How far should a college go to investigate anonymous threats? That’s the main issue in a lawsuit brought by University of Mary Washington students.
It started with a 2015 video of the school's rugby team performing a racist and misogynist chant. University of Mary Washington officials shut down the team, but what followed was a brutal campaign of cyberbullying through the anonymous messaging app Yik Yak.
Lawyers for the students argued in a federal appeals court this week that the school’s reaction, claiming any attempts to silence the threats would be a First Amendment violation, amounted to deliberate indifference to an issue that was depriving the women of a safe learning environment.
Judge Robert King seemed to agree, saying violent threats, even anonymous ones, are crimes and never protected by the first amendment. “I mean, you’ve got a crime on your hands, it's like the bank robber on the loose, all you gotta do is find him," King noted. "They’re anonymous. What can be done to take off the mask?"
And when Judge Pamela Harris pointed to language in the state’s defense identifying the students as politically active, she expressed disbelief at the idea that such harassment was part and parcel for speaking out against sexual harassment. “There’s a suggestion that the women here are almost coming to the nuisance," Harris said. "Like ‘what do you expect when you start doing stuff like this?’”
The students are hoping to reverse a lower court's decision and find the school liable for discrimination on the basis of sex and award them compensatory damages.
The judges did not immediately rule.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.