One of the defendants accused of cyberbullying American University’s first black female student body president has settled a lawsuit by agreeing to apologize, renounce white supremacy, and undergo “anti-hate training.”
Former American University student Taylor Dumpson filed a civil suit against Andrew Anglin, founder of neo-Nazi publication, the Daily Stormer, and two “internet trolls” for cyberbullying her. On Tuesday, one of those alleged trolls settled.
The defendant, Oregon-based Evan McCarty, agreed to undergo “anti-hate training,” publicly denounce white supremacy, perform 200 hours of community service at racial justice organizations, and write and say in a video conference a “sincere and thorough personal apology” to Dumpson.
McCarty’s court-mandated year of training and therapy will tackle issues of anti-hate, anti-racism, and anti-sexism with a licensed counselor. His apology, due within 90 days, requires that he recognize how his trolling caused emotional and physical harm, and renounce white supremacy, white nationalism, sexism, and other forms of hate and bigotry.
Dumpson filed the civil lawsuit in April of this year, claiming that Anglin directed his followers to “troll storm” her by harassing her via social media shortly after the university began investigating a racist incident directed at her. In a post on the Daily Stormer, Anglin included her name and photo and shared links to her Facebook page and AU’s Student Government Twitter page. This prompted McCarty and the other defendant, Brian Ade, to “target, intimidate, threaten, and harass” Dumpson, according to the lawsuit. Ultimately, because of attacks on social media, law enforcement was dispatched to protect Dumpson, who said in her lawsuit that the ordeal has led to post traumatic stress disorder. Neither Anglin nor Ade are a part of this settlement.
McCarty was known on Twitter as Byron de la Vandal, a reference to Byron De La Beckwith, who assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963 and is a member of Vanguard America, a white supremacist group, according to court documents. Some of the tweets McCarty sent to Dumpson includes a photo of bananas captioned, “READY THE TROOPS,” and another tweet tagged Dumpson and wrote “OOGA BOOGA.” He replied to another tweet a with a picture of a banana and the caption, “Hey, would you like one?”, per the lawsuit.
The Daily Stormer post was published in May 2017, shortly after Dumpson’s first day as AU’s first Black female elected as student government president. At the start of her first day in office, bananas were hung on campus marked with “AKA,” an acronym of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a predominately Black sorority where Dumpson is a member. Following that, the university held a town hall and student protests ensued calling for reparations. In May 2018, University President Sylvia Burwell said “all credible leads have been exhausted” in the hate crime investigation.
Racist incidents like this aren’t a first for the campus. In September 2016, black female students reported two different incidents involving rotten bananas either thrown or placed in front of their dorm room. In September 2017, stems of cotton and posters of Confederate flags were found at the university.
