To the administration and board of trustees at Florida Southern College:

My name is Maddox, and I’m a senior here at Florida Southern. I’m a psychology major, involved in the Honors program, and proud to be an Alpha Chi Omega sweetheart. In addition to this, I’m openly transgender: I’ve been out since late high school and have been vocal about my identity and LGBTQ+ advocacy throughout my college career.

In collaboration with Florida Southern College Democrats and Florida Southern College Republicans, and with the support of the signers below, we ask you to update your current policies regarding hate speech and to take action to protect all students from hateful speech and rhetoric on campus.

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, a “student organization” (unapproved by SGA but approved by CSI) was tabling at a popular on-campus location and used that space to harass students and promote hate speech. More specifically, they targeted the transgender community on campus. They held up signs asking, “what is a woman?”, and refused to take any answer but their own. They shouted expletives at passersby, got in people’s faces, and disrupted the other organizations that were tabling to interrogate them on what they call “the transgender ideology”. They spoke of “disagreeing with transgenderism”, referring to transgender people as “delusional”, “abnormal”, and “mentally ill”. They tabled, uninterrupted, for roughly 2 hours before they decided they were done harassing others. After their physical tabling was done, though, FSC students aligned with that “organization” took to social media platforms such as YikYak to further harass transgender students on campus, accusing them of “mutilating children”, stating that their identities “defy reality”, and being blatantly disrespectful and hateful. Commenters also encouraged transgender individuals to “join the statistic”, referring to the transgender suicide rate. This is not the first incidence of transphobia or general hate speech shown on our campus. Another instance was reported to the Title IX office last semester when transphobic hate speech spiked on social media after my induction to Alpha Chi Omega as a sorority sweetheart.

Aside from these instances of transphobia, students have reported other experiences with hate speech and the use of slurs regarding their sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. A few examples include:

Ignoring hateful speech sets a precedent for the student body that bigotry and disrespecting people’s identities will be tolerated. It shows students that they can simply say whatever they want, regardless of who it harms, and face no repercussions.

The administration and board of trustees at Florida Southern College have repetitively, when faced with reports of transphobia, queerphobia, racism, and other kinds of discrimination, ignored the complaints of students and allowed harassers and bullies to escape the consequences of their actions. With the support of those who endorse and sign this letter, we ask you as an administration to do the following five things:

Affirming the identities and experiences of LGBTQ+ students isn’t a political statement, it’s an endorsement of basic human rights. Protecting students from hate speech isn’t a political statement, either; all students deserve to feel safe on their own college campus. Florida Southern’s advertised commitment to diversity and integrity should ensure that students from diverse backgrounds are allowed the same path to success as any other student on campus, and should be protected from harassment and hatred accordingly.