Is Trump Mania Responsible for the Online Harassment Campaign Against Three University of Washington Teachers?
Three days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, political science associate professor Jack Turner was teaching a class on feminist political theory when a visibly upset student raised her hand and asked to be excused. When the student explained she’d seen two neo-Nazi recruitment flyers outside of Raitt Hall, Turner suggested the class go check them out. Upon discovering the signs, students tore the posters down.
“I didn’t promote tearing them down or oppose it,” Turner said. “To me, it was the students’ very insurgent way of saying, ‘Not on our campus.'”
When Turner wrote about the experience and subsequent class discussion on his Facebook page, the post went viral. As it spread, what started as thoughtful commentary quickly devolved into a storm of violent threats between neo-Nazis and antifascists. In the following days, Turner began receiving threatening Facebook messages, e-mails, and phone calls as part of a campaign of online harassment. His cell-phone number, which was publicly available online, was posted on the Daily Stormer, an online hub recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi forum.
“Ironmarch.org has marked you,” one person threatened in a voice mail. “You will be punished for your crimes. Soon.”
Turner reported the voice mails to George Lovell, the political science department chair, who took proactive measures to make sure Turner was safe. In his interactions with campus administrators, Turner said he felt like “the university was on my side.”
“Throughout that whole week, I was thinking: ‘This is happening. Our immediate environment is becoming boldly white supremacist, boldly anti-Semitic, and boldly antigay,'” Turner said. “It’s happening now, and we have to recognize that the danger is here.”
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