On Dec. 23, a dean at Brandeis University informed Brandeis student Daniel Mael that he was the subject of a “no contact order” limiting his movement on campus. The order prevented Mael, a senior one semester shy of graduation, from existing anywhere near a second student, Michael Piccione, on Brandeis’s genteel suburban Boston campus.
A few days earlier, on Dec. 20, Mael had cited the public tweets of another student, Khadijah Lynch, in an article on the website Truth Revolt. Lynch’s tweets related to the execution-style murder of two NYPD officers and included statements such as “i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today” and “i hate this racist fucking country.” (RELATED: Fancypants, College Student: ‘No Sympathy’ For Brutally Executed Cops)
The instigator of the “no contact order” was none other than Piccione, reports The Justice, the Brandeis campus newspaper.
Piccione, also a senior and a member of the 2014-15 student conduct board, became involved in the kerfuffle over Lynch’s tweets when he sent an urgent Dec. 22 email arguing that Mael broke multiple campus rules to the president of Brandeis, senior administrators, radical leftist professors and students — some 200 people all told.
“I got involved because people from outside Brandeis were threatening the safety of Brandeis students,” Piccione told The Justice.
The 1,123-word email suggested that Brandeis had ample grounds to punish Mael for publicly calling attention to Lynch’s tweets. (RELATED: Students Rally Around Peer With ‘No Sympathy’ For Dead Cops)
The day after sending that email calling for punishment for Mael — for an episode in which Piccione had absolutely zero involvement — Piccione then successfully asked the Brandeis administration to limit the movement of Mael.
Piccione’s email — entitled “VERY IMPORTANT: Holding Daniel Mael accountable, and other threats to student safety!” — claimed that “Mael has exposed Khadijah to the largely white supremacist following of the website.” (The website to which Piccione refers is Truth Revolt.)
For reporting about Lynch’s vile tweets, Piccione declared, Mael “has potentially violated multiple parts” of a Brandeis code of student conduct including “stalking.”
Piccione indicated that he was deeply concerned because Mael looked at Lynch’s Twitter page more than once in order to update his piece in Truth Revolt. A journalist’s return to a Twitter page for more information is “problematic behavior,” he has since explained to The Justice.
It’s not clear why Piccione feared contact with Mael after attempting to get Mael in serious trouble at Brandeis.
In a Jan. 8 essay in TIME, Mael said of Piccione: “As far as I know, I have never spoken to this student in my time at Brandeis and would fail to pick him out of a police lineup.”
Jamele Adams, the dean of student life at fancypants Brandeis who imposed the “no contact order” against Mael on Dec. 23, revoked the order on Jan. 8 — almost immediately after The Washington Free Beacon publicized it.
Piccione’s bizarre excuse for seeking the removal of the “no contact order” was that he works in a Brandeis cafeteria, and he might be working alone at the cash register and he can’t refuse anyone service.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Piccione is “a member of the Brandeis Student Conduct Board for the 2014-2015 academic year.”
The board promotes “ethical behavior on the Brandeis campus.”
Piccione’s slender résumé includes several years as a cashier and bagger at a Stop & Shop in Yarmouth, Pa.
His list of skills includes “social networking,” “PowerPoint” and, hilariously, “conflict resolution.”
He has a special section on his LinkedIn page titled “Causes Michael cares about.” They include “animal welfare” and “civil rights and social action.”
While the “no contact order” was in place, Adams communicated its meaning to Mael and Piccione.
“As shared when we spoke on the phone moments ago in relation to a No Contact Order, you are to have no contact with Michael Piccione in any way, shape or form,” the dean wrote. “Please be aware that the same applies to Michael and that he is not to have contact with you. This same information is being shared with him as well.”
“In the event one party is at a location before the other, the party that was present second must await the departure of the first,” Adams, an allegedly “celebrated poet,” added.
If either Mael of Piccione violated the order, Adams sternly warned, it “should be reported to the Dean of Students Office.”
While the “no contact order” was in place against Mael, Brandeis president Frederick M. Lawrence had the temerity to argue in The Wall Street Journal that the school “has an unyielding commitment to free speech and expression of ideas.”
“No student would ever be sanctioned for holding a specific point of view,” Lawrence totally promised.
Lynch, the original tweeter, hastily vanished in the face of her big moment in the Twitter spotlight. Instead of vocally advancing her fanatical views, she erased her entire Twitter page (then set it to private, and then made it public again).
Mael has said that campus security officials have urged him to change dorm rooms and purchase mace at Wal-Mart. They said he should expect to see his vehicle vandalized, too.
One year of tuition, mandatory fees and room and board costs about $60,300 at Brandeis (a little over $6,000 more than America’s median household income of $53,891).
A very perceptive and thoughtful editorial by The Justice Editorial Board criticizes Mael for publishing a student’s tweets but also observes that he did nothing remotely punishable.
“The decision to publish this story in a national forum is what many students criticize, yet doing so is neither illegal nor illicit. The potential Rights and Responsibilities violations pointed to in Piccione’s email deal with intimidation and harassment, but Mael’s article itself did neither; it only reposted Lynch’s previous tweets and quoted her other public statements,” the editorial states.
“The attacks against her were by Mael’s readers outside of the University, and they have been universally condemned — including by Mael himself on his professional Facebook page. He cannot be held responsible for the actions of his readers. Mael himself also received violent threats, a completely unacceptable response,” it also says.
“Inflammatory use of the First Amendment must be tolerated on both sides of debate for these freedoms to have meaning.”
You can see Piccione’s 1,123-word email in its entirety on the next page:
From: Michael Piccione
Date: December 22, 2014 at 5:27:18 PM EST
Subject: VERY IMPORTANT: Holding Daniel Mael accountable, and other threats to student safety!
Hello to all,
This email is similar, but not identical, to one that had been sent out previously today. The first was to call attention to the issue, whereas this one is a request from many members of the Brandeis community that the student responsible for the incident be held accountable for his actions. We apologize for any redundancy.
As you may have been made aware, the safety of one member of the Brandeis community, Khadijah Lynch, has been compromised by the actions of another Brandeis student, Daniel Mael. Those of us within the Brandeis community who value the safety and integrity of all members of our community are requesting that action is taken to hold this student accountable for his actions, which have directly put Khadijah in danger and continue to do so.
Mael, a regular contributor on a website called “TruthRevolt”, a popular conservative-oriented political website designed, according to its mission statement, to “unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases,” wrote an article targeting Khadijah for a series of tweets she made on her own personal Twitter over the last month. In doing so, he posted a photo of her as well as information about her as a student as well as giving people access to her Twitter username. The article can be seen here:
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/student-leader-no-sympathy-executed-nypd-officers
Whether one agrees or not with the very blunt comments Khadijah made on her Twitter account, the audience of these postings was originally those who frequented her Twitter. We do not propose to offer any opinion on the posts themselves, but it is important to note the sequence of events and intended audiences. After having posted the aforementioned article, Mael has exposed Khadijah to the largely white supremacist following of the website on which he posts, which has led to harassment, death threats, rape threats, and excessive hate speech directed to her personal Twitter (now private), Facebook (now deactivated), and Linkedin. People who frequent TruthRevolt have also gained access to Khadijah’s personal email address and her Brandeis mailbox number, and have threatened to contact her persistently. We have taken screenshots of some of these threatening comments and have attached them to this email, although more will likely be posted after this has been sent.
As can be seen in the article itself, Khadijah specifically requested that her personal comments be removed from the website and the article in question taken down, but her wishes were ignored and Mael continued to post updates to the article until Khadijah made her Twitter private.
In doing so, he has potentially violated multiple parts of Section 2.10, particularly 2.10.f of Rights and Responsibilities, and we have screenshot and uploaded as an attachment the relevant portion. It is essential that this be taken into consideration. Other sections potentially violated are 3.2a (stalking), and attention may also be warranted about Section 17, 20, and 21.4.
A Facebook page has also been made on which hate speech, directed toward Khadijah herself as well as a plethora of racist comments, have been made, and there has been word that professional hackers may have now stated plans to target specific members of the Brandeis community. The safety of the Brandeis community has been placed in jeopardy also by another student named Ben Vizlakh, who posted an article to this Facebook page telling its members that this email was going to be sent out, mentioning one student by name (a screenshot of his post has been attached here). Vizakh has potentialy violated 2.13 (retaliation) with regard to spreading the word of this email to people who pose a threat to the safety of Brandeis students. Here is the relevant Facebook link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/340022509539521/?pnref=story
Upon Khadijah’s resignation as a UDR, Mael also posted the following, which did little more than to spur more negative comments about her (including another rape threat) as well as Brandeis University and its faculty:
Additionally, if you go to Google and type “Khadijah Lynch Brandeis” this story has been reposted all over the Internet, with similar hateful comments and threats directed toward her. Not only does the posting of this article put Khadijah in danger, but also the Brandeis community at large, given the volume of hateful messages being posted about the school on social media by strangers.
The most pressing concern ought to be the safety of our students, and as such we request that action is taken to ensure Khadijah’s safety. A large part of this involves holding the student responsible who callously disregarded her safety. With the speed at which information is spread digitally these days and the fact that her personal information has been compromised and is in the hands of strangers, it is essential that action is taken. As students and community members who know Khadijah personally, we neither condone nor condemn the statements she had made, but we must understand the intent with which her posts and personal information were made accessible by a fellow Brandeis student to the general public, especially on a website frequented by white supremacists that seek to threaten and intimidate anyone with views that differ from their own. It is unfathomable to many within the Brandeis community that such an action could have been carried out with anything but malicious intent, as contributors to websites are perfectly aware of the following their websites receive. As a journalist, he must be aware of the impact that publishing such articles could have on other people’s safety, and it is important that he be held accountable for his actions.
Included in this email are students within the Brandeis community who stand in solidarity with Khadijah in this difficult time and who wish to see action taken to hold the student in question responsible and to protect her safety. As Chad Williams, Chair of the African and Afro-American Studies Department mentioned in his statement on this situation, “While it may be easy and convenient at this emotionally charged moment to condemn Ms. Lynch, we must also strive to understand why she would make these comments. This means openly and honestly recognizing the very real pain and frustration that many young people of color struggle with in trying to navigate their place in a society that all too often delegitimizes their existence.” While Khadijah has taken responsibility for her comments and has withdrawn from her position as a UDR, it is the responsibility of our community to condemn the threatening and hateful comments she has received and stand up for the principle of social justice on which Brandeis was founded.
Thank you so much for your time and we hope that you have a Happy Holiday!
Best wishes,
The Brandeis Community
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