By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The social media reaction after an alleged assault on campus this weekend literally added insult to injury.
About 70 students gather Friday at noon to protest what many believe was an anti-gay act, and the social media outburst of homophobic and sexist comments that followed.
For Luna, a BGSU student who uses one name, this “exposed the attitudes that people really have.” Those are “very unwelcoming, very uncomfortable.”
Luna told those people assembled in the University Oval that: “Here on Bowling Green campus there’s been a severe lack of acceptance, tolerance and civility. … We learn to navigate a world that would rather erase us, but we shouldn’t have to. We as a community need to hold each other accountable. If we begin to hold each other accountable, we can begin to move toward true acceptance, true tolerance because everyone deserves to feel safe on this campus. Everyone deserves to feel safe downtown. … No one should feel unsafe in their own home.”
The incident reportedly happened in the early morning hours Saturday. It was first mentioned on the Twitter account BG Crushes, and said four members of a fraternity had attacked a person believed to be gay.
However, nothing was reported to neither city nor campus police. Instead the rumor mill began to churn, and the vicious commentary erupted.
The university’s dean of students issued a statement saying the university was seeking any information on the assault.
BGSU Police Chief Monica Moll was on the scene of Friday’s protest to try to find out what she could.
The Bowling Green City Police are investigating an assault at 2 a.m. Sunday in the 100 block of North Main Street when a group of men and women, both black and white, accosted an individual. One suspect struck the victim. (http://www.bowlinggreenpolice.org/?m=201604)
Moll said she didn’t know if this was the assault, or if there was a second incident. In any case she said the comments on social media “are something we should be out here to be upset about.”
Beatrice Addis Fields said that she and others have heard was “a lot of rumors.”
“We’re focused on people’s feelings and people are feeling uncomfortable,” she said.
Many people are not comfortable on campus or downtown. She said her mother lived in Bowling Green in the 1970s and when she talks to her daughter they find not much has changed.
Fields said she’d like this to be a place “we’re proud to come back to, a place we’re safe. A home my mom can come back and say ‘things have changed.’”
A couple speakers made a point of saying that the Greek community should not be blamed. “We need to stop putting blame on Greeks,” said Natasha Ivery. “We’re all in this together.”
It’s everyone’s responsibility to confront hate speech whether it comes from a friend or professor. While the university has launched efforts like the It’s On Us campaign to combat sexual assault and is part of Not In Our Town, which seeks to respond to hate and promote tolerance, this seems like “lip service” to Ivery.
Not enough is done. “It’s not safe for students on the margins,” she said. Whether because of their gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity, they are “marginalized for who they are. It hurts, and it’s time for a change.”
