Junior Tandis Shoushtary, a Tam News editor, was physically confronted by an unknown student outside of Keyser Hall on Thursday, February 26 before the start of fourth period.

According to Shoushtary, the student pulled her hair and yelled an obscenity before disappearing into a crowd of students. “I was walking to class near Middle Keyser,” Shoushtary said. “As I was stepping onto the staircase [to upper Keyser], there was a group of boys wearing backpacks behind me, and someone pulled my hair and yelled ‘psycho b***h.’”

Shoushtary said she was unable to identify the student who accosted her. “By the time I had realized what had happened and turned around, there was just a crowd of backpacks and people shuffling so I didn’t really understand what had happened,” she said. “In the moment, I didn’t really realize what was happening so I wasn’t really on the lookout [for the assailant].” Shoushtary said that she was able to tell that her assailant was male based upon the sound of his voice.

Other Tam students expressed surprise after hearing about the confrontation. “I’m definitely really shocked that something like that would happen at Tam,” junior Sam Kaufman said. “I’ve never heard of anything like that [happening] at our school.”

Junior Ali Merkl agreed, and identified a recent article written by Shoushtary that had been published in the Tam News and created an extended dialogue among students as likely provocation for the incident.
“Honestly, I was shocked and a bit disgusted by what happened to Tandis,” Merkl said. “Freedom of speech is literally written into the constitution and for someone to physically harass her for exercising a basic right we have in this country and at our school…is horrifying. People do not have to agree with the points made in the article and they should feel free to voice those opinions in a respectful debate and I think this article encouraged some really great debates.”