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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Statistics survey results in over 100,000 emails sent to 800 students

It started out harmless. But, soon the thing mutated and grew like an infectious disease, spreading to more and more students. Patient zero had no idea what virus he had released to the entire student body.

Senior Dylan Skov sent an email to around 800 students with a sports survey for a partner project in his statistics class. Skov said he forgot to use the bcc feature, so students could see the student names on the email list. A few students answered the survey earnestly, but once people realized they could send emails to around 800 individuals, they sent emails using the reply-all feature to the entire list. 

“My questions were about sports and instead of sending them to the certain group of emails that [statistics teacher Doyle] O’Regan assigned to us, I sent it to everyone in the list that he gave us thinking it would be quicker and I would get more responses,” Skov said. “I did not think at all it would lead to anything that it did lead to.”

Around three or four email chains spawned off the original chain sent, principal Adam Littlefield said. Students sent slightly over 100,000 emails overall. 

“While I realize that I shouldn’t have been sending it to 800 people, it really was for an academic purpose initially,” Skov said. “[When] people started responding in non-academic ways, that’s when it got out of hand.”

Members of the email chain sent non-educationally related content such as memes, entire scripts to movies like “Spaceballs” and “Star Wars,” and spoilers to movies like “Infinity War.” Another email contained the “Communist Manifesto,” Littlefield said. 

 “People started sending memes, and it kind of just started a downward spiral,” said junior Aaron Moy, who sent a “Game of Thrones” spoiler.

The emails with copy pasted content were sent by the same five or so people, mostly underclassmen, Moy said. 

“I think the emails sent in the first half were good natured humor, people just wanting to joke around and have a good time,” Moy said.

Certain students in the email chain threatened to contact the administration after multiple long emails were sent out, Littlefield said. 

Administration became aware of the emails on the evening of April 30 after a teacher reported that an email was sent containing a meme with anti-semitic themes, Littlefield said in an email sent to students, families, and staff. 

“Specifically, the content of [the] meme used common Nazi propaganda themes which linked Jews to the social and economic ills of post-WW1 Germany,” Littlefield said in the email.

After conducting an initial investigation involving student interviews and a review of the email threads, the administration determined most of the emails contained innocuous but non-educational content, and only the one email was offensive, Littlefield said in the email.

“The content and inappropriate uses of technology are of issue,” Littlefield said in the email. “Students involved will receive appropriate disciplinary action relative to their actions.” 

Littlefield said that the administration will continue to examine all of the emails sent and talk to students involved in the situation, who both sent offensive content and emails telling people to stop. 

“We are still in the process of doing an investigation to see what other elements we’ve missed so far,” Littlefield said. “[We are] also looking at what the words and what  the picture represent.”

According to the acceptable use policy for technology, PHS email accounts are meant to be a communication resource for students and teachers, which is not how they were used in this situation, Littlefield said.

“When [technology] is not used appropriately then we have to work with students to help them make better choices,” Littlefield said.

Freshman Michael Eifert said that the main email chain got taken down and cannot be viewed anymore, but the other sub-email chains with similar recipient lists are still up.

Littlefield said that director of instructional technology Stephanie Griffin has been in the process of taking down all of the emails since the first week that the administration became aware of the emails. 

Moy said that he stopped checking the emails after a while, and he thinks other people did the same. 

“Once people started sending obnoxious content and even that anti-semitic meme, it alluded to a certain toxicity that lurks around on the internet when offensive content goes unfiltered and unchecked,” Moy said.

Littlefield said that the administration is working to understand what exactly caused this event to occur, so they can prevent it from taking place in future years.

“I have had a chance to meet with [the statistics teacher] to better understand what happened during that assignment and what we can do to avoid that from taking place in the future,” Littlefield said.

Skov said that O’Regan made Skov and his partner redo the project because the large amount of people he sent the email to led to bias in their responses, and because the teacher got into some trouble. Skov said he re-sent the email to around 50 students, which is the appropriate amount instead of 800. 

Because the person who sent the meme has not been involved in anti-semitic events that occurred in past years at PHS, Littlefield said that he does not think the events are connected. 

Since those events last year, the school has held multiple assemblies and workshops to educate students about equality or equity, diversity, tolerance, and social justice, Littlefield said. 

“This type of behavior is unacceptable to me, and I feel as the school principal, I need to continue to work with students and our community to again make it a safe place for students,” Littlefield said. “We have done a lot of work this year in that area [with] assemblies, and committees and programs, and we still need to continue to work on that.”

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