Jan 28, 2014 02:40 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) were not pleased to have to go to class Monday when the wind chill brought temperatures on campus to 30 degrees below zero.

According to the Huffington Post, UIUC was one of several Illinois colleges to hold classes that day, but the only whose student body took to social media to berate their chancellor for the decision. Chancellor Phyllis Wise announced Sunday evening that classes would go on as scheduled Monday, to which students responded with an online petition.

Not long after, a hashtag appeared on Twitter reading "#F--kPhyllis" as an insult to Wise for keeping the school open. Tweets on the threat were mixed with support for the chancellor and outrage for keeping the school open.

According to the Daily Illini's Ryan Weber, 1,900 tweets hit the Internet with the derogatory hashtag in the 13 hours after Wise's announcement. Students even began a petition on Change.org to overturn the decision. Needing 40,000 digital signatures, they only got 8,000, still a huge number given the issue and timeframe.

"Canceling classes is a responsible measure to ensure that the entire campus community remains safe during these exterme [sic] weather conditions," the petition read. "If you feel the same, sign this petition to let the Chancellor know."

UI-Chicago, University of Chicago and Northwestern University were also kept open Monday, but their school leaders did not receive the same backlash. Students at Northwestern were far more comedic than offensive with their tweets. One student equated the campus to Hoth from Star Wars and another poked fun at the school offering one extra bus to accommodate for frigid temperatures.

Northwestern University: Now with locations in Chicago, Antarctica, and Hoth

— Dan Rufolo (@DanRufoBro) January 27, 2014

Northwestern: "It's cold, so we got you an extra bus!" Seriously? — Bobby Pillote (@BobbyPillote) January 27, 2014

According to Inside Higher Ed, several messages were sexist while others were racist, targeting the female chancellor's Asian heritage.

Not everyone was so outraged. After the backlash erupted on Twitter, one anonymous alumnus even sent Wise a bouquet of flowers, the News-Gazette reported.

"It's sad. I'm hoping this still represents a very, very small minority," Wise told the newspaper, indicating she had seen some of the online messages. "We have to talk about civil discourse, and how to agree to disagree and still remain... respectful."

(The author of this article fixed a mispelling of the school's name from "Champagne" to "Champaign.")

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