“Continuingly recycling old pictures with the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, many of whom are minors, as validation that you had anything to do with their immensely stressful and dangerous escape not only impacts the safety of the girls but it also significantly affects the safety of the members of the team who still remain in Afghanistan,” wrote Kim Motley, a lawyer for the group and a Digital Citizen Fund board member, in a letter sent to Reneau just after midnight Wednesday. “It is highly unfortunate that you would use such a tragically horrible situation … for what appears to be your own personal gain.”
A spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, which helped evacuate many Afghans, including the robotics team members, also accused Reneau of taking credit for a rescue she had little to do with — and lambasted the U.S. media for making her a “White savior.”
[…]
The Today story was substantially rewritten, with a note added at the bottom, after it was published — taking the focus off Reneau and quoting a board member of the robotics team’s parent organization: “Ultimately the girls ‘rescued’ themselves.” But the story of a heroic Oklahoma mother quickly spread across other media.
At the time of publication, Reneau and a team of people in the Middle East were still working to help 25 more girls from the robotics team, as well as their mentors, leave Afghanistan.
Lawyer for Afghan girls’ robotics team tells Oklahoma woman to stop taking credit for rescue
[…]
Still working on the others, apparently: