The Office of Student Life is investigating a handful of anonymous Twitter feeds that have targeted social clubs, made racial comments and criticized specific individuals.
Posts from the Twitter handles ACU_GossipGirl, ACUGossipBoy, ACUSleaze and TotalTrojanMove this week sparked immediate reaction from students, faculty, staff and administration. Some of the posts were vulgar and others named specific students.
In recent days, ACUGossipBoy and TotalTrojanMove have been deleted, and the ACU_GossipGirl user has changed the account name to GossipGirl_ABL and added a disclaimer on the account.
Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson, vice president for student life and dean of students, said the university is actively trying to find out who is behind the accounts because of the offensive nature of the tweets.
“We’re very much aware of the accounts, and we’re disturbed by the inappropriate nature of the messages,” Thompson said. “The accounts are not in line with what we expect of our students. We are doing our best to track down the individuals behind them and to protect those targeted.”
Thompson said the aggressive nature of some of the tweets violate the university’s Student Handbook, which prohibits any forms of harassment of students. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act requires the university to protect students from harassment. Examples of harassment in the Student Handbook includes “unwelcome verbal expressions, derogatory comments, epithets, degrading jokes or innuendos regarding one’s gender, religion, race, age, color, national origin, veteran’s status, disability or any other characteristic protected by law.”
“We have a very serious legal obligation to treat the situation within the clause,” Thompson said.
Thompson said sexually and racially motivated remarks do not reflect the character of the university. In addition, false posts that injure someone’s reputation can open Twitter users to libel claims.
ACU Police Chief Jimmy Ellison said the ACU Police Department is not involved in the investigation.
Thompson said he became aware of the accounts on Monday just after Chapel. Human Resources and web services are also working on the investigation, trying to identify where the posts are coming from, he said.
The user behind the GossipGirl_ABL Twitter account responded to a direct message from the Optimist at 1:19 a.m. on Friday, but would not identify him or herself.
“We are not associated with ACU, the beliefs of ACU, its faculty or its students,” the direct message said. “We would not like to be associated with any story run with any student or school paper, including the Optimist.”
Sarah Kelly, GATA president, said while the tweets are provocative, she doesn’t want other GATA members to react to them.
“These accounts are degrading and serve no purpose other than to humiliate others in the name of humor,” said Kelly, senior Ad/PR major from San Antonio. “I have instructed the women of GATA to not respond to these accounts or follow them on Twitter. We don’t feel the need to respond to lies told behind the cover of anonymity.”
Leigh Foith, Ko Jo Kai historian, said the Kojies’ officer team was disappointed to see how the posts were directed at specific groups and people, but the club is glad the university has responded.
“On-campus groups, clubs and especially individuals should never be targeted via social media,” said Foith, senior Ad/PR major from Dallas. “We respect the way Student Life has quickly handled the situation.”
