Company pleads ignorance to any connection to 1970 Kent State shootings
While not the bastion for sketchy manufacturing like Walmart and Nike, Urban Outfitters has found a new way to offend.
For just $129, you could buy the “Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt” in light pink, with splattering of red over the university logo. Many are enraged by the product for its brazen connection to the shooting at Kent State University in 1970, when the Ohio National Guard fired on unarmed students at a rally, killing four. The splattering of red on the sweater becomes immediately understood as blood.
The sweatshirt sold out quickly, and almost immediately was put on eBay. Urban Outfitters has responded to the controversy with a quick apology, pleading ignorance to the link their vintage sweater may have had with the Kent State shootings all those years ago.
The sweater’s bidding war continues on eBay — currently sitting at around $2,500 — with half the amount to be given to Southern Poverty Law Center, “who protect those who cannot protect themselves, often those who are victims of police brutality.”
