Dear Gamecocks, We celebrated a wonderful tradition of Creed and Diversity Day earlier this month. Creed & Diversity Day is a special time for our University. It’s a day that urges us all to reflect on the promise we made when we entered the University of South Carolina and became a part of the Gamecock Family. It’s a promise that reflects the values we hold dear to our hearts and the commitments we have to one another. As we were reflecting what the Carolinian Creed meant to us, something stood out to all of us that threaten the values of the Creed. It’s anonymous, it’s defaming and it’s not what Carolina is about. What we are referring to is an app called Yik-Yak. Each of us has heard in conversations around campus, “Oh, did you hear on Yik-Yak that...” or, “Can you believe what was said on Yik-Yak,” or even worse, “I got that information from Yik-YaK.” This app threatens our community for several reasons. It gives power in its anonymity for people to lose integrity, promote bigotry and disrespect the rights and properties of others. Furthermore, it allows for no personal accountability for foul words and crude statements. It allows distortion of the truth and churns rumors that are not constructive to our community and our own personal progress. While we all enjoy a good laugh and a good joke, we do not find racism, sexism, illegal acts, hateful statements, and threats to be a laughing matter. We don’t believe in victimizing members of our community or in being disrespectful and downright mean to one another. We believe this to be a serious threat to our community of scholars and violation of the promise we made to the University of South Carolina. As Gamecocks, we are better than that. We are scholars who are thoughtful, caring and intentional. We strive to make every member of our community feel at home and feel safe physically, mentally and emotionally. We support and encourage one another and we do not tear each other down. We are Carolinians who hold these ideals true: As a Carolinian I will practice personal and academic integrity. I will respect the dignity of all persons; I will discourage bigotry while striving to learn from differences in people, ideas and opinions, I will demonstrate concern for others their feelings, and their needs for conditions which support their work and development.