's mission is to be uncompromising, unapologetic and unbowed in defense of black women. The blog is most well known for its fight to combat negative portrayals of African-American women in popular culture and violence against black women and children. A regular guest on radio, McCauley and the blog are frequently quoted in major media outlets and she has written for Essence Magazine, Essence.com and The Guardian America.

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