Dear Editor,
You recent coverage of the University of South Carolina’s mental health hysteria is, to say the least, understated. In examining the patronizing paternalistic (over) reaction of administrators, I urge you to consider, (and examine and publicize) what happens to a student who publicly criticizes USC’s intrusive mental health “best practices” and the administrators who enforce it.
What your articles fail to mention (and must mention) is the USC “Behavioral Intervention Team” – an Orwellian apparatus used to file anonymous online complaints about innocent students who someone finds “concerning” or “offending.”
Students, faculty and staff are encouraged – even mandated – to report any students that they find might be “showing signs” of being “depressed” or who they think is acting “unusual.”
Imagine being reported, investigated, and sanctioned as a result of one of these anonymous complaints, never being informed who accused you or even what you were accused of?
Because you had not violated any rules in the Student Code of Conduct, yet USC administrators themselves were offended by your criticism and wanted to silence you, imagine being sanctioned with mandated psychological treatment and even mandated, but unwarranted, psychiatric drugs.
Now, imagine an innocent student who publicly criticized the Behavioral Intervention Team, it’s Stasi/Gestapo nature and the administrators behind it. Imagine those admins vindictively labeling that student as not only mentally ill, dangerously mentally ill?
This is not an imaginary nightmare. This is a nightmare reality of which I myself am a victim.
Current federal lawsuit against the USC Behavioral Intervention Team and the admins who operate it, CLICK HERE. To read the memorandum in support of a motion for summary judgment, CLICK HERE. To read the motion for summary judgment, CLICK HERE.
If this can happen to me, it can happen to any USC student. Not only is freedom of speech at risk at USC, but the very right to free thought is under assault.
I have volumes of documents and even recorded conversations to validate each and every claim or statement made in this letter.
Thanks for taking the time to read and I urge you, FITSNews, to highlight the dangers posed to USC students who choose to voice their unpopular opinions and expose the hypocrisy of USC’s actions in light of their “stigma free” mental health promotions.
Sincerely,
Sammi Addahoumi
Owner, Operator – Sammi’s Deli 5 Points
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SIC SEZ …
Sammi: Thank you for sharing your story. And please keep me in the loop as your case advances. Without addressing the particulars of what you allege (that’s a lot to digest), we are indeed approaching a dangerous point in our civil discourse when ostensible “tolerance” for all ideas is being replaced my mandated “groupthink.” That is the definition of intolerance, and one reason this news site will continue to speak out against such institutional hypocrisy.
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