(Part 2 of 3) I turned down the president of Students for Life for a debate — and then her student members came for me
College “pro-life journalist” engages in unethical & possibly illegal tactics to try to intimidate and silence me.
(Read Part 1 for back story if you haven’t already!)
Before I begin the second part to my “hot girl summer” of being stalked, cyber-harassed, and doxed by “pro-life activists,” I would like to remind everyone that on top of their cyber-harassing/-stalking, these people advocate for the removal of human rights. That is the baseline of every interaction here.
Access to abortion has been declared by human rights experts around the world as part of a fundamental right to bodily autonomy — and these people want to take that away, for embryos. (Read more here, and here, and here about the internationally declared human right of abortion.)
We are ALWAYS defending ourselves and our human rights.
Introducing Jacob Stewart, the “pro-life journalist”
So, after Selah Sark’s ridiculous temper tantrum about my Instagram posts didn’t work out for her, she cried to her buddy, Jacob Stewart, a fellow Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) student who calls himself an “investigative reporter” at a newly established right-wing, student-run newspaper associated with IUPUI called The Collegiate Commons.
Though when it comes to the right-wing in the United States, a spade is rarely a spade. The Collegiate Commons isn’t just some po-dunk student-led newspaper.
I found via their donations page (because of course) that The Collegiate Commons is part of a large conservative network of college media outlets called Collegiate Network, which “promotes conservatism” in the U.S. and is part of the educational organization Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), founded by right-winger libertarians Frank Chodorov and William F. Buckley Jr. — the latter of whom also founded The National Review. (Side note: Conservative aggrievement and weaponizing the law goes way back: Buckley once sued leftist writer Gore Vidal for calling him “racist, anti-black, anti-Semitic and a pro-crypto Nazi” and won a small settlement. I mean, doth the lady protest too much, or what?!)
Forced birther faux-aggrievement and inaccuracies weaponized in the guise of “Free Speech”
Before I dive into Jacob Stewart’s special brand of revenge porn, I should mention that as a self-proclaimed “pro-life journalist,” he doesn’t appear to have a great track record from what I’ve seen. For example, at a rally following the fall of Roe v Wade, there was a scuffle at the steps of Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis between abortion rights activists and those trying to remove human rights.
In an article titled, “The Perspective of a Pro-Life Journalist” in The Campus Citizen, this is how Stewart describes a BLM activist’s actions when she was doing crowd control at the rally — who you can see clearly in the photo right next to his description:
A headlock? I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty sure a headlock looks like this:
You know, locking the arms… around the HEAD. But “headlock” sounds so much more edgy and dangerous than a prolonged hug like this was, with the BLM protestor trying to control this spazzy anti-human rights chick running all over screaming and banging her drum in people’s faces. I’ve seen the video — seriously, it was nothing.
That said, I don’t condone what this BLM protestor did. And I don’t think we should ever lay hands on these professional victims at Students for Life of America (SFLA) just to become fodder for their faux-aggrievement and disinformation — oh, wait, look at that:
“Assault.” Right.
You will find many similar blogs on the SFLA website, always exaggerating something a repro rights protestor did and using it to incite outrage among their followers or to whine about their alleged lack of “free speech” for propaganda.
In fact, I just highlighted another such case in my previous story about repro rights activist Soren Monroe not too long ago. Check it out!
And here was a particularly heinous instance of SFLA-led incitement toward a Black female professor addressed in the publication Hyperallergenic, “Hundreds Sign Petition in Support of Artist Shellyne Rodriguez”:
Rodriguez was the target of a sustained harassment campaign for weeks after she confronted anti-choice activists tabling at Hunter College on May 2. A clip of the encounter showed the artist accusing members of Students for Life of America of misinformation and disheveling their table display, which included rubber fetus models and printed postcards. The clip was widely circulated on right-wing platforms and drew an onslaught of violent and hateful emails, text messages, and voicemails against the artist, including physical threats and racial and gender slurs.
Gosh. Does this tactic sound familiar?
OK, now back to the “pro-life journalist.”
I’m contacted by a troll account alleging to be a journalist
When right-wing Gen-Z kids feel suddenly powerless facing someone who for once isn’t telling them the sun shines out of their arseholes, they go low.
Like the cases I documented above, you can find numerous instances of how low they can go. I’m just one of many, as we have somehow entered a grand reprisal era of white supremacy, fascistic attacks on human rights and education, and heightening violence perpetrated by the Right in this country.
And when 19- and 20-something-year-old kids whose brains haven’t yet fully developed are inundated with hate from such upstanding role models as Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, and Charlie Kirk — what else can we expect?
One evening in early September, I logged into Instagram to the following message from what looked to me like a troll account — certainly not the optics of a professional journalist.
He’s ever-so-polite, like a well-trained abuser would be, yeah? But no mention of a publication or even a name. I asked ChatGPT4 about the legality of the obvious obfuscation:
There is no universal rule that requires a journalist to disclose the publication they work for when seeking a comment or conducting an interview. However, ethical journalism practices typically encourage transparency and honesty in interactions between journalists and their sources.
Many journalists introduce themselves and their publication at the beginning of an interview or request for a comment as a matter of courtesy and to establish credibility. This allows the interviewee to assess the legitimacy of the request and decide whether they want to participate.
It’s also worth noting that in some professional organizations and codes of ethics, such as those followed by members of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), transparency and accuracy in reporting are emphasized.
So, Stewart was a discourteous oaf with zero credibility who acted unethically. No surprise there.
After months of targeted harassment from him and his fellow professional victim crowd at SFLA and PAAU Now, I dismissed it as just more harassment.
The next day, when I received a note from his newly created LinkedIn account, I figured, again, it was just more targeted harassment from his crew, and I didn’t even look at his profile. I thought I would call his bluff: I hastily told him I didn’t know what he was referring to.
Which, of course, is exactly what he wanted. Keep in mind, I had an anonymous social media platform and was trying to keep it that way because of the previous restraining order on an anti-abortion stalker and trying to keep my advocacy separate from my personal and professional life.
I would soon find out that Stewart had stalked my social media accounts and scoured my follower lists to learn who I was, finding an unfortunate public comment I made on my Mom’s Facebook referring to this blog.
UPDATE (2024): Not Stewart, as it turns out. It was all Felipe Avila (you can read about him in the 3rd part of this series), who openly admitted to cyberstalking me with intent to dox me and get me fired from my job. The funny part is that this shows that they truly think they are in the majority, fully removed from the reality that they are social outcasts whom no one of integrity would ever take seriously).
We should all feel safe online and to make innocuous comments like these to our parents, of course. But what’s right and what’s real are two different things. If one of these right-wing Gen-Z participation trophy kids are butt-hurt enough, they will find you.
Whispers, rumors, and lies: let the smear campaign begin
Soon after, I was being tagged by Sark and others to make sure I knew Stewart’s hit piece had been published, doxing my identity and my current workplace (while mis-identifying me as a teacher), as well as my Mom and her small business — referring to her as a “fellow pro-choice activist,” thus potentially putting her and her business in harm’s way, as well.
He also contacted a media relations person at my company to confirm I worked there. Fortunately, my coworker said it wasn’t their policy to comment on current employees.
The slop piece is of course filled with inaccuracies, all sorts of slimy insinuations and accusations and projection of exactly what they do, and several of my Instagram posts were completely taken out of context and framed to make them the perpetual oppressors-as-victims — you know, the usual right-wing hot mess! I won’t be linking it here, of course, but you’re welcome to find it and laugh. (My Dad sure did!)
Because Stewart doxed my workplace, our company’s Twitter account got a bit of harassment from unhinged right-wing accounts. I explained what was going on, and my coworker running it understood and said she had my back. My boss was also outraged for me. The first thing out of his mouth was: “Cyber-harassing is illegal. Make sure you document everything.” As you can see, I was one step ahead of him. This ain’t my first rodeo, unfortunately!
So, good try, Jacob. You failed. Here’s that participation trophy you’re so used to: 🏆
Now, not only did Stewart make a false claim in the headline (a good journalist would say “accused of” or something more passive), he made sure a photo he stole of me from my Facebook was plastered all over The Collegiate Commons website for a few days (which he didn’t do with any other story):
And he made sure to post it on as many social media platforms as he could, continuing to mis-identify me as a teacher (I only teach ESL on the side to a couple of adult students these days) — because of course he knew that that would draw more outrage from his right-wing audience in today’s culture war than “editor and writer,” which is my actual profession.
This is the post he made that really caught my eye, though, blowing out of the water any last shred of “journalistic integrity” he thought he was exhibiting:
By tagging LibsofTikTok and mis-identifying me as a “teacher,” Stewart made a very intentional choice: he wanted to get this domestic terrorist to post me as a “liberal teacher harassing kids” and incite right-wing violence and harassment against me. He knew exactly what he was doing.
The LibsofTikTok account, if you don’t already know, has gained infamy by re-posting out-of-context social media content created by LGBTQ+ people and liberals/lefties, inciting harassment and violence and right-wing rage against them — and if they’re teachers in a conservative area, ruining their careers. It’s run by a right-wing homophobe named Chaya Raichik. Her attacks on the LGBTQ community have even directly lead to bomb threats:
Stewart would later remove the LibsofTikTok tag on the Twitter post, if not the post itself.
I’m not sure if that’s because Raichik obviously didn’t care and didn’t pick it up, or someone talked some sense into him, considering his post and article are riddled with inaccuracies that could get him sued if my life and livelihood were threatened in any way. With so much reactionary hate and how little self-awareness these goons have, I’m going with the former.
Remember in Part 1 how I talked about how creepy their abusive gaslighting and ability to twist the truth is? Well, the truth is that I didn’t specifically “target teens and minors” and the accusation is laughable— I target forced birthers of ALL ages, and why wouldn’t I? As I’ve said, they are all abusers advocating for removal of our human rights. Also, “harassment” is pretty far-fetched, considering I am simply calling out their lies and clout-chasing, and they’re mad about it.
Again, it’s the fake aggrievement and lies and inciting violence and hate that show exactly what these pro-forced birth kids stand for — and if anyone still thinks it’s about “saving babies,” then I’ve got a bridge to sell you in China.
These tactics are insidious. These tactics are dangerous. And these tactics are very adult. And this is why when these forced birther kids cry “minor,” it should be treated with all the incredulity, suspicion, and disdain it deserves.
Join me for my Part 3 conclusion as I describe the second hit piece (oh yeah, there’s more!), its particularly shoddy presentation, and how in one individual, we see how victimhood can become a whole personal brand.
Colleen Luckett has an extensive background in publishing, content development, and marketing communications in various industries, including healthcare, education, law, telecommunications, and energy. Currently, she is a writer and editor by profession, holds a Master’s degree in Multilingual Education and teaches English as a Second Language to adult students on the side, and in her spare time her writing on Medium covers the contentious political and medical battleground surrounding reproductive rights in the United States. You can also find her informative (and sometimes spicy!) posts on Instagram at theabortionfluencer.
