Wake Forest University claims to not allow verbal abuse that is “obscene, profane, or derogatory” and the commission of any offense that is “motivated by the race or any other defining characteristic of an individual.” But when one writer for the Wake Forest Review faced persistent harassment at the intersection of race and politics, the Dean of Students Adam Goldstein and the Bias Response team chose not to enforce these rules against leftist students.
After two Wake Forest students handed senior Ryan Wolfe a box of saltine crackers and photoshopped his face onto a cracker, Wolfe requested to open a judicial case under the verbal abuse and racial harassment policies.
“I support the free speech rights of students,” Wolfe said. “But in this case, I wanted to see if the school would enforce their rules surrounding verbal and abuse equally regardless of who was involved in the case. I knew that similar rhetoric about the identity of other groups would not be tolerated.”
A few weeks after these requests, Goldstein told Wolfe that the committee would not take action and that he should not want them to do so because it would only “make things worse” for him.
According to Wolfe, Goldstein went on to justify the students’ actions by saying that they did this because “Trump won” the election. However, the Future of the GOP event happened over a week before election day.
Instead of a judicial case, or no contact order, or mediation, Goldstein told Wolfe that the students involved would take part in a meeting at the LGBTQ Center where they would be asked: “Is this the community you want to live in?”
Dean of Students Adam Goldstein did not reply to requests to comment on this article. The article will be updated if a response is received.
“I saw tweets from the students involved mocking the meeting and the administration,” Wolfe said. “It’s clear that this course of action did nothing to deal with the issue at hand and the incident was not taken seriously by the Bias Report Committee or the Dean of Students Office. Wake Forest clearly did not enforce their rules equally.”
The incident at hand occurred on October 26th, 2016, when Wolfe and three other students were panelists in a discussion hosted by The Wake Forest Review and the Wake Forest College Republicans about the future of the Republican Party at the Wake the Vote hub.
Before, during, and after the event, students involved in a variety of leftist organizations on campus began posting hateful and abusive comments and images about Wolfe on social media and in GroupMe messages.
“I was the most outspoken conservative they knew,” Wolfe said. “It appeared that they were trying to intimidate me into silence through social media posts or protesting the student panel in person.”
In the GroupMe messages obtained by the Review, a picture of Wolfe’s head was photoshopped on a saltine cracker by junior Julius Goble. The group chat contained students from the 2016 BRANCHES social justice retreat.
On Facebook, junior Char Van Schenck commented on a picture of the student panel picture with four white saltine crackers, saying “loving the lineup.”
On Twitter, junior Brianna Reddick called Wolfe a “mayonnaise monster lookin a***.”
Reddick went as far to hand Wolfe with a physical box of saltines after the panel and brag about it on Twitter, saying “Today I handed the saltiest Republican a box of saltine crackers.”
With the encouragement of the Executive Director of the Pro Humanitate Institute Marianne Magjuka and Anna Julia Cooper Center Director Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, Wolfe went through the University Bias Report System to alert the school of the actions of these students at the school-sponsored event.
Once he met with Dean of Students Adam Goldstein, and Wolfe made it clear to Goldstein that he wanted to move forward with the case, Goldstein assembled the Bias Report Committee to look at the files.
While some students see the creation of the bias reporting system as a step in the right direction, many believe it has turned into a tool for the University to insert their bias into their justice system that was meant to eliminate it.
The committee was made up of Dean of Students Adam Goldstein, Director of the LGBTQ Center Dr. Angela Mazaris, the interim Chief Diversity Officer Jose Villalba, Vice President of Campus Life and Dean of Residence Life and Housing Donna McGalliard, and Title IX Coordinator Tanya Jachimiak.
The students named in the bias report had previous relationships with at least one member of the committee. Two of the students, Richard Caban Cubero and Julius Goble, were employed by Residence Life and Housing and the LGBTQ Center, respectively.
“If Wake Forest truly wants to create a vibrant intellectual environment free from verbal abuse and harassment, individuals must be held to the same standard, regardless of their identity or national political events.” – Ryan Wolfe
Goldstein and Wolfe initially met about the bias report on November 10. At this meeting, Goldstein presented Wolfe with three potential options for the students who conducted these actions.
The first was a “no contact order,” similar to a restraining order, where students are not allowed to have contact with another.
The second was “mediation,” where the students and a University faculty member sit down and attempt to bring some sort of conciliation between the two parties.
The final, and the most serious was to “press charges” and open a judicial case with the school.
Wolfe requested to open a judicial case with the students who were directly involved with the giving him saltine crackers and photoshopping his face onto a cracker, while also referring the files to the Wake Forest University Human Resources Department for the students who were University employees.
Goldstein and Wolfe met again on November 30 to review the committee’s findings. It was at this meeting where Goldstein told Wolfe that he should not pursue a judicial case and that he and Mazaris would meet with the students instead.
“I hope in the future, the University enforces its rules equally and justly,” Wolfe said. “If Wake Forest truly wants to create a vibrant intellectual environment free from verbal abuse and harassment, individuals must be held to the same standard, regardless of their identity or national political events.”
