Difference between revisions of "Queer Bash Email Incident"

(removed link to email text . . . see talk page)
(major rewrite . . . i wish this kind of work would wait for a non-work night)
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The Queer Bash E-mail (QBE) scandal of 2003 concerned a series of e-mails between Nate Winstanley on one side and Jon Pritchard '07 and Brandon Lucien '07 separately on the other side. Although Pritchard and Lucien were members of the same class and of the football team, they seem to have acted independently. The ''Record'' [http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?sawContrib=yes&view=article&section=news&id=4820 reported]
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An email sent by Nate Winstanley '04 on behalf of the [[Queer Student Union]] (QSU) to all-campus to publicize the fall 2003 [[Queer Bash]] drew vehemently disapproving emails from two [[first-year]] students, Jon Pritchard '07 and Brandon Lucien '07.  When Winstanley, feeling threatened by the emails he'd received, made them and their senders public by forwarding it to various [[listserver|listsevers]] and adinistration officials, the exchange became a subject of widespread campus attention and debate, and the cause for a disciplinary investigation.
  
<blockquote>
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The email exchange transpired between October 10th and 14th 2003.  Full ramifications of the event included prolonged debate within [[College Council]] , of which Winstanley was a member; a widely publicized special QSU meeting to discuss the events, at which Pritchard and Lucien's [[Junior Advisor]]s were present; and the two first-years' decision to withdraw from the College for a year, perhaps part-induced by pressure from the disciplinary investigation and proceedings against them.
:A series of e-mails sent to Queer Student Union (QSU) social coordinator Nate Winstanley ’04 rocked the queer community and incited heated discussions on campus last week.
 
  
:Three e-mails were sent between Oct. 10 and 14 by two first-years, John Pritchard ’07 and Brandon Lucien ’07, in response to the all-campus e-mails Winstanley sent out to publicize the annual Queer Bash party on Oct. 11.
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See also:
  
:The first two e-mails, sent by Lucien, objected to receiving e-mails about queer events.
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* [http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article&section=news&id=4820 "QSU reacts to abusive e-mails"], ''[[Record|The Record]]'', October 21, 2003
 
 
:The third e-mail, written by Pritchard, provoked Winstanley to forward all three e-mails, with the names of the writers still included, to the Dean’s Office, President Schapiro, the Committee on Diversity and Community and the Queer Student Union (QSU), College Council (CC) and Junior Advisor (JA) listservers by Tuesday afternoon.
 
 
 
:The text of that message, which has since been cited in an all-campus e-mail sent out by CC included the following excerpt: “Why don’t u [sic] faggots keep to ur [sic] god damn selves. You people disgust me...i [sic] almost threw up when i [sic] saw all that crap you people wrote on the sidewalks last week.”
 
 
 
:President Schapiro and Dean Roseman both assured Winstanley at that time that the College would take appropriate action.
 
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It is not clear what actions, if any, the College took. Both Lucien and Pritchard took time off from Williams and became members of the class of 2008. Pritchard has since left the College. It is not clear if he will return.
 

Revision as of 01:50, March 16, 2006

An email sent by Nate Winstanley '04 on behalf of the Queer Student Union (QSU) to all-campus to publicize the fall 2003 Queer Bash drew vehemently disapproving emails from two first-year students, Jon Pritchard '07 and Brandon Lucien '07. When Winstanley, feeling threatened by the emails he'd received, made them and their senders public by forwarding it to various listsevers and adinistration officials, the exchange became a subject of widespread campus attention and debate, and the cause for a disciplinary investigation.

The email exchange transpired between October 10th and 14th 2003. Full ramifications of the event included prolonged debate within College Council , of which Winstanley was a member; a widely publicized special QSU meeting to discuss the events, at which Pritchard and Lucien's Junior Advisors were present; and the two first-years' decision to withdraw from the College for a year, perhaps part-induced by pressure from the disciplinary investigation and proceedings against them.

See also: