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On 24 March 2016, social media users began sharing articles reporting that students at Emory University were traumatized by graffiti promoting Donald Trump, and that emergency counseling had been offered to those who felt their safe spaces had been violated. Many Twitter users linked to an article published about the controversy by the Emory Wheel, the university's student-run newspaper. The term counseling only appeared in the item's comments section, and safe spaces was included as a paraphrase (meaning the purportedly oversensitive students invoking the concept hadn't actually used the words): What the article (prior to an update) described was a political protest inspired by the Trump graffiti: A 23 March 2016 Mediate article was one of the first that reported students were offered not just counseling, but emergency counseling (as if some major catastrophe had occurred on campus): However, the sole citation for the counseling claim was the same Emory Wheel article which, again, made no mention of any such offer or demand. Britain's Daily Mail repeated the emergency counseling claim, but that site also linked to Emory University content, which itself made no such statement: Mediaite linked to Fox Sports, which claimed (in its own words) that [t]he student government association is OFFERING EMERGENCY COUNSELING FOR STUDENTS TRIGGERED BY THE TRUMP 2016 CAMPUS CHALKINGS. Fox Sports then reproduced an e-mail sent by student government representatives (i.e. students, not adult faculty or administrators) offering support for events, not counseling: In context, it seemed much more likely that the e-mail described protest events, not counseling (which was never originally insinuated). Some attention focused on Emory's efforts to identify the rogue Trump chalker, but the Emory Wheel made clear that the actions were in dispute because use of chalk to mark structures is only permitted on certain campus areas. The Trump chalkings appeared campus-wide, and therefore broke rules about acceptable use of chalk on campus: While it was true that several dozen Emory University students protested in response to the Trump chalk scrawlings, we were unable to substantiate that anyone (student or administrator) offered emergency counseling, or, indeed, counseling or any sort. Neither did anyone seek counseling that we could see, and no students complained safe spaces were violated (though at least one said they felt unsafe). The Emory University media brouhaha was one of several distorted claims of rampant political correctness on college campuses and elsewhere, with several (embellished) details repeated by major outlets such as the Daily Mail, Mediaite, and the Washington Post. Just a few weeks before the Emory controversy, several web sites inaccurately claimed students were offered counseling over the presence of mini sombreros at a party. Another viral Facebook post claimed Captain America was deemed offensive and banned; a Brooklyn principal was falsely accused of banning the Pledge of Allegiance, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; and another faux outrage popped up over a satirical poster claiming popular Halloween costumes were not politically correct and kids wearing them would be denied candy. In nearly all such claims, details of the actual controversy were obfuscated by embellished elements framing students or schools as overly sensitive. While it was true some students of color expressed that the large number of Trump chalkings made them uneasy, most simply gathered to express their political distaste for the presidential candidate and his platforms on issues of race and religion. On 25 March 2016, Emory protest organizer Jonathan Peraza contacted us and linked to a 24 March 2016 statement about the controversy issued by involved students on campus:
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