MTU sued: Schultz & Grainger Respond

In a recent lawsuit filed against Michigan Technological University and 11 key administrators, Matthew Schultz is claiming that he was wrongfully expelled and deprived of his Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and due process.

On Nov. 12, 2015 Schultz made a post on the anonymous social media site Yik Yak that read: “Gonna shoot all black people…. A smile tomorrow,” with a “cheesy” emoji. According to the litigation, this post was meant to point out the ridiculous nature of the racial threats that hate groups were posting on Yik Yak at the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus. For example, one of these threats read “I’m going to stand my ground tomorrow and shoot every black person I see.” Mizzou campus officials didn’t take these threats seriously, saying that “in an actual emergency, @MUalert and alert systems would be activated immediately. Please don’t spread rumors.” Amid the student protests against his handling of the racial threats, Mizzou president Tim Wolfe resigned.

Schultz’s Yak was only posted for approximately five minutes before it was flagged and removed by another user. Former MTU student Ryan Grainger, who the litigation claims operated the Twitter account Nunya Bizness, sent a Tweet with a complete screenshot of the post to MTU Vice President Les Cook. This was accompanied with the text: “@LesPCook this is what your students think about the Mizzou terror threats.” Ten minutes later, Grainger sent an email with an altered version of the Yak to Brian Cadwell, the Deputy Chief of Police for MTU Department of Public Safety and Police Services. The altered Yak read: “Gonna shoot all black people…” The phrase “A smile tomorrow” and the “cheesy” emoji were absent. Within 20 minutes of sending the email to Deputy Cadwell, Nunya Bizness tweeted the altered Yak to both Cook and Michigan Tech’s Twitter account with the text: “@ LesPCook your students behave like this. Given what #Mizzou went through how will the school respond?”

Grainger stated that he did not edit Shultz’s original Yak. He and a friend shared the account Nunya Bizness, “My friend and I ran the Twitter account out of my room in my apartment. We took turns using my various devices, in person in my apartment, to post tweets,” he explained. Grainger thought that the edited screenshot was a legitimate terror threat and reported it to public safety. “All I did was report a threat I had reason to believe was credible,” he said. Grainger requested that we not mention his friend’s name due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his passing earlier this year.

MTU DPSPS Reid DeVoge issued a campus-wide alert at 2:54 p.m. that same day. The alert said that a “threat was directed at members of our African- American community.” Within minutes Deputy Cadwell sent Yik Yak an email with an attachment of the altered post asking for help in identifying the author. The litigation suggests that Cadwell sent the full, unaltered post after Yik Yak responded asking for a complete screenshot. Yik Yak later denied DeVoge’s request saying, “Yik Yak does not have a sufficient basis to form a good faith belief that the posts in question constitute ‘an emergency involving the danger of death or serious physical injury…”.

Despite this, DeVoge proceeded to obtain a search warrant forcing Yik Yak to produce the location and contact information for Schultz. According to DeVoge’s original police report, Schultz was contacted via his iPhone under the false pretense that his vehicle was involved in a minor accident and that he needed to come to the scene. He was promptly arrested by MTU DPSPS on the felony charge of domestic terror; a charge that calls for a 20-year prison sentence. DeVoge’s report said that Schultz realized making the post had been a mistake, “and that is why he had it taken down so fast.” However, DeVoge did not inform Schultz that his post had been altered.

Meanwhile, on Nov. 13, 2015, MTU’s Associate VP for Enrollment and Communication, John Lehman, was recorded on ABCTV10 news stating that “The anonymous poster said they wanted to shoot all black people…”. This precipitated widespread media coverage of the “threat” that neglected to mention “A smile tomorrow” or the “cheesy” emoji. Regrettably, the Michigan Tech Lode was party to the misrepresentation of the facts.

MTU DPSPS seized Schultz’s computer and searched his apartment but found no evidence of any crime or legitimate threat. By Nov. 16, the Houghton County Prosecutor revealed that there had been “some apparent miscommunication between myself and Michigan Tech” and proceeded to dismiss the charges. Before the charges were dismissed, however, MTU officials including Cook, helped organize a peace march to “protest the lack of stringent charges pursued by the Houghton County Prosecuting Attorney.”

In a letter to the Lode, Schultz said, “I didn’t understand why MTU and the media were trying so hard to make me out to be something I was not.” Moreover, he explained that he received the email from Cook and he saw the Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Bonnie Gorman, on social media encouraging students to attend the peace march. “I read the article showing President Mroz holding hands with protesters around the Husky statue. The altered post was used in this article, and every other article I’ve seen.”

According to the litigation, MTU only admitted that there were two versions of the Yik Yak after MTU student Brent Halonen issued a Freedom of Information Act Request on Feb. 15, 2016, for the police report submitted by Officer DeVoge. This police report was different from the one that was originally provided to Matthew’s attorney in November. Unlike the original report, this “altered” report recognized that there had been two separate Yik Yak posts. Unfortunately, Schultz was not aware of the altered post during his disciplinary hearing on Dec. 7, 2015, which found him responsible for violations of MTU policies concerning “Disruptive Behavior” and “Services,” which gave him 18 months probation, this despite the fact that the Houghton County Prosecutor had dismissed all charges earlier that same day. Schultz appealed this decision on Dec. 22 but Gorman increased the penalty from probation to expulsion, without the right to appeal. The litigation claims that this is a violation of Shultz’s right to due process.

In his letter to the Lode, Schultz said that his life has changed dramatically since his expulsion. “My family and I have suffered emotionally and financially. What I can do now is work hard so that this experience doesn’t define me. I want to get my education back and become a mechanical engineer. I miss the Formula Team and everything we were accomplishing.” He also reflected on his Yik Yak post. “I was a bit naive when I reacted to posts about racism. I did not expect that my post would be altered and taken out of context, but what I did expect was honesty and transparency from those in a position to provide facts to students and the public.” He went on to say that he didn’t disagree with MTU’s decision to post the campus-wide alert, but he does disagree with the decision of campus administrators to conceal relevant information about the altered Yak. “I asked for the truth and told the truth from the beginning. I expected integrity and honesty from campus police and administrators […]. If the administration expects accountability, they must also be held accountable.”

Parties to this lawsuit include Michigan Technological University, Ryan Grainger, and in their individual and official capacities, Les. P. Cook, Bonnie Gorman, Brian Cadwell, Reid Devoge, John Lehman, Jennifer Donovan, Daniel Bennett, Ian Repp, Robert Bishop, Rhys Edwards, and Glen Mroz.

The MTU administration has stated that it will not comment while the case remains in litigation.