Update - more info on white supremacist instructor at VT

Hey all - First of all, thank you for signing the petition to Bernice Hausman & Timothy Sands asking them to reject white supremacy & remove white supremacist TA Mark Neuhoff from his teaching position. We've collected signatures from 42 former VT English instructors & more than 1,000 others like you. I know that sometimes it can feel like there's a million causes and a million petitions out there and you're not sure what adding your name or sharing really does. In this case, it's a big deal. It's becoming increasingly clear that VT administrators want to sweep this issue under the rug - and so far, they've done a good job of it. So putting public pressure on them in the form of a petition like this, and letting them know the world is watching, is HUGE. If you haven't yet, please take a moment to share the petition & open letter: http://bit.ly/2g7Uq0I I also wanted to share a couple updates with you. 1. We spoke to Tori, an undergraduate at VT who filed a harassment complaint against Mark. After she posted screenshots of his abhorrent social media posts in a Facebook group, he retaliated by sharing a link to her Facebook and her phone number with his network of white supremacists, telling them to "fuck her up" and "destroy her." As you can see in the screenshot, he also put her surname in triple parentheses — a technique used by anti-Semites online to identify people as Jewish in order to encourage harassment against them. Tori has filed a formal complaint and spoken to multiple departments at VT about the harassment she's experienced, including the VT Police Department (VTPD). Mark even admitted that the post about Tori was made on his personal Facebook page. But the university still refuses to take action to remove Mark from his teaching position. Meanwhile, Mark is being protected by VTPD. It's becoming increasingly clear that the administration is bending over backwards to protect him, while ignoring not only the threat his ideology poses, but legitimate and direct threats & harassment targeted at undergraduate students. 2. We received a response to our open letter from Bernice Hausman, which I'll share below: "Thank you for contacting the English department with your concerns. We pride ourselves on delivering appropriate instruction to all students in our classes. I can assure you that the English department follows all procedures having to do with gta training, supervision, observation, evaluation, and review with all current gtas. Having served as gtas in the English department, I imagine that you remember what that was like." Obviously, getting a form response like this is disappointing. It's especially disappointing to see that Bernice Hausman is sticking to her "messaging" about the English Dept. "following all procedures" regarding GTA training. Clearly, the procedures her department follows aren't working. And they need to change. It's pretty shocking to see how little VT administration seems to care about any of this - the safety of their students of color and Jewish students, the undergraduate Mark is harassing and threatening, the normalization of white supremacy on campus - but that means we need to push to make sure this doesn't go away. They can't sweep all 1,000+ of us under the rug. Please take a minute to share the petition and letter if you haven't done so yet (or even if you have!). Send it to your friends, share it on your Facebook and in any groups you're in that might be interested, put it up on Twitter, whatever. Get the word out. Thanks so much for being a part of this. - English grad student alums of VT