The Wrong Response: Facebook Rants Fan Flames

On the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 27, I woke up to frantic texts from friends asking if I’d seen the most recent installment of The Boston Globe’s spotlight on Exeter’s sexual abuse scandals. Still half asleep, I clicked the link and watched the video of Cecilia Morgan sharing her account of the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of dorm parent and advisor Rick Schubart. I suddenly found myself alert, nauseated and confused.

I was shocked to learn further details of Exeter’s checkered history, especially the allegation that members of administrations past had stooped so low as to pay settlements to rape victims in return for their silence, in order to keep the victims from tarnishing the school’s reputation.

In The Boston Globe’s portrayal, I did not recognize the Exeter I have grown to love. I did not recognize the Exeter I have come to call home. This was not my Exeter. And yet, as I scrolled through the rest of the article, I began to realize how many issues persist in our school that still have yet to be resolved.

We need more organized, sensible and sensitive responses to sexual misconduct. We need more frequent and widespread dialogue about power dynamics, about consent, about what a rape culture really is and about what steps we can take to curtail it. Our teachers need training, and we, the students, need guidance.

The reality is, we have a long way to go.

Here is where the waters get murky. How are we as students to voice our concerns without creating more problems along the way? What concrete actions can we take to effect change, even if the road ahead is long?

I don’t pretend to know how to fix these problems, but I do know how we can avoid making a bad situation worse.

As that fateful Tuesday ran its course, I began to receive more and more texts from friends. Soon, my phone was clogged with a slew of screenshots of posts from current students and alumni who had taken to Facebook to voice their opinions. These Facebook posts all shared one thing in common — hate-driven speech. Each was laden with expletives and included language too crude to repeat in this article.

Some of the posters did in fact present valid arguments: for example, one student from last year’s senior class highlighted the hypocrisy of a school preaching “Non Sibi” while simultaneously silencing students, allegedly, in an effort to escape potential PR crises. However, the way he articulated this point was hardly selfless — instead of providing a constructive solution, he intermittently clouded his expressions of discontent with f-bombs and concluded the post with “I’m glad it’s backfired on them.” The same student, like many of his counterparts online, viewed the release of The Boston Globe  article as an impetus to criticize the deans and went so far as to frame one of his denunciations in terms of one dean’s weight.

Body image! Is this really how we intend to remedy our school’s shortcomings, by slamming the deans on the basis of looks and personality traits?

The nasty character of his commentary undercut what initially seemed like a sound argument. Angry posts to Facebook, especially those with the intent of villainizing the deans, do not accomplish anything. Holding individuals accountable for their actions is imperative.

However, taking to social media to continually lambaste the deans with ad hominem attacks serves only to polarize and poison student relationships with the administration.

We don’t need animosity. We should be trying to extend the lines of communication, not sever them entirely.

If Exeter students or alumni want to make PEA a safer space for generations of students to come, they should openly and civilly address the community as a whole by spelling out clear concerns and by proposing viable plans of action.

Alternatively, they may choose to engage the deans privately, rather than broadcast low blows from atop a social media high-castle. No matter what the approach, the online vitriol must stop.