The Independent was criticised for an article published on its website by an anonymous reporter which advocated for white men to be banned from university student unions.
The piece, which has since been pulled following its publication on Friday, argued: "We need to ban white men and their activism dilettantism from student unions.
"Being a student union president should no longer be a place for privileged whiteboys to swing their dicks around before graduating into a world that is in no way affected by what they claim to fight for."
The article link now redirects to the Independent's student news page, but cached versions can still be found.
The Independent's former student editor Tom Mendelsohn, who left the paper on the day the article was published, defended the piece, tweeting:
But the paper was slammed for publishing the piece in the first place, while the writer was attacked for remaining unnamed - although the Independent did clarify the author was a British journalist.
A spokesperson for the Independent told HuffPost UK: "We are proud that our site provides a platform for a wide range of diverse content. On this occasion, however, we concluded that the item did not meet our expected standards and we decided, therefore, to take it down on Saturday morning."
In full, the article read:
University is supposed to be amazing, a transformative experience which is informed by student unions across the country. Yet people don't give a toss about their student unions, no one cares about the NUS, and activism is dying at all but a few hardcore universities. This generation of students has been pissed on by the government and fees, and privatisation, and all anyone seems to want to do is roll over and let it happen.
Do you know why this is? It's because our universities and student unions are too similar to our government; they are too stunted by white men. White men might want to appropriate injustice as theirs, desperate for something to struggle against, but it's a hobby they'll pick up and drop as soon as the first comfortable finance job beckons them over.
We need to ban white men and their activism dilettantism from student unions. We need powerful women and minority ethnic people to bring their passion back to the heart of student politics. Being a student union president should no longer be a place for privileged whiteboys to swing their dicks around before graduating into a world that is in no way affected by what they claim to fight for.
More importantly, we obviously live in a world that looks favourably on white men. In order to bring about change in our racist and sexist society, it must start in our universities. If women and minority ethnic people were in positions of leadership across all universities in the country, we would have a diverse graduating class of future leaders in every industry.
"Oh but, it's racist to ban someone on the basis of their skin colour, and sexist to ban them on their gender," cry the assembly chorus of confused souls trying to turn the language of progress into a weapon to further entrench the establishment. It's not. You're at university, go and ask a humanities professor. Learn something.
White men have had the last several millennia in charge, and it's been a s***show from start to finish. A new generation of powerful women and minority ethnic people is ready to lead and change. It is time for you to bow down.
* The author is a British journalist
Mendelsohn refused to comment when contacted by HuffPost UK.