After a week of reputation-damaging equivocation and demurral, the Chronicle of Higher Education has sacked Naomi Schaefer Riley, the blogger responsible for its recent black studies embarrassment.

“We now agree,” Chronicle editor Liz McMillen wrote this evening, “that Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet the Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles. As a result, we have asked Ms. Riley to leave the Brainstorm blog.”

The mea culpa didn’t end there, either. “My Editor’s Note last week inviting you to debate the posting also seemed to elevate it to the level of informed opinion, which it was not,” said McMillen. I also realize that, as the controversy unfolded last week, our response on Twitter did not accurately convey The Chronicle’s message.”

That last bit is a barely-veiled reference to the disaster that was Chronicle Editorial Promotions Manager Amy Lynn Alexander’s jaw-droppingly unprofessional Twitter response to the crisis late last week.