CAMPUS CREEP CAUGHT: SERIAL FOOT GRABBER BUSTED AT UNC PEMBROKE — DECADES OF TERROR ON WOMEN’S FEET EXPOSED!
Op-Ed: When Campus Safety Turns a Blind Eye
August 28, 2025
For more than two decades, North Carolina campuses have been shadowed by a bizarre and unsettling threat: a man who preys not with weapons, but with an obsession for women’s feet. The recent arrest of 49-year-old Christopher Deas at UNC Pembroke has once again thrust this disturbing pattern into the spotlight, forcing students, faculty, and parents to ask how such behavior has been allowed to persist since 2002. This is more than a string of lurid headlines—it’s a sobering reminder of the gaps in campus safety and accountability that leave women vulnerable, and a call for the UNC System to act decisively before the next headline writes itself.
The image of a faculty member catching 49-year-old Christopher Deas inside a UNC Pembroke classroom may sound like the punchline to a bad joke. But for the women whose privacy and dignity were violated, it’s anything but funny. Deas has a documented history of bizarre and predatory behavior stretching back more than twenty years, including arrests on other campuses such as Wake Forest. The persistence of his conduct raises unsettling questions about how much our colleges are doing to protect students and staff from repeat offenders.
When campus leaders and law enforcement dismiss “non-traditional” forms of harassment as quirky or minor, they minimize the trauma inflicted on those who live through it. To be cornered, touched, or violated in a setting that should symbolize intellectual safety and growth is not only humiliating—it erodes trust in the very institutions promising to safeguard students. Foot grabbing may seem strange, even ridiculous to outsiders, but it is part of a larger pattern of harassment that chips away at women’s right to learn and work in peace.
The fact that Deas’s trail of arrests spans multiple universities across the UNC system demonstrates that this isn’t an isolated oversight; it’s a systemic blind spot. How many warnings need to be ignored, and how many reports need to be buried before administrators recognize that predators thrive when accountability fails? Campus police bulletins and email alerts are not enough. Students deserve more than a warning after the damage has already been done—they deserve proactive prevention.
Op-eds often stress the responsibility of institutions, and here the point cannot be overstated: the UNC System has known of Deas’s behavior for decades. Yet, year after year, he resurfaces on another campus. Why has there been no coordinated registry or campus-to-campus communication system ensuring that repeat offenders are monitored? Instead, each university reacts as though the story is new, leaving students exposed to risks that could have been reduced with shared vigilance.
This is not merely about Deas—it’s about the broader culture of neglect. Colleges across North Carolina spend millions on athletics, construction projects, and branding campaigns, but when it comes to student safety, too many corners are cut. Female students in particular bear the burden of being told to “stay alert,” as though the failure lies with their vigilance rather than institutional protections. That narrative is as outdated as it is dangerous.
The UNC Pembroke incident must mark a turning point. Our universities should establish a unified safety protocol for known offenders, expand campus counseling resources for victims, and adopt zero-tolerance policies that treat harassment in all its forms as a serious breach of community trust. Until then, every parent sending their daughter to college, every professor walking into a classroom, and every student who believes their campus is safe should question whether administrators value their safety as much as their tuition. The question is not whether another case will surface—it’s whether North Carolina will finally be ready to stop it.
If North Carolina’s universities are serious about protecting their students, then the arrest of Christopher Deas must not be treated as another quirky headline destined to fade from memory. It must be a catalyst for real reform—one that recognizes even “strange” forms of harassment as serious violations of safety and dignity. Until campuses stop reacting after the fact and start building systems of accountability, students and faculty alike will remain vulnerable. The time for warnings and reactive press releases has passed; the time for decisive, system-wide change is now.
Greensboro Chronicle 