Winston-Salem State University student cyberbullied by local radio DJ

The cyberbullying of a Winston-Salem State University student because of his sexual orientation has garnered national attention — and the university’s response has been criticized.

Aaron McCorkle, who is openly gay, was a candidate for Mr. WSSU when a local radio personality began tweeting comments about his sexuality.

102 Jamz DJ Brian “B-DAHT” McLaughlin issued a public apology on Twitter Wednesday.

“I want to apologize to Aaron McCorkle, his fam, & friends for the offensive tweets I posted. I was wrong. What I said was hurtful to him & his loved ones,” the tweets read.

McLaughlin tweeted that he reached out to McCorkle personally, and they agreed to meet.

McCorkle has since lost the Mr. WSSU election.

Sultan Shakir, director of Youth and Campus Engagement at the Human Rights Campaign, said the tweets were hurtful.

“They incited others to tweet homophobic comments about Aaron,” he said.

A former WSSU student had found the comments inappropriate and contacted the Human Rights Campaign for support.

Shakir said students being attacked can feel isolated — and he said WSSU is lacking support.

Aaron Singleton, spokesman at WSSU, said in an email that while the university has a policy against cyberbullying and harassment of any kind, it only applies to students, faculty and staff.

He said McLaughlin is a well-known figure in the area, and his Twitter followers include many students from the community and non-students.

“We can only address what we can manage or control — and that is our students and employees,” Singleton said.

He added that the office of Student Affairs at the university has reached out to McCorkle.

But Shakir said the university’s response — a statement and three tweets — is not encouraging.

“They’ve done really nothing to learn from this incident about how they can better support LGBT students on their campus,” he said.

Shakir said he would like for the HRC to help WSSU provide sensitivity training for students, faculty and staff and expand its non-discrimination policy to include gender identity and expression.

“Unless the university is willing to take concrete actions as opposed to just issuing statements or Tweets ... it falls on the students themselves to change the campus climate when they should really be focused on their education,” he said.

Lauren Scanlan, co-president of the Sexuality and Gender Alliance at UNC-CH, said cyberbullying is a prevalent issue in the LGBT community.

“With most cyberbullying, people believe it is easier to just get away with things on the internet,” she said.

“I think Winston-Salem State is really dropping the ball here.”

state@dailytarheel.com