There has been much controversy over Newhouse dean Lorraine Branham’s decision to disinvite Michel du Cille, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, from coming to Syracuse University. Ironically, he was coming to speak about his experience covering a public-health crisis in Liberia—until fears that there was a slim chance that maybe he might be carrying Ebola expressed by perhaps one student caused the University to change its mind.
Dean Branham has been criticized for this decision based on the fact that du Cille had been self-monitoring for symptoms and that the only way to contract the virus is through contact with blood, vomit, and feces.
But in an exclusive interview with The Kumquat, Dean Branham disclosed that while yes, Ebola is harder to contract than the common cold, her decision was specific to du Cille’s tendency to be a loose cannon of bodily fluids.
“He literally is a volcano of blood, spit, and vomit,” she said. “It doesn’t matter the time or the place, there is constantly something excreting from one of his orifices.”
Dean Branham also cited concerns about du Cille’s wet lisp, tendency to close-talk, and love of licking sick African children. Once at a dinner party in New York City, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner cut his pinky off as a party trick, and then proceeded to use the blood to start an impromptu game of Pictionary.
“As dean of one of the top journalism schools in the country, I would usually never buy into such mass hysteria,” Branham said. “But the last time I was at a networking event with this guy, I witnessed him vomit blood into an open wound. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
