Just three months after a New Jersey politician reported her to the cops for killing spotted lanternflies, 9-year-old Bobbi Wilson was invited to hang her name on the walls of Yale University.
The university’s School of Public Health officially entered Bobbi’s collection of 27 lanternfly specimens — which she graciously donated to the school — into its Peabody Museum of Natural History database.
She was also invited to affix a label bearing her name to one of the specimens during the Jan. 20 ceremony. Her display is already available for public viewing.
“We wanted to show her bravery and how inspiring she is, and we just want to make sure she continues to feel honored and loved by the Yale community,” Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor at the school said in a statement.
Bobbi, a black girl, made national headlines last October after former councilman Gordon Lawshe, a white man, reported her as a “little black woman walking and spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees.”
The youngster had been using a homemade concoction — water, dish soap and apple cider vinegar — to eradicate the invasive lanternflies that were feasting on the trees in her Caldwell neighborhood, a move the government encouraged residents to do to protect the environment.
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The responding police officer told Bobbi, who was carrying a jug to catch the dead insects, that she was “obviously fine,” but the young girl was rattled by the encounter.
She asked the cop if she were in trouble and though he tells her no, her mother Monique Joseph later told reporters Bobbi was afraid to leave the house the next day.
Joseph told News12 New Jersey that Lawshe eventually apologized after the run-in sparked national conversations about racial profiling, but claimed he was merely “reporting a lost little girl.”
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The Yale ceremony marked Bobbi’s second visit to the prestigious university. Opara initially invited Bobbi, Joseph and Bobbi’s sister Hayden in the weeks following the October incident so that the family could meet “other successful Black female scientists and to counter the horrible memories of that day.”
“Dr. Opara, you have been a blessing. You are part of our testimonial and what it means to have a community of amazing, beautiful, Black, intelligent scientists and doctors, and more important than that is your heart and your passion for the work that you do,” Joseph said at the event.