Update (3/25 4:11 p.m.): The original “Wash U Confessions” page has gone back online under a new administrator. Confession #476 remains deleted.

“Wash U Confessions,” the viral Facebook page which had close to 1,500 likes and highlighted real and mock issues within the Washington University community, was taken offline by its moderator after a racial slur was posted by accident.

Submission #476 to the page discussed how the Congress of the South 40 was not entirely at fault for the Macklemore ticket distribution kerfuffle, but included one seemingly unrelated sentence using the N-word.

The post sparked strong emotions on a campus still affected by the racially offensive pledge incident that happened in Bear’s Den earlier this month.

“Honestly, I think CS40 did everything they could to make this a great event,” the confession began, before praising CS40 executive officers for their hard work and then moving on to describe how they had helped sort out the long lines.

“There were a lot of n—— in line, hopefully they didn’t get tickets,” the confession continued, in the one line of the confession that sparked a large degree of controversy within minutes.

The page’s moderator said the post was an accident and apologized online, minutes before deleting the entire Wash. U. Confessions page. The moderator removed the page within fifteen minutes of the objectionable post but did not say it was the sole reason for deleting the page.

“I think it was horrible and just really disgusting,” senior Matt Green, the first student to comment on the post, said. He commented “WHAT THE F—” on the post about one minute after the confession appeared.

His comment was followed by others including “TAKE THIS DOWN NOW” and a student who wrote that CS40 was likely meaning well with its flawed ticket distribution process.

“There are clearly people who think this whole situation is some kind of joke, and probably just threw the word in there to try and trick Confessions into posting it. I think it was probably a hateful person on campus because you don’t just slip something in there like that without meaning it to some degree,” Green added.

The moderator, who spoke to Student Life under the condition of anonymity, apologized for accidentally printing the submission.

“I am very sorry for the insensitive comment that was posted on “Wash U Confessions. I did not see the word and it was an honest mistake,” the “Wash U Confessions” admin said. “I received a message about the use of the word, and I immediately removed the confession from the page. The post is not reflective of my opinions and ideals as I know how hurtful the use of such hate speech can be. I sincerely apologize for the pain this incident has caused the Wash. U. community.”

The page featured a disclaimer that said, “The posts do not represent or show the beliefs or ideals of both the Admin and the college.”

Green said that he was generally a fan of “Wash U Confessions”, but in the last month had noticed an increase in racist and sexist comments.

Senior Laura Harbison, another commenter on the post, said she noticed a similar trend: “Wash U Compliments” began as a primarily serious forum before devolving into sexist and otherwise offensive posts. But she noted that while it may have been controversial, it was still entertaining.

“It’s politically incorrect, it’s rude, it’s hurtful and hateful [and] I don’t know that it was necessarily productive, but it was funny,” Harbison said. “It provoked a lot of controversy and angered a lot of people, so I can understand why it’s no longer up…it quickly spiraled out of control.”

Harbison found the slur in confession #476 an unfortunate end to the group.

“It angered me, because there was no reason for that entire sentence to be in there,” Harbison said.

Junior Andrew Sperry, another commenter, assumed the post was published accidentally.

“I can understand that when the [“Wash U Confessions”] administrators did read over it, their eyes must’ve been focusing on the CS40 part, and they honestly might have missed that sentence because it was so randomly thrown in,” he said. “I know that the admins of that page have tons of posts to screen and lives of their own, and they do a good job of it most of the time, so this slip was honestly probably just a mistake. I am glad that they took the comment down quickly, within an hour of when I asked for it to be removed.”

“The comment just seemed entirely out of place; the whole article was talking about what a great job CS40 did in general planning the event, and then out of nowhere that line appeared,” Sperry added.

Meanwhile, the controversy has led to renewed interest in the “Dear Chancellor Wrighton” video campaign that began in response to the recent SAE pledge event controversy.

Junior Camille Wright started the campaign to offer students an outlet to respond to the incident in a safe space. Wright said students put a large number of videos up at the beginning of the month, but submissions became more sporadic after spring break.

Within a day of the Confessions post, more than half a dozen students submitted videos.

“It’s really helped reinvigorate the movement the group has and emphasized the sense of urgency of the issue,” Wright said.

Wright said she was unsurprised by the post.

“‘Wash U Confessions’ is sort of the armpit of our community, and I’d unsubscribed a long time ago, but I was really surprised that the person screening all these posts didn’t see it fit to screen that one,” she said. “It’s just another straw on the camel’s back at this point, and I hope people will use it as inspiration for more videos and continued awareness of the issue.”

The original goal of the “Dear Chancellor Wrighton” campaign was to get an audience with Chancellor Wrighton about issues of diversity and racial prejudice on campus. The chancellor held a conference last Monday with students that had submitted videos and other members of the University community who had expressed their opinions about the issue.

“Now that that’s happened, our new goal is to remind the administration we’re not satisfied yet and continue to hold them responsible for the promises they’ve made us,” Wright said. “I think it’s important to make sure people are still aware of these issues.”

A new “Wash U Confessions” page was created Sunday night by a different but still anonymous administrator. The page has 284 likes and 10 confessions as of 12:43 a.m.