Anonymous Email Account Sparks Conversation

“Who are you? What is this about? Why are you doing this?”These were the questions included in Reverend Robert Thompson’s reply to a message sent by jphillips@gmail.com, an anonymous email account that requested some faculty of color and their allies to take a survey and submit complaints about the Academy administration. The message first appeared in inboxes of several faculty members about a month ago.“I wrote this person or people a reply because I couldn’t understand who it was. I kept thinking, ‘This is just weird. If this is real, I’ll get something back, but if not, this is just something weird,’” Thompson said. “I never heard anything back from them.”While the account has been deleted since the messages appeared, Academy community members responded to the account’s anonymity, its survey and its short-lived presence with skepticism and questions.

“Openness and speaking your mind freely is important, but I think people should not get used to hiding, regardless of the consequences of voicing your opinions or thoughts.”

“Because of the anonymous nature of the survey, it’s difficult to give it any credence,” Dean of Multicultural Affairs Rosanna Salcedo, who was among the recipients of the message, said. “My sense is that it wanted to gauge faculty of color contentment at PEA.”All recipients of the message, including Thompson and Salcedo, declined to share the content of the survey or the email with The Exonian; however, Salcedo said that while determining the message’s purpose with absolute certainty is impossible, the questions on the survey suggest that, “the authors of the survey perceive that faculty retention at PEA has been a problem.”Thompson said that the content seems unimportant to him because he “can’t help but assume that this person [or people] had a dishonest intent.”“Otherwise, why wouldn’t they have acknowledged who they are or answered my questions?”Senior Nicolas Coleman, who revealed himself as the original “admin” of the anonymous Facebook page “Exeter Confesses,” agreed with Thompson and said that the account creator’s focus on faculty of color and their “allies” suggests a perhaps impure, biased purpose.“I don’t like the idea that only teachers of color and their ‘allies’ were contacted. In order to have any productive discussion, all viewpoints should be heard. Reaching out to faculty members from a narrow perspective does not seem like a push for dialogue,” Coleman said. “The creator of this account seems to have a specific agenda, rather than a desire for honest discourse.”Along with the purpose of the message, faculty and students were intrigued and frustrated by the identity of the account’s creators.“The fact that you’re hiding under this cloak of invisibility is kind of mysterious. I would just like to know where these words are going, who’s seeking this opinion,” senior Michaella Henry said. “Anonymous polls keep the respondents unidentified, the person who runs a poll shouldn’t be.”“I personally think this is a student,” senior Julie Chung said. “If the faculty wanted to gauge the anonymous complaints of faculty of color about the administration, then I really think they would have contacted the people in the Office of Multicultural Affairs and set up an official, anonymous survey.”She added, “I’m not exactly sure why students would have set this account up, but by looking through the Exeter Confessions page, it seems obvious that a lot of the Exeter community is interested in moving beyond this sort of ‘self-censorship’ atmosphere the Academy has and delving into what people actually think on campus.”Coleman denied the page’s involvement in the account’s message or survey.“I have not heard of [the account], but it’s not related to Exeter Confesses or any of the Exeter Confesses accounts,” Coleman said.In the email, first person plural was used. Thompson noted that phrases such as “We would like” were repeated throughout the message “as if there were a sanctioned body.” “It may have been someone who is really trying to get information [on faculty of color]. I guess it’s possible that students were behind this,” Thompson said. “If so, it was kind of a poor effort.”Regardless of the content of the message or the identity of the account’s creator, many emphasized the harms in anonymous discourse.“If we get used to hiding behind the anonymity, then we’re never allowed to remove the masks that need be removed—that are necessary to be removed for us to cultivate our humanity,” English instructor Willie Perdomo said.Dean of Residential Life A.J. Cosgrove agreed. “[The anonymous forums] could provide a positive discussion thread and they could provide a safe space where people can talk about issues they consider important. However, when people are speaking anonymously, they can’t be called on what they’re saying. Therefore, there’s potential for harm, because people can speak freely on whatever they want to speak about—because they could potentially speak about things that are confidential and inappropriate.”“Openness and speaking your mind freely is important, but I think people should not get used to hiding, regardless of the consequences of voicing your opinions or thoughts,” Gilbert said. “We should be able to speak our minds without being anonymous, because that’s how real life and real relationships work.”