An absurd online petition claims that a professor using a student’s full name when writing about her led to threats against the student.
The Change.org petition, signed by over 2,000 people, also accuses University of North Carolina Wilmington professor Mike Adams of “misogynistic, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic, racist rhetoric.”
The petition accuses Adams of writing an article mocking a female student’s sexuality and religion, as well as putting her in danger by using her full name.
“What’s really unusual about this is that the center of the controversy seems to be about my use of the student’s name in the column. First of all, I was writing about the interview she did with the College Fix. Her name was already out there because she consented to do interviews,” Professor Adams told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Nada Merghani, the student Adams wrote a column about, was named in a Aug. 31 article from the World Tribune and in an Aug. 26 article from the College Fix. Adam’s article on her, titled “A Queer Muslim Jihad?” wasn’t posted until Sept.15, almost two weeks later.
Merghani maintained that after the article Adams wrote, she feared for her safety while on campus. She claimed that she received threats from Trump supporters and asked the university to provide an armed guard to protect her.
Merghani said that she received at least one personal threat, but deleted the message.
Other people took offense over an article Adams wrote called “Rape Wins,” which discusses Christians being sued after refusing to perform services for gay couples.
“You should not be proud of your actions. You should be ashamed of yourself for committing spiritual rape in the name of tolerance and inclusion,” Adams wrote.
A Daily Beast article claimed that Adams was equating gay rights to rape.
“The rape analogy was that you can’t force a person to love you. It should be fairly obvious what I was getting at,” Adams explained to The DCNF. “The idea of saying that I’m going to threaten you with a lawsuit if you’re a photographer and take everything you own if you don’t attend my wedding, is not love. It’s more like rape than love.”
The university released a statement, saying that Adam’s writings are a form of protected free speech. They also said that they found that his writings did not threaten Merghani or any other students.
“There is no evidence of unlawful discrimination by Dr. Adams toward this student in UNCW’s working, living, or learning environment, per the university’s harassment prevention policy,” the statement said.
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