An alleged reply from the individual who threw the "Wizard" out.
Quote:
Hello all. This is Adam Smith, and I would like to add this:
I do not know the individual that I kicked out of the party. If I knew his name I would have already sent him a sincere and personal apology for the incident that occurred.
I am in NO WAY at all a homophobic person. I have many friends at Emory who will vouch for me as a friendly guy and a genuinely great person.
This article paints me in an unfairly negative way. It was originally written and published without my input at all, using accounts by the Wizard and his friend(s) only. I was told earlier tonight that an article had just been posted about me online. I shockingly read it in its entirety, including that "Smith was attempted to be reached for comment but did not respond." For the record, I received zero emails, calls/texts, Facebook messages...I am sure if anyone on the Emory Wheel staff put in any sort of honest effort to contact me they easily could have. I tracked down the editor of the Wheel's cell phone number and called him at 2am this morning, asking how this could have happened. He talked with me briefly, wrote down a few comments, and then informed me that the hard copy of the Wheel had already been printed but agreed to add in what I had to say in the online version.
If Emory wants to bring the issue to light that the student body and/or Greek system is unfriendly toward the LGBT community, and that "instances of violence [against LGBT] have been less visible on Emory’s campus", I think this is a cheap, irresponsible, and unfair way to go about doing it. To take this hazy, isolated incident, blow it out of proportion, and turn me into a scapegoat and slander my name is ridiculous. I think it is unprofessional reporting and would hope for some sort of apology from the Emory Wheel.
Further there was not any "approving reaction" from the crowd at the party for me putting this kid in a headlock and throwing him out, nor was I walking around bragging to other people that I just kicked "this faggot kid" out of the party, high five bro...Really?? This whole dumb event occurred because I was drunk and thought it would be funny to throw someone out to the wrath of the huge security guard at the door, and the most ridiculous person that naturally stood out to me was this Wizard dressed kid. I purposely egged him on a little bit, he snapped back at me, and I threw him out.
So chalk this up as me being a drunk asshole, a frat guy with too much testosterone, or whatever you want to call me I really don't care. I just want everyone to know that that's literally all it was, that's the honest truth. I'm not some ignorant bigot looking to bash homosexuals, so please don't think that. I hope the Wheel in the future will find better content to publish, rather than turning something small like this into an inflated and untruthful story in order to spark artificial controversy at the cost of an individual like me.
Thanks,
Adam
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This is a really good example as to why guest lists are a good idea. Because they had an open party and no guest list, this organization is now facing some pretty serious allegations regarding a now admitted "drunk asshole" picking some kid to toss out of a party. And naturally, there are two sets of facts, both from people who would clearly have strong motivation to lie.
Another lesson here is crisis communication. This chapter obviously doesn't have or know their crisis communication plan. In a case like this, the chapter president, or maybe even the chapter's legal counsel needs to be the sole point of contact for the media. The member in question definitely doesn't need to be posting his recollection of the events in the comments section of the newspaper's website. Mr. Smith and Sigma Nu are now married to the admission that Smith was a "drunk asshole" who was looking to pick someone different looking out of the crowd and toss him out just for the hell of it.
I doubt anyone is getting sued or going to jail, but Smith's brothers probably aren't going to be very happy with them since they're probably going to have to spend several hours in some sort of ridiculous diversity workshop to pay for their brother's drunken assholery which took probably all of 30 seconds to complete.
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