Actions may speak louder than words, but in the age of social media, the opposite may be true.
Since Tuesday, Stetson University College of Law has been under fire after a video of student making racially insensitive comments surfaced online. Although Stetson leaders announced on social media that they were aware of the “disturbing” posts and said they were actively looking into the situation, angry tweets and Facebook comments demanding action continue to flood the school’s social media pages. A Change.org petition calling for the student’s expulsion got more than 120 signatures between Tuesday and Thursday. Stetson officials have not made any additional public statements since their June 28 post, and did not respond to repeated requests from the Catalyst for comment.
The backlash raises the question of what responsibility schools should take when one of their students engages in hateful behavior online, where it can live on forever through screenshots and retweets.
