A friend and classmate of the student now known to the internet as “Trigglypuff” has filed complaints against the journalist who posted the original video of her friend misbehaving at Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos’ April 25 event at the University of Massachusetts.
The student in the video, now revealed to be Hampshire College student Cora Segal, became the center of widespread criticism for her childlike behavior during an event at the University of Massachusetts last week that featured Yiannopoulos, former philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers, and comedian Steven Crowder.
One copy of the video, which was shot by Campus Reform reporter and Mount Holyoke student Kassy Dillon, circulated around the internet and amassed 786,000 YouTube views in the 48 hours after its posting. Segal quickly earned the nickname “trigglypuff,” a word which trended on social media last week in the aftermath of the event.
Jennie Chenkin, a friend and classmate of Segal’s who also attended Yiannopoulos’ event, lambasted the student journalist who posted the original video online. In a complaint sent to administrators at Mount Holyoke College, Chenkin accused the student journalist of aiding in the “harassment, humiliation, cyberbullying” and “libel” of Segal. Chenkin provided a list of demands that included a request that Dillon be prohibited from writing or publishing for Campus Reform or any Mount Holyoke-affiliated student publication.
In the complaint, Chenkin also demanded that Dillon issue a public apology to “to the person whose face she has now plastered all over the conservative web and who is now being bullied and shamed.”
The Dean of Students at Mount Holyoke College met with Dillon about the complaint and informed her that the college would “not be pursuing judicial action” because the school’s “disciplinary process does not provide for the adjudication of complaints of this nature, made by non-students for events taking place off campus.”
The entire email is below:
My name is Jennie Chenkin. I am a junior at Hampshire College majoring in political theory and conflict resolution.
On Monday night, I attended the event “The triggering” at UMass with several friends in protest of the event. Within five minutes of sitting down, a woman who identified herself as a journalist with Campus Reform came over to my friend Cora Segal (who has been cc’ed on this email) and I and asked if she could interview us about our protest. We denied her request for an interview and did not consent to be filmed, to be quoted, or to have images of us published and shared on the internet — we learned yesterday that the journalist took it upon herself to secretly record video of us and post it on the internet accompanied by harassing and humiliating comments. The journalist’s name is Kassy Dillon and she is a Mount Holyoke sophomore.
Yesterday, a video was published on youtube and on Campus Reform of my friend yelling at the panelists. Kassy Dillon, via Campus Reform and twitter, has taken responsibility for filming and distributing this video without the consent of the individual who is pictured in it (see attached images). The video has received hundreds of thousands of views, has been shared by the panelists themselves, and has been featured on the front page of Campusreform.org. The video and accompanying article are harassing, humiliating, and libelous in nature and the bullying is continuing to get worse the more it’s shared. Again, I stress we denied her request for an interview, did not speak with her beyond denying the interview, did not know we were being filmed, and certainly did not fill out any paperwork declaring any form of consent to be filmed or to have that film published.
I demand that disciplinary action be taken against Kassy Dillon, who has decided that cyberbullying and libel are okay and are more important than journalistic integrity and human decency. I demand that Kassy Dillon be made to remove the humiliating youtube video and Campus Reform article from the web. I demand that Kassy Dillon issue a public apology to the person whose face she has now plastered all over the conservative web and who is now being bullied and shamed. I would like a mediated meeting with Kassy Dillon to address concerns with her directly and discuss any issues that may become relevant. I demand that Kassy Dillon be prohibited from publishing anything further about the protests which took place at “The triggering”, the people who participated in the protests, and this complaint which has been issued against her. And lastly, on the basis of engaging in cyberbullying and libel, I request that Kassy Dillon be prohibited from writing or publishing for Campus Reform or any other Mount Holyoke-affiliated publication. I expect a response detailing what action will be taken against Kassy Dillon for her blatant disrespect of Five College community members. I will wait until 10 AM on Friday, April 29, and if I do not receive a response, I will take my complaint to to a person of higher power within the Mount Holyoke institution. I am already involved in a legal process through Hampshire to get my own name erased from a similarly harassing site following this “Triggering” event at UMass; please be advised that I am more than happy to direct the individual who Kassy Dillon has cyberbullied to the same offices I have gone through to pursue legal action against harassment and the republishing of information without consent. I sincerely hope my friend Cora won’t have to go through this cumbersome process, but that may be her only choice if Mount Holyoke does not condemn the recent atrocious behavior of Kassy Dillon.
While I understand and respect the right to free speech as protected by the United States Constitution and the free expression policies throughout the Five Colleges, the action taken by Kassy Dillon is harassment, humiliation, cyberbullying, libel, and demonstrates disregard for another human being who just happened to have opinions that were unpopular in that room. Again, I demand that Kassy Dillon be made to remove the humiliating youtube video and Campus Reform article from the web. I demand that Kassy Dillon issue a public apology to the person who she has chosen to harass and humiliate. I would like a mediated meeting with Kassy Dillon to address the harm she has caused and work through any other relevant outstanding issues. I demand that Kassy be prohibited from publishing anything further about “The Triggering”, the protests, the protestors who attended, and this complaint about her behavior. On the basis of engaging in cyberbullying and libel, I request that Kassy Dillon be prohibited from writing or publishing anything for Campus Reform or any other Mount Holyoke-affiliated publication in the future. And I will be escalating these demands if I do not receive a response by 10 AM on Friday morning. I take humiliation and intimidation of this caliber very seriously and I hope Mount Holyoke College does as well.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my concerns. I look forward to hearing from you.
Jennie Chenkin
On behalf of Cora Segal
Tom Ciccotta writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or on Facebook. You can email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com
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