For 10 months, I  was subjected to relentless pressure and harassment from my head professor and department chair at the University of Iowa. This continued barrage of unprofessional behavior only ceased after I drafted a comprehensive cease and desist email, detailing about 15 specific actions they had taken against me. I took the courageous step of making this visible by including all my other professors in the email, exposing the misconduct to ensure it could no longer be hidden.

This situation isn't unique. It's a systemic issue that, if left unchecked, allows faculty members to exploit their power, creating a toxic environment for students. This isn't just my fight; it's for everyone who's been or could be targeted in the future. We must push for the University of Iowa to implement strong, enforceable policies against faculty harassment.

Students deserve an environment where they feel safe and respected, free from fear of retaliation or harassment from those in positions of authority. The university has an obligation to protect its students by adopting clear guidelines and procedures to address misconduct, and ensuring an impartial process to handle grievances.

By signing this petition, you're supporting a crucial change that calls for the University of Iowa to establish transparent, robust harassment policies that safeguard students and hold faculty accountable. Your support is vital in creating a safer, more respectful educational environment for everyone. Let's stand together to demand systemic change and ensure no one else has to face what I endured.

Please sign and share this petition to bring about the necessary reforms at the University of Iowa.

 

THE FULL STORY: WARNING, VERY LONG

This is documentation of the harassment I faced between January 2024 and May 2025, when I was a grad student at the University of Iowa. In the Spring Semester of 2024, I had two classes, back to back. That ran from 8am to 11am. Because of my permanent back injury, I had asked the professors of my first class (and program director) Dan Matheson, if room could be made for me to lay down. He could not accommodate the request, since the class room was very small and already packed with students. I didn't hold this against him, therefore, since such an accommodation would be physically impossible. This was late Jaunuary of 2024.   My second class was taught by a guy we will call Professor Goodman. I had figured out that I could sit in Mathesons class, then lay in the hallway during Goodman's class. The hallway was carpeted, so this worked out for me. Goodman was happy to ablige, since where I was laying didnt block a doorway or a walkway or anything like that.   

 

Early February (around the 5th or so):

   Dan Matheson approaches me and told me he set up a meeting for me with Student Disability. This meeting was set up my back and without my consent. He just sprung this on me in between classes and informed me that the meeting was to take place in 3 hours. During the meeting, he lectured me for standing up so much during class and claimed that I was distracting the guest speakers. He also continously pressured me to accept an adjustable desk as an accommodation, even though I told him repeatedly that it wouldn't solve the problem. At one point, I told him that I didn't wanna be the center of attention in the class. He replied that I already was the center of attention, (he said this in a very negative way) so I may as well accept the desk. This meeting went on for a good 45 minutes, and I caved to the desk. So the next time I showed up for class, that adjustable desk was there for me in Mathesons class.

  There's a reason Matheson called this surprise, ambush SDS meeting. And this is the catalyst for everything that happened to me throughout this year and a half long harassment campaign that I was subjected to. Matheson had been upset with me. A prominent guest speaker at joined our class about a week earlier, and he felt that I embarrassed him in front of her. That speaker was Iowa Athletic Director, Beth Goetz. Matheson did not like the fact that I kept standing up and sitting down during her speech, in order to relieve my back pain. And he let me know it during this surpise SDS meeting. He spent considerable time discussing this issue with me and even claimed that I was "right in her face" when I would stand up.   But I was not in her face at all. Beth Goetz was speaking at the front center of the class. And while I was at the front myself, I was off to the side. My desk was closest to the window. So I was not interfering with her speech, but that isn't how Matheson saw it. And it's a big part of the reason that a meeting that was supposed to last ten minutes lasted 45.  

 

February 12th or thereabouts:   

A week or so goes by with no issues. As annoyed as I was about Matheson setting up an SDS meeting for me behind my back, I had moved on and had expected no further problems. But one day after attending Mathesons class, I walked out to head to the elevator. This is about a 3 minutes walk from class. I was about to go upstairs for Professor Goodman's class. As I was about to get on the elevator, Matheson comes running up to me very fast, claiming he'd set up a meeting for me that I must attend right now. I had no idea what he was talking about, and did not authorize or even know of any meeting he had set up for me. For the second time in two weeks, Matheson had set up a mandatory meeting for me without notice. And this time he sprung it on me in between classes, with only about 15 seconds for me to even proccess what was going on before the meeting started. 

So I walked with him down some stairs and end up in this little side office conference-type room. Sitting there are department chair, Gary Pierce and student advocate employee, Abby Van Anden. I had never met either of them before this very moment.  Gary starts in right away, saying that I could not lay in the hallway during Goodman's class anymore, since it is a violation of school policy. I couldn't believe Matheson had sprung another surprise meeting on me in order to address how I access another professors class. Like, is this really even happening? But I knew Pierce's claims about school policy weren't  true. So I challenged him, asking him what policy this was. I also knew that, even if the policy did exist, it never gets enforced. I see other students laying in hallways on this campus every day. So why is it suddenly a problem when I do it? Pierce couldn't explain the policy and couldn't verify that it even exists. Since I had my computer with me, I offered to explore university policies with him. He then gave up on the policy violation thing and tried to tell me that I couldn't lay in the hallway during class no more because it was a violation of Iowa state law. He even claimed to have confirmed this with a lawyer. I knew this to be a lie as well, since I layed down in every class at my undergrad school, Iowa State University. So I pressed him on this, and his argument fell short. He then tried to go back to his school policy argument, and I easily shut it down again.    

 That's when Abby Van Anden stepped in and said something like ,"ok you're not violating school policy, but you're violating the fire code".    I asked how she knew that. She said that she didn't know that, but she was making an educated guess (or something similar). This started another back and forth, similar to the one I described above.

After a while, they shifted the conversation to a place where they continued to ask me why I chose to lay in the hallway, and I continued to explain to them the situation with my back. I kept telling them that my back won't alllow me to sit for 3 hours straight, and they just wouldn't accept that answer. Finally, Pierce asked me if I'd just be willing to sit the entire 3 hours through those first two classes and see how it goes. He doubled down that that was my only option since, no matter what, I would not be allowed to lay in the hallway during class. I caved on this and told him I'd give it a shot.

The meeting ended. I walked out of the room, wondering why on Earth Daniel Matheson would drag me into a surpise meeting in order to discuss how I access another professors class. It made no sense.   Now, it should be said that I had forgotten Pierce's name as soon as I walked out of that meeting. This will be important when I get further down the timeline. 

During the meeting, Pierce claimed to have gotten his false policy/fire code/state law violation information from SDS themselves. But SDS never once contacted me about any of this. And noone from SDS was at this surpise meeting. Either way, Pierce would repeat these false claims to me in a later email.  

Another thing to note. They kept telling me to contact SDS to figure out what accommodations were available to me, but I saw no reason to go that route. There's two reasons for this. The first is that I got the impression they were not going to allow me to lay in the hallway, no matter what. And that was my only way of keeing up with the class in person. My suspicions about this were confirmed in an email Pierce himself sent me later that semester. The second reason is that I wasn't doing anything wrong. Numerous non-disabled students lay in hallways in every building on this campus on a daily basis. No one bothers other students about this, and no one makes them go through the proccess of seeking permission from an administrative campus body in order to do so. They just lay there and do not get bothered. So why should I have to go through all this nonsense in order to do something that other students do freely? Again, none of this made any sense. 

Another thing to note about this meeting. This meeting was the very first time that I had heard that they had a problem with me laying in the hallway. No one even dropped so much as a hint about this at any point before the surprise meeting. What makes this even more significant is that I had had that hour long meeting with Dan Matheson and SDS a week or so before this. I was already laying in the hallway by this time and said this many times during that meeting. At no point was anything communicated to me that there would be a problem with me laying in the hallway during Goodman's class. Matheson was focused on getting me to accept an adjustable desk for his own class.

  Anyway, I made the attempt to sit through both classes (a total of 3 hours) as Gary Pierce had asked me to do. It did not go well for my back. So I emailed Goodman that afternoon and told him that I'm gonna lay in the hallway anyway for his class moving forward. I knew I wasn't in violation of any law or policy, and if Matheson had a problem with that, he could talk to me directly about it.      

February 16th or thereabouts:  

Fast forward 4 days, and I just got done with Matheson's class. I go upstairs to Professor Goodman's class and begin to lay in the hallway as usual, waiting for Goodman. Goodman is about ten minutes late to class, which is not like him. When he finally does show up, he informs me that Matheson had told him that he was no longer allowed to keep the door open for me during class, so that I could listen to the lectures from hallway. If I were to insist on laying in the hallway during Goodman's lecture, he was now orderd to close the door on me and keep it closed. This effectively shut me out of the class.

Matheson and Pierce, Goodman’s bosses, had ordered this. I couldn't believe it. They knew I wasn't violating school policy, and now that I was asserting my rights, they chose to intimidate one of my professors instead of confronting me directly.  The real icing on the cake is this. The ambush meeting I describe above had taken place the previous Thursday morning. That same afternoon is when I put word out that I was going to continue to lay in the hallway, regardless of what Matheson or Pierce said. My next class with Goodman was on a Tuesday, leaving Pierce and Matheson 4 full days to contact me and to say something like, "we already told you that laying in a hallway was against school policy/fire code/state law ect....."

  But they did not contact me once during that 4 day period. Instead, they went behind my back and intimidated Goodman, banning him from allowing me to listen to his lecture from the hallway. And this whole thing was done in such a way that I didn't find out until a minute before class was about to start.  

I got incredibly upset. Goodman actually had to calm me down and talk me out of walking into Matheson’s office and yelling. At that moment, Goodman told me that he would allow me to access the class online on days when I wasn't feeling great in my back. I still wanted to confront Matheson, but out of respect for Goodman, I accepted his offer. And I took Goodman's class online livestreamed for the rest of the semester. 

    Late February:  

 I thought this whole ordeal was over, especially since I had caved to them violating my rights in every way they possibly could. I was wrong. In late February, I received 3 seperate emails from three seperate authorative bodies on campus. This would be the Dean’s office, and two others I cannot remember. I have the emails though. Gary Pierce and Daniel Matheson had been working behind the scenes, reaching out to these various campus bodies about me. What resulted was a constant pestering for meetings. The deans office sent me an email a week after the Packy thing, saying they wanted to discuss some incident between myself and Matheson. This surprised and irritated me, since I had already caved to their violations of my rights. I think they just wanted to drive the point home. So the Dean's office messages me asking for a meeting the week after Packy told me I could take the class online. A week after this email, another faculty body emails me requesting the same thing. And a week after that, another faculty body emailed me with the same request, all at the behest of Matheson and Pierce.   I couldn't understand why they kept coming after me. At this time, it should be said that I had no idea Pierce was behind any of this. I thought this was all Matheson. Remember, I had forgotten Pierce's name. I wouldn't find out til later down the line that all this was as much Gary Pierce driven as it was Dan Matheson driven. But I just couldnt understand why Matheson (and as I would later find out, Pierce) wouldn't leave me alone. Especially after I caved to all this.   

Spring Break:

  I spent the majority of Spring Break strongly considering dropping out of school. When I actually had time to think about all the harassment and nonsense I had already been through, it kind of overwhelmed me. I'll never forget it being 3 days before the start of classes and me thinking "No part of me wants to go back to that campus".

In fact, I was positive I was going to quit until I forced myself into the car the morning classes started and got back on campus. More to come.......  

POST Spring Break:  

When I got back to campus, I did not attend Matheson’s class. I did attend my other classes, but I refused to go to Mathesons class for almost an entire month. I simply didnt want to be around that man at all. I kept up with the class by keeping up with the readings and getting notes from other students. 

In the 2nd week of April, Gary Pierce emailed me stating that Matheson had told him that I hadn't been to class in a month and was in danger of failing. At this point, I sent Pierce a long email, detailing everything Matheson had put me through. Mind you, I had no idea Pierce was behind any of this. I didn't even remember that Pierce was the one in that ambush meeting. So I explained to Pierce everything that Matheson had put me through, thinking that he was a neutral admistrative body who I had not yet crossed paths with.   Pierce acknowledged my email, and wanted to set up a day to meet. I agreed and told him I would get back to him. But I started getting suspicious after that, just from a couple little things Pierce said to me. I started to realize that it might have been him that was in that ambush meeting described above.   

Anyway, I returned to class sometime in mid April, around April 15th. I informed Pierce that I had returned to class, and that a meeting would not be necessary. Over the next week or two, he kept asking me for meetings anyway, as well as having other administrative bodies email me to ask me to meet with him. I refused every time, because I was pretty sure I had figured out who he was. And I was pretty sure he was gonna use the meeting to say Matheson had done nothing wrong and that I should essentially just shut up and accept what happened. He proved me right in a long email to me at the end of Spring semester 2024. But we will get there. 

  At this particular moment in time, he had already asked me for meetings 3 or 4 times. After I turned these down (I flat out ignored the last 2 requests), he started petitioning faculty to ask me for meetings. And he did so in a sustained, pestering way. First, he had one of my professors email me, asking me to meet with Pierce. The week after that, he had another professor approach me in person, asking me to meet with him. And a few days after that, I was contacted by yet ANOTHER one of my professors about meeting with Gary. This is highly suspicious and harassing behavior, especially toward a student who had not caused a single behavioral issue. He essentially tried to harass me into a meeting with him until right through the last week of classes.

  During the last week of classes, I sent an email to Dan Matheson asking why he had not warned the class about a particular assignment. Matheson reported the email to Gary Pierce, who responded my emailing me again to ask for yet another meeting.   

May 9th:   

At the very end of the semester, Gary Pierce sent me a long email, confirming all of my worst suspicions. He expressed frustration at me ignoring his 12+ requests for a meeting. Pierce also informed me that it was him in that ambush meeting at the beginning of the semester. He confirmed that it was him that told me that I was violating school policies, laws, and fire codes by laying in that hallway. I couldn't believe it. I had already caught him in those lies. He knew he had been caught. Yet he doubled down anyway. He also told me that Matheson had done nothing wrong and that I should be glad that Matheson had allowed me into the program. He also said that I should be happy that Matheson went to the trouble of getting me that desk. And he also said that laying in a hallway was simply "not an allowable accommodation."    He also completely dismissed the harsssment I went thru and my concerns. And he threw in a couple of vague threats to my status as a student. As a final insult to injury, he told me that Goodman should not have allowed me to access his class online and that I would not be allowed that option with future professors on days when my back is hurting. He let me know he was going to stay on top of that in order to make sure I didnt access classes that way. He claimed a policy violation in this one too, but of course, no such policy exists. Stuff like this has always been left to individual professor discretion. Even at schools that have policies against allowing in-person students to access classes online, it is almost never enforced and is still almost always left to professor discretion. He was simply stepping into areas he shouldn't, abusing his authority in order to make things hard for me.

It's extremely odd for a department chair to take these kinds of actions. In fact, it is extremely odd for a department chair to insert himself into situations like mine at all.   And again, the only reason I wanted to access the classes online on certain days is because Pierce himself wouldn't let me lay in the hallway during class periods. His pestering is what caused me to take the class online in the first place. One last thing..... at the time, I had a TikTok channel, and was making TikTok videos to document all the harassment and targeting I was receiving from Matheson and Pierce. He told me that he had seen all my videos and he told me that I should take them down as an "act of good faith."    

Mid May:  

That last email started a little bit of a back and forth between me and Gary Pierce. This was the beginning of Summer semester. At this point, I was beyond sick of this man's crap. So I told him that theres no policy  or fire code or anything else against what I was doing. I also told him that there was no policy against professors allowing online access. And that if he contested what I just said, he needs to link me to the relevant policies. He sent me links and I read them. I then pointed out to him that the policies do not even come close to verifying his claims, to which he responded by doubling down. At this point, I said something to him kind of passive aggressive. I forgot what it was. But he responsed with an angry email stating he didn't like my condescending tone and that I essentially better fall in line if I wanna remain in the program. I sent him back a couple of laugh emojis, and our contact with each other ceased for the rest of the summer. I would not hear from Pierce again til late August of 2024.  

Over the summer, I started gathering evidence to help myself. I called the fire department and had a conversation with the Iowa City Fire Chief. He told me he knew of no such fire code violation from me laying in a university hallway. I then called just about every authoratative body on campus, asking them about policies against laying in hallways and against professors allowing students to access classes online. Every authoritative body told me the same thing...... there is no policy against either. Many of the offices I called spent significant time with me on the phone as they tried to find any policy that would fit with what I was asking them. They all came to the conclusion that these policies simply dont exist. So how would Mr Pierce know of these so-called policies that even the people who make and enforce school policies dont know? Amazing, isnt it?  

August 2024:  

Late August comes, and the situation is such that I am going to have to miss my first 3 class periods because of my back. I sent an email to Matheson, who refused to provide me any updates from the class and pointed me to the normal policy for unexcused absenses. Mind you, Matheson is well aware of my back problems, as stated many times earlier. I emailed him to remind him of my situation, and he responded by reporting my email to Gary Pierce. In turn, Gary Pierce asked me for yet another meeting. It should be said that there was a small period where, every time I emailed Matheson, he would report it to Pierce and Pierce would ask me for a meeting. Anyway, I ignored Pierce for a while, but at his last request, I finally agreed to a meeting with him. I couldn't believe he still had his sights set on me after some 8 months of harassment, and I was done taking his crap.   So I emailed him back and told him I agreed to the meeting and am looking forward to it, because I have some stuff I need to say to him.

Pierce was very taken aback by this, cuz I had always turned him down before. He felt intimidated, so he emailed me back stating that the meeting will now take place with someone from the deans office in attendance. I emailed him back telling him I don't care who's there. I'm done taking his crap and I'm gonna say what I need to say to him. And he can bring the entire UIowa faculty to the meeting if he wants. I really don't care. He then responded to that by saying that our meeting will now take place at the office of Student Accountability. This was the last straw that made me snap. I knew this was yet another layer of intimidation. So I responded to him with an email of my own, and these are the exact words of my email.....  

"Absense

I was told to send you this email as an official thing so that there would be documentation that I told you these things. So here goes.       Stop emailing me       Stop asking me for meetings        Stop setting up meetings for me behind my back       Stop dragging me into surprise meetings        Stop reaching out to other faculty to get them to ask me for meetings        Stop asking students and staff questions about me       Stop making up rules and policies for me       Stop lying to me about existing policies and fire codes and whatever other nonsense you come up with        Stop using intimidation tactics to get me to do what you want        Stop having students spy on my social media (not 100% sure on this one, but pretty sure)       Stop giving me thinly-veiled threats to my status as a student when I push back against these behaviors from you and your professors      

Stop trying to control how I access a class. I don't care if you like how I access my classes. I never asked for your opinion on the matter, nor am I interested in what that opinion is. You have a control issues, and I'm not the person to be taking that shit out on.       Stop doing stuff that you know full well will make things more difficult for me.           You engaged in these behaviors all of last semester. And its time for this stuff to end. Understand that I am not asking you to stop. I am TELLING YOU to stop!       Now, I am going to say these same things to you in our actual meeting. However, I won't be able to get it on record in there like I can in an email.

Now its documented. I cannot even begin to tell you how angry I was when you sent me that email at the end of last semester, admitting that it was you that was making Matheson do all the stuff he did. But the good news for Matheson is that my disgust with him immediately shifted to you after reading your message, and thats where its been ever since.      

In other words, going forward, unless I violate an ACTUAL school policy, you are going to LEAVE ME ALONE from now on! Do you understand that? LEAVE.....ME.....ALONE! I dont care if you like it if I lay in a hallway to keep up with a class. Thats your problem. I'm done making it mine.       As far as our meeting goes, I am shooting for this Thursday. However, if Thursday dont work (and it looks like it might not), I will absolutely for sure be able to meet with you and whoever else you want there the following Wednesday, the 11th. And believe me when I tell you that I am looking forward to it with every fiber of my being.    Josh"  

  I copied all my other professors in this email to Mr Pierce. I did this to put word out as to what was going on and to protect myself from retaliation.  This whole email exchange took place during the last week of August to the first week of September.

On September 5th, in response to my last email to him, Gary Pierce did something that truly surprised me. He wrote me an email, cancelling the meeting and promising not to contact me again. He kept his promise, as I never did hear from him again. I emailed him back telling him everything is cool as long as all the nonsense stops now. That was our very last email exchange.    Once again, I thought the harsssment was over. And once again, I was wrong. Pierce never contacted me again directly, but he still used proxies to interfere with my educational experience, even after this. More to come.......  

It was around this time that I was finally able to get my disability documentation from my old college. Upon receiving it, the office of Student Disability had emailed me stating that I had been approved for accommodations, but I needed to have a video conference with someone from their office. So I scheduled the meeting. The meeting was useless. The guy from the office told me that I was only approved for adjustable furniture (and a couple of random accommodations I did not ask for and was not seeking), meaning the adjustable desk that Matheson had got me at the begining of the semester. They were fully aware that the desk wouldn't help much, cuz I had stated that in my original meeting with them. They told me that I would NOT be approved to lay down during classes or to access classes online on my days of pain. They said that they were leaving that up to my professors. Meaning the same ones who spent the last 9 months harassing me about this very thing.

I couldn't believe it, because the documentation from my doctor clearly and plainly states that I will need to lay down during some class periods and that I will need to be able to access the class online during other times. So they were directly defying my doctors orders, leaving me in an impossible and hostile situation.    It was also around this time that the LAS school posted an update on their website that stated that professors are "not permitted" to allow in-person students to access classes online. They had apparently changed their policy to tie professors hands on this one. I knew right away that this was Gary Pierce's doing. So I emailed the LAS to ask when their policy changed. At first, they told me that this was a recent change. But I confronted them with evidence that there was no such policy change. They then emailed me back stating that they hadn't really changed their policy, but instead were clamping down on a policy they already had. So I showed them their exact policy, which clearly stated that issues like this are usually left to individual professor discretion. They immediately stopped responding to me and I did not hear from them again. Nonetheless, this created yet another barrier for me.

    My last desperate attempt to get some justice in all this was to schedule a meeting with the Dean's office. During the video meeting, I rehashed everything I had been put through. But the deans people denied any wrong doing on the part of Matheson, Pierce of LAS. So the whole thing was a waste of time.  Meanwhile, my professors for my final semester of classes told me that it would be much harder for me to access classes online this semester, even with proof of my disability. Apparently, I was now supposed to have a seperate doctor's excuse and also write a personal email explaining why I missed class and why I needed to access the class online. Apparently, I was gonna have to do this nearly every time I wanted to miss class to take care of my back. So that last semester was a pain in the behind too. Gary Pierce had figured out a way to make things hard for me, despite not having any direct or indirect contact with him anymore.    So I graduated, never having got any remedy for the situation. For the life of me, I will never understand why Pierce and Matheson kept messing with me. They did everything they could to make things hard for me. They went out of their way to close off any avenue I had to make my university experience more comfortable. And the weird part is I didnt even resist them all that much. Yet they still kept messing with me.    I did record all the meetings that Matheson and Pierce dragged me into. I still have all those recodings and all those emails .

I can't, for the life of me, figure out why Dan Matheson and Gary Pierce couldn't have just left me alone. I wasn't violating any school policy. And even if I was, it's obviously a policy that doesn't get enforced against other students. I wasn't hurting anything. I wasn't even inconveniencing anyone. I was laying in the hallway, minding my own business like hundreds of other students do daily, and listening to my class lecture. How that turned into multiple surpise meetings, false claims about school polices/state laws/fire codes, and 14 requests for meetings in a 9 month period is beyond me. And yes....all told, Gary Pierce tried to make me meet with him and/or one of his colleagues 14  times. So when I tell you that Pierce and Matheson wouldn't leave me alone, I really mean it. They spent 9 months pestering me at any opportunity they got to do so. I was constantly subjected to surprise meetings. My status as a student was threatened 9 times (whenever I would try to push back against their behaviors). My professors were subject to Matheson and Pierces hovering over them, making sure they didnt help me in ways that Matheson and Pierce felt inappropriate. They tried to intimidate me into meeting with them and/or their colleagues 14 times, most of which took place after it was clear that I just wanted to be left alone. I was subjected to rules and policies that seemed only to apply to me. And I was forced to jump through hoops no other student has to jump through in order to engage in the same activities I was engaged in. And that's just for starters.

I am hoping to raise awareness to this issue. There's two reasons for this. The first is that I don't want to give Dan Matheson and Gary Pierce a chance to do this to someone else down the road. What I went through is completely unacceptable. Especially Dan Matheson. Because it was Matheson who was requesting all this harassment behind the scenes. He rarely caused problems for me directly. If he wanted something done, he'd call Pierce and Pierce would come after me. 

The second reason is that I am hoping to eventually get these people into court for a lawsuit. Which means I would need a lawyer. The state of Iowa has given me until June of 2028 to invoke my right to sue. That leaves me some time to get the word out about everything that happened. And maybe through getting the word out, someone will step up.

Do I want compensation? You're darn right I do. They did everything they could to pester me and make my college experience a lot harder than it had to be. And they did it for 9 straight months. I am a formerly homeless alcoholic who worked his way into college from the streets. I was busting my butt to better myself. The last thing I needed was for Pierce and Matheson to make my time on campus harder than it needed to be every chance they got. Especially when I had done absolutely nothing wrong!

If you could find it in your heart to help spread the word about my campaign, I'd really appreciate it. I know that you, the reader, can relate to being singled out for bad treatment. We all know someone who has been through this kind of thing in one way or another. And helping me spread the word about this will help being me, and maybe some other people, closer to a possible remedy. 

 

One last thing. As stated earlier, I am a formerly homeless alcoholic. I worked my way into Iowa State University from the streets after many years of battling with homelessness and alcohol addiction. In 2020, I graduated from Iowa State University as an honor toll student. I then went to grad school at the University of Iowa in 2024, and you already know the rest of that story lol.

But anyway, there have been media storied about me and my homeless to college journey. They were done 6 years ago, well before I graudated. But they do tell my story. This first one is the newspaper article. I warn you that this one is long. It goes back and forth between telling my story and talking about homelessness overall......

  https://www.amestrib.com/news/20190323/survivors-story-former-homeless-man-recounts-experience-works-to-make-life-easier-for-others   And this is the TV story about me. It's way shorter and there's video haha.....   https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.weareiowa.com/amp/article/news/local/fighting-the-cold-when-you-are-homeless/524-ba87f975-9b27-4c7f-b308-e6a2bf540c6e   PS Apparently the old link to the newspaper article dont work, so heres another link to that...   https://www.amestrib.com/story/news/2019/03/23/survivor-s-story-former-homeless/5582433007/