Hi tumblr…so. I wanted to provide you with an update on something I’ve been dealing with alone and in silence because I’m tired of feeling silenced and I need people to know what I’m dealing with and help support me through it.
I’m an undergraduate student at UNCW who happens to be queer as well as a muslim immigrant, and I have spent the last two years of my life being harassed relentlessly by a tenured professor who insists on comparing me to ISIS, sending his students and supporters after me to make death threats, writing blog posts about me claiming it’s not possible for me to be queer and muslim, slandering me in his classes, and ultimately doing everything he can to use his power, privileges, and platforms over me to make my life hell to try and stop me from speaking out against injustice. The university has been letting him do this since my freshman year and it’s only gotten worse these past few months.
This professor (who is 30+ years older than me, by the way) wrote an article about me called ‘A ‘Queer Muslim’ Jihad?’ outing me, comparing me to militant Islamic groups, attacking my intelligence, diagnosing me with mental illnesses I don’t have, and just being the most despicable kind of person you could be.
And if the article ITSELF wasn’t bad enough the comments are even better! 🙂
Not to mention that, because he used my full name, his supporters have been blowing up my Facebook with horrible comments and really despicable threats. Almost all of these people being 40+ year old white men doing this to a 19 year old girl.
I tried to talk to my university about this and let them know that I was tired of having to defend myself, my name, my sexuality, my religion, my EVERYTHING from a professor who is in a higher position of power over me and they told me they couldn’t do anything because he’d just sue the university.
And I’m just tired. I’m really, really tired. And I want all of you to see what the fuck I’ve been having to deal with and know why I legitimately do not want to continue my education somewhere where I continuously have to be called a jihadist. I don’t want to be threatened anymore. I don’t want to be demeaned. I don’t want to be stuck in an environment that deems this sort of behavior as okay. And I don’t know what to do.
Read it and see the things I’ve been forced to hear about me and my religion and my sexuality all for the sake of getting an education. Read it and see all the hatred that people of color are forced to combat just to be able to get a degree. Read it and see how fucking hard it is for black women to succeed anywhere because people like this will say/do anything to bring us down. Read it and understand that if a professor wrote about a white student this way it would have never been acceptable, but he knows he can get away with it because nobody cares about harassment against black students. Read it and understand how fucked up society is. And please help me figure out what to do, because I legitimately feel like I’m drowning.
BOOSTING THIS
I don’t know how to help, but someone out there does.
Wish I could offer some real advice here. If the article is inaccurate enough you may be able to sue him for libel and have the article removed, but you would have to talk to a lawyer about that. Regardless, you shouldn’t have to resort to getting a lawyer to deal with a professor who has left such a blatant trail, the school should take action.
Mike S. Adams, professor of criminology at UNC-Wilmington. His profile says he’s been a high-profile conservative/Republican for a lot of years and won a major “free speech” court case against the UNCW in 2011 so the university may be reluctant to take action against him for those reasons?
Doesn’t give many details other than it was ruled the university can’t “discriminate on the basis of the professor’s viewpoint” in his published columns and speeches when he applied for tenure, etc., but it may have something to do with this
I have to reshape this because I am downright disgusted. I’ve been following this account for a couple months but I had no idea what this woman was actually going through. Whatever you believe this straight up antagonism this grown man has for this woman is rooted so deeply in prejudice and is so vile I can’t believe this man is in a position of power. I am at a loss for words. I want so badly to help her but I don’t even know what to do.
I wanted to give you guys some people you can e-mail. I don’t know if it’ll make much of a difference, but if you want to reach out to my university administration and let them know you feel like this is unacceptable I’d really appreciate it.
The Carving Witch 