In response to the rise of harassment and treats on the social media app Yik Yak, NSU is taking action to prevent keep students safe by informing that NSU is against threatening others on Yik Yak.
Yik Yak is a location-based app that gives users anonymous updates from others near them and allows them to post their own. However, the app has caused problems at colleges across the country. Students at University of Southern Mississippi and Towson University were arrested after posting threats to the schools on the app.
NSU students have been harassed anonymously on Yik Yak as well.
“A lot of the comments that are on the app right now are harassment,” Camp said. “We had reports of students saying that they were being threatened.”
To counteract this problem, Assistant Dean of Student Services and Director of Residential Life and Housing Aarika Camp said Vice President of Student Affairs Brad Williams is writing a letter that will be emailed to students saying that administrators and students alike are against using Yik Yak for harassment or threats.
He is also asking for NSU’s student government associations to support the letter.
The NSU Student Handbook defines harassment as “any conduct (words or acts), whether intentional or unintentional or a product of the disregard for the safety, rights, or welfare of others, which causes physical, verbal, or emotional harm or conduct, which intimidates, degrades, demeans, threatens, hazes or otherwise interferes with another person’s rights to comfort and right to be free of a hostile environment.”
This includes disturbing someone else’s comfort on campus or creating a hostile or intimidating environment with words or actions that threaten the health or safety of someone in the NSU community.
Camp said the main concern is that students feel safe. Whenever a student reports a threat, the Office of Public Safety and the Davie Police Department are contacted. If the threat was anonymous and online, the police can work with data companies to find out who posted the threat. Students who threaten or harass others in the NSU community are disciplined.
Camp said NSU’s staff wants students to take a stance against harassment as well. This is why it was important to get student government involved and they are being asked to endorse the letter.
“They represent the mouthpiece of the students,” Camp said. “[Their support] is saying students aren’t going to tolerate this behavior either, and it’s important for other students to know that students are not going to tolerate threatening someone on their campus.”
Undergraduate Student Government Association President Kelly Scott, senior athletic training major, said undergraduate SGA has supported the letter.
Scott said it’s important to let people know that harassment and stalking are not OK and hopes all NSU’s SGAs support the letter.
“We want to try to stop any harassment from happening because NSU has a great atmosphere and it should continue to have a positive educational atmosphere,” Scott said. “When people are getting bullied or having their name mentioned on Yik Yak it really breaks that culture down.”
