Emory University announced Thursday that the student who wrote, “I’ve reached the conclusion that for me to survive, I must stomp on niggers,” in a March 9 email to a professor was no longer associated with the university following a thorough review. The school declined to provide any details citing federal privacy guidelines.
“Emory will continue to provide heightened security for the remainder of the semester. These steps include additional security guards, increased police presence, mandatory building card access, and other measures,” the university said.
As the case unfolded, Black law students at one of the country’s top law schools say the administration did not do enough to protect them from a fellow student who they felt had threatened violence against them.
Students told Capital B Atlanta that they were not happy with how Emory had handled the matter by deciding not to inform them of the situation until the emails had began circulating amongst the student body earlier this month.
“It’s stressful, it’s distracting, and it’s taken me away from studying,” said one Black Emory University law student. Capital B Atlanta is withholding the student’s name to protect their anonymity. “We students are paying $70,000 a year to attend this institution and they won’t even give us a heads up about racism, and they won’t consult with us about how to best keep ourselves safe.”
At the center of the campus unrest in Atlanta was former first-year law student Milano Wayne, a self-described “yellow-to-white transracial” who told a professor in a series of emails sent in February and March reviewed by Capital B Atlanta, that he is fighting a culture war against “blacks, feminists and transgenders.”
In solidarity with Emory’s Black, women, and LGBTQ students, a group of Black attorneys and advocates held a press conference outside the law school Thursday afternoon led by local civil rights attorney Mawuli Davis.
At the press conference, Davis was joined by Gillian Crowl-Parrish, president of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys; Gwenette Westbrooks, president of the Georgia NAACP; former District 12 Atlanta City Councilman Derrick Boazman; civil rights attorney and former president of the Georgia NAACP Gerald Griggs; and local criminal defense attorney Tiffany Simmons.
“Emory would rather coddle [Wayne], give him an opportunity to finish classes online, than to make a declarative, strong statement that this is not the kind of behavior that Emory University – or any university for that matter – should tolerate,” Boazman said.
According to Kylie Doyle, a third-year Emory law student and the immediate past president of the Student Bar Association, Wayne hasn’t been on campus since mid-January when the law school went virtual for a week to investigate allegations that he threatened to carry out a mass shooting at the school.
“We had the option to do virtual classes, but the school gave professors discretion whether or not to count virtual classes,” Doyle said.
She said attendance credit is important for law school students because the American Bar Association, the body that accredits law schools, has strict requirements on in-person class time and how many absences a student can have to get credit for a class.
In a statement to the Emory community last weekend, the school confirmed that an investigation determined there was no immediate physical threat to the Emory community.
“The person’s recent emails and social media posts were inappropriate and unacceptable, and we shared this information with our law enforcement partners.”
A DeKalb County Police Department representative could not find any open or closed investigations under the name Milano Wayne. Wayne did not respond to a request for comment from Capital B Atlanta.
When the emails first began to circulate, the unnamed Emory student said that many Black students were shocked at Wayne’s repeated use of the N-word and his assertion that Black people are the main threat to his transracial identity.
“You go out and try to find a single nigger who hears about my Transracial identity and doesn’t immediately form a desire to hurt me. You won’t be able to. I guarantee you won’t. Not one single nigger,” Wayne wrote in an email dated March 9.
In response, Emory’s Black Law Students Association, the Student Bar Association, the Emory chapter of the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers and Emory OUTLaw, the LGBTQ+ student association, penned an open letter to law school dean Richard Freer demanding a meeting with administrators and a community safety plan.
They also wanted a letter from the administration acknowledging the harm Wayne’s conduct has caused and to establish resources for students who are directly impacted by his behaviour. Should something like this happen in the future, they want Emory to commit to direct and timely communication with student organizations.
Two law students confirmed to Capital B Atlanta that there was a meeting between Emory administrators and student leaders on April 17 where they confirmed Wayne was still enrolled at the time but was banned from campus and official off-campus events. According to both, the students who were at the meeting were told Emory could not comment on the situation.
Multiple students that Capital B Atlanta reached out to declined to comment, citing fear of retribution from the school.
“The generations before you are with you and will continue to support you in whatever capacity you want us to,” Griggs, who is also an Emory alum, said to students on Thursday. “Never be afraid to call out injustice, never be afraid to call out hate.”
One student speculated that Emory was most concerned about not drawing the ire of the Trump administration or getting sued by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). In a statement to Capital B Atlanta, FIRE confirmed that earlier this year the organization had urged Emory to inform Wayne of the specific allegations against him when he was placed on an emergency suspension.
“Our involvement was, and remains, only as a third party advocate for student speech and due process rights on campus,” a FIRE spokesperson said.
Last month, Wayne posted a letter from Emory’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance on social media notifying him that the school had initiated a review process to determine if he had broken Equal Opportunity and Discriminatory Harassment Policy 1.3. The policy prohibits discriminatory conduct on the basis of protected class characteristics.
On LinkedIn, a profile with the name Milano Wayne has a number of posts describing trans-white identity. There are posts accusing feminists of waging a war on men by making false allegations of rape and sexual assault and a post stating he aspires to become a defense attorney for men accused of rape.
Doyle, whose term as student bar president ended at the start of April, said she had been receiving complaints about Wayne since early in the fall semester from other students claiming that he was making “weird comments” to classmates and slamming doors when he arrived late or left early from classes.
The situation did not escalate however, until near the end of the fall semester when she said a few first-year students came to her alleging Wayne was looking at pro-Nazi imagery on his laptop during class.
“They said it looked like a Nazi 4chan page,” Doyle said. “I raised that to administrators but I don’t know if literally anything came from it.”
When Emory tightened safety measures this semester in response to student concerns, by requiring card access to enter the building and increasing security officers in and around the law school, Doyle said the initial implementation was poor.
“There were some times that there’d be no security at the doors at all, or the card access wouldn’t work, or it wouldn’t require card access,” she said. It was so bad, Doyle said, that the student bar association sent a statement and demand letter to have administration rectify the issues.
For some Black students, the increased security brought a set of new worries.
“The school’s response has been more security, which includes armed police officers. And we know that over policing disproportionately impacts black students,” the student who spoke on condition of anonymity said. They also said that Black students are really concerned about what they see as a lack of transparency and communication from Emory regarding the threats.
The decision to increase police presence at the law school, in the student’s opinion, demonstrates that Black students were not consulted as Emory figured out how to address the situation.
“The university had these emails for over a month, and they never reached out to the leadership of the Black Law Students Association, they never reached out to the leadership of the women law students association, and they never reached out to the leadership of the school’s LGBTQ law student association, and they were just sitting on these emails, hoping we wouldn’t find out,” the student said.
Following a WSB News report on the threats last week, Emory released a statement Sunday confirming that the school was following internal processes concerning conduct and harassment and that they were unable to disclose where the process currently stands.
“We condemn the vile and hateful language used by the individual in the emails and social media posts,” the statement said. “Any behavior that hinges on stereotypes, or that suggests any students are undeserving or less valuable to our community because of their physical characteristics, abilities, belief systems, personal identities, or racial or ethnic backgrounds is indefensible.
“We value and respect legitimate differences of opinion but blatant threats to the safety and well-being of others are abhorrent and will be addressed seriously. We remain committed to making Emory a place where everyone feels supported and valued so that all our students can succeed,” the school said in the statement.
“After it hit the news, that’s when they finally address the racism and the misogyny in his comments,” Doyle said.
The Emory student said they believe there was enough evidence to expel this student from Emory weeks ago. The law school’s student bulletin states that the university reserves the right “to involuntarily withdraw individuals for reasons of academic dismissal, moral turpitude or medical reasons.”
“Y’all need to stand up for your Black students, for your women students and for your LGBTQ students,” the student said. “In the law, we’re taught that you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. Stomping on N-words is way more than yelling fire in a crowded theater. I mean, that’s about as clearly violent and hateful as you can get.”
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