Controversial twitter account condemned by Faculty Senate

[Editor’s note: The names of some of the students in this story indicated with an asterisk (*) are fictitious in an effort to keep the sources anonymous at their request.]

A new Twitter account, an outlet for students to voice their frustration, concern and problem with the university, has students in a frenzy.

The MWSU Problems Twitter account launched over the summer and has been a place for students to speak out via social media about parking, tuition costs and troubles with the campus Internet.

With close to 400 followers, the people behind the Twitter kept their identity unknown.

The Wichitan reached out to the founder of the Twitter account, asking him to explain the purpose of the account and to address the controversial tweets directed at Caribbean students.

Dustin*, a MSU senior who wishes to remain anonymous, said the mystery behind the account is the reason why he doesn’t want to release his name.

“It makes you think who is behind this genius Twitter account,” Dustin said. “So it’s better to remain anonymous. Who knows, maybe I’ll reveal myself when I graduate.”

Dustin described sitting around his house one summer day and coming across different “problem” Twitter pages.

“So, I thought to myself Midwestern has a lot of problems,” he said. “What a good way to get the problems out there by creating a Twitter page dedicated to it.”

He said the account was originally created for students to vent and to voice their opinions.

“That’s what makes America great — freedom of speech,” he said.

With the success of the Twitter account, Dustin said he believes the student voice is starting to be heard.

“By expressing our opinions, we show the high-horse administrators what the actual problems are,” he said. “They’re starting to come around to listen to students.”

Dustin said the administrators said they are working on improvements, but actions speak louder than words.

“Parking still sucks,” he said. “We still have no baseball team. The bookstore has outrageous prices. Campus police still park at Stripes at 1 a.m. and chill there for hours. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Along with the complaints about university issues, slowly came outbursts against the university Caribbean student community including one student’s negative comments about Caribbean students that was often retweeted. Shortly after that tweet, other students joined in with tweets of their own.

These comments affect Caribbean students like Raisa Charles, who wrote a Letter to the Editor published in the Sept. 19 issue of the Wichitan.

“I wrote [the letter] because I was upset by what I was reading on the Twitter,” Charles said. “I wanted the administrators to know about it and to do something.”

President Jesse Rogers invited Charles to meet with him Tuesday because he admitted to being embarrassed by what he witnessed on Twitter.

“Dr. Rogers said he wanted me to know that most students on campus don’t feel that way and that most of the faculty doesn’t feel that way either,” Charles said.

Charles said she believes many students have a misconception about Caribbean students and their culture.

“People see Caribbean students and don’t really get to know them outside of the classroom because we do live off campus,” Charles said. “I can see where the disconnect comes from and I wish there was a way to resolve it.”

Dustin said the comments toward Caribbean students began as a joke.

“We noticed a lot of students tweeted about the Caribbean students so we went with it,” he said. “We may have went a little too far, but we meant no harm. I’m sure some foreign students crack jokes about American students. They need to calm down. We’re all students here.”

On Sept. 12, the owners of the MWSU Problems account wrote a formal apology to all affected by the negative tweets.

“What brought on the apology was excessive hate tweets from foreign students and several students unfollowed us,” Dustin said. “We decided to go back to what we originally created the account for.”

Dustin said despite what some might believe, he doesn’t see himself as a racist.

“This is America,” he said. “You have the right to your own opinion and thought. It’s a free country. If making a few jokes makes someone a racist, then I guess we’re all a little racist.”

Since the start of this Twitter account, Dustin said he has learned that you can’t please everyone.

“No matter what you do or say, someone is always going to disagree and that’s why America is great,” he said.

Despite the free speech issues, Rogers said the university’s general counsel will look into using university images on social media.

“I will comment that the price we pay for free speech is, at times, hard to accept, but necessary to our basic national beliefs,” Rogers said.

Rogers called the tweets displaying racism “disgusting” and wants to assure international students that they are valued at this university.

Nathan Jun, philosophy coordinator and assistant professor, also did not take the tweets lightly.

A Caribbean student brought the Twitter account to his attention and he said he was outraged.

“Everyone that I talked to about this pretty much agreed that this is a serious issue,” Jun said. “One of the problems here is that no one knows who is behind this.”

Even though Jun agreed a apology was necessary, he said he still found the apology disturbing.

After seeing the letter to the editor in the Wichitan, Jun met with Beverly Stiles, sociology chair, to create a resolution condemning racism, sexism, homophobia, and all other forms of bigotry.

The Faculty Senate passed the resolution Thursday.

“When we brought it to the attention of the Faculty Senate, surprisingly most of the faculty had no idea this was going on, but they were absolutely scandalized,” he said.

Jun said the Senate agreed it was appropriate to condemn this behavior, while also expressing solidarity with Caribbean students.

The resolution states that the Faculty Senate “urges relevant parties in the university administration to investigate and, if necessary and appropriate, pursue disciplinary action for the attacks in question.”

“We want the administration to take this seriously and not just sweep it under the rug,” Jun said. “[The resolution] also states that we want to university community at large to take this seriously and that we think our ways as a university community to be proactive on preventing this sort of thing from happening.”

Jun said it is important that people not take this [Twitter account] as an isolated incident.

“Free speech always entails the right of reply,” Jun said. “We’re not trying to silence the people who did this. We are doing is expressing our view as a faculty body that the speech on display here is morally repugnant.”

Members of the Faculty Senate urge students to exercise their right to free speech, through social media or other venues, responsibly, Jun said.

“Just because you have the right to express yourself doesn’t mean you should exercise the right with absolute impurity,” Jun said.