London School of Economics apologises for Kung Fu Panda email

A top London university has apologised to students after a welcome email addressed them as Kung Fu Panda. The message left some students confused and others worried about "racial stereotyping". The London School of Economics, where some 25% of undergraduates are of east Asian origin, says the email was a due to "technical problem".



The email confirms that Kung Fu Panda "has accepted an unconditional offer of admission" to the LSE. The university says it was sent out to about 200 students before the mistake, due to a mail-merge error, was spotted.

An LSE spokeswoman said: "A welcoming email that LSE sent out to some successful applicants contained an error as a result of a technical problem with coding in the database used. This meant that the email did not pick up some of the fields correctly. For example, instead of inserting the applicant's name, the email included the name from a test record which is 'Kung Fu Panda'.



"The use of this 'name' merely reflects that a member of staff who set up the test record is a fan of the film. The email was sent to all students and did not target students from any particular background." The university says that other test names used include Piglet, Paddington, Homer, Bob and Tinkerbell.