Feminists Sue Their University For Failing To Protect Them From 'Hostile' Sexists On 'Yik Yak'

A feminist student group recently filed a Title IX lawsuit against the University of Mary Washington that alleges the college failed “to protect them from a sexually hostile school environment.”

But the university denies there is a “sufficiency of evidence” to support the group’s claims.

Members of the group Feminists United at the University of Mary Washington filed the lawsuit against the university and its former president Richard Hurley on May 4. The plaintiffs allege that the university violated Title IX and the 14th Amendment when they did not take sufficient action against offensive speech by male students at the university.

Most of the speech occurred on the social media app Yik Yak, where users could post anonymous messages (known as “yaks”) to others in their geographical area.

The lawsuit classifies many of these messages as “overtly sexist and/or threatening,” and Feminists United claims that by not shutting down Yik Yak on school Wi-Fi, the university fostered a sexually hostile environment, failing to “protect the Plaintiffs from [the] effects” of the offensive yaks.

The lawsuit alleges that Mary Washington exhibited “deliberate indifference” to the “sexually hostile environment” created by the yaks. “Deliberate indifference” is potentially actionable under Title IX.

These claims are disputed by both the university and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit campus civil liberties group.

...FIRE representative Daniel Burnett, in an email to The Fix, referred to the 2003 Supreme Court case Virginia v. Black, which states that “‘true threats’ encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

In contrast, most of the yaks involved “derogatory remarks or even invitations for students to engage in debate with members of Feminists United,” according to FIRE program director Susan Kruth.

The lawsuit also cites an incident in December 2014 wherein campus administrators were provided with an audio recording of a “misogynistic chant” by the school’s rugby team. “No immediate action was taken by the University,” the lawsuit claims.