Online exchange over Rowan's transgender community turns ugly

A Rowan University student's recent online posting, aimed at advancing a conversation about the needs of the school's transgender community, took a turn for the worse, prompting a university memo Monday and again putting a popular social media application under scrutiny.

The student's message on the Yik Yak app last week proposed gender-neutral housing and better education for professors about transgender identity. The ideas were met by inflammatory remarks on the app, which allows users to anonymously contribute to a single thread based on geographical location.

Among the comments on Mason Sandoval's post and others expressing support was one that said the trans community should "be normal." Another suggested death for the student advocate.

"I didn't take it as an actual threat, but it was still pretty scary," said Sandoval, 18, a freshman psychology major. "No one in the university should feel that they are unsafe."

On Monday, a message from the dean of students, Richard Jones, to the university community called the comments "highly insensitive" and listed campus resources for students exploring their identities.

"Comments that marginalize students in any form [are] not acceptable," Jones said in an interview. "We decided that one negative comment is one negative comment too many."

Rowan officials pointed to the school's new Office of Social Justice, Inclusion, and Conflict Resolution as one of its efforts to increase resources for students, including those in the LGBTQ+ community.

Jones said administrators were always willing to discuss ideas to better accommodate students. He called Yik Yak "problematic."

"You can throw a rock and hide your hand," Jones said. "Yik Yak is very much akin to that statement."

The app, launched in late 2013, has been involved with controversy, including at Rowan. A video of a male and a female student having sex at a fraternity house near the school's Glassboro campus was posted to Yik Yak and a pornographic website in September. The video was recorded and posted without the woman's knowledge, though she declined to sign a criminal complaint.

Last school year, Moorestown High School suspended students' use of smartphones and other devices because of hurtful and crude posts on Yik Yak. Neshaminy High School in Langhorne in recent weeks has alerted parents that students have been using the app inappropriately.

Kailee Whiting, president of Prism, Rowan's LGBTQ+ organization, said the presence of transphobic, homophobic, sexist, and racist comments on the Rowan-related Yik Yak was nothing new. Yet, she said, the most recent ones had become known by her peers as part of the "Yik Yak incident."

For her part, the communications and applied sociology major is trying to use the comments as a starting point in understanding how her peers view transgender people and related topics. Her organization's meeting Tuesday night will discuss such issues, she said.

"It pushes you to realize that not everybody thinks the same," she said, and "to change what's going on on campus."