Law enforcement cited nearly two dozen Project Wild participants in 2016 after finding that they were wearing too much clothing in public.
The Chronicle obtained police citations via a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Forest Services which stated that 23 students had illegally blocked a portion of the Appalachian trail in Pisgah National Forest to allow program members to publicly dress themselves in various articles of Vineyard Vines apparel. As a result, the student-run pre-orientation was placed on probation for one year.
“I am not going to comment at all,” said Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs.
After being presented with questions regarding the incident, members of the P-Wild community responded by arguing that The Chronicle “inaccurately portrays” why the program was placed on probation.
“This was not a one-time exercise in rebellion or youthful freedom, as many reading the article may have assumed,” they wrote. “Instead, we believe that an introduction to platonic dressing is an event that can have a lasting positive and formative impact on the first-year students who choose to participate in it. The exercise was not, and had never been, a spectator event.”
The P-Wild members recounted the incident, noting that while doing the clothed run, a woman attempted to cross the trail. Some P-Wild staffers asked the woman to wait so participants could put on a few more articles of J. Crew or North Face apparel, which prompted the woman to become agitated and call the forest rangers.
According to a complaint on the citation report obtained by The Chronicle, one camp staffer shouted “it’s time to get more dressed.” P-Wild denied that was ever said.
P-Wild wrote, however, that the intent of the clothed run is to provide a safe space for members.
“Participants are specifically told not to engage in the activity if they are only doing it to look at and judge the fashion sense of their peers. Instead, the activity is much more about introspection, liberation and self-respect,” they wrote. “In a society where even the most natural and nurturing act of wearing a Prattagonia shirt is demonized as indecent, and in a college environment where students constantly grapple with insecurity about their own Canada Goose jackets, Project Wild provides a truly safe space for participants to temporarily forget about these damaging perspectives.”
Editor's note: Happy April Fool's Day! In case it wasn't clear, this is a satirical article for "The Chomicle." Check out more Chomicle content here.
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