Orange Coast College honored a professor with its top reward, even though a secret video recording reportedly showed her calling President Donald Trump a "white supremacist" and his election in 2016 "an act of terrorism."
Professor Olga Perez Stable Cox called Vice President Mike Pence "one of the most anti-gay humans" in America, said it was "scary" living around "hateful" Republicans in Orange County, California, and seemed to suggest America was "assaulted" after the 2016 election.
Cox refused to apologize but received OCC's "Faculty Member of the Year" award just a few months after her comments, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Cox's student, 19 year-old Caleb O'Neil, secretly recorded her comments and the footage went viral in December of 2016.
O'Neil violated a Coast Community College District policy that barred anyone on district property from recording someone without their consent. OCC suspended him, according to Washington Free Beacon.
Cox agreed to accept her award after initially declining, a spokesman from the college reportedly said. A committee composed of college faculty, students, and management chose to give Cox the award.
President Eric Schneiderman of the Coast Federation of Educators/American Federation of Teachers, the organization that represents Cox, told the Post that faculty and staff saw Cox as "dynamic and inspirational."
Schneiderman cited Cox's dedication to her students and a "current climate of bullying and intolerance and scapegoating" as the reason she received the award.
Concerns about cyberbullying prompted Cox to bypass the traditional role of the awardee to speak at the college's graduation.
Cox reportedly received threatening emails, prompting her to flee her home after the video became public. The Post reported that she "was struggling to regain a sense of normalcy after the harrassment," and felt "paranoid."