Professor demands ‘rape culture’ investigation over satirical article

Submitted by Mastodon on Sat, 2013-11-30 05:02

Story here. Excerpt:

'A professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is demanding an independent investigation about two complaints she filed alleging sexual harassment by the school’s student newspaper.

The first article appeared in The Sun Star, the campus rag, on April 1, 2013. The April Fool’s Day piece heralded the construction of the “Kameel Toi Henderson Building,” which is “a new building in the shape of a vagina.”

The satirical piece suggested that the building would be a tribute to “UAF’s 59 percent female demographic.” “Courses such as Home Economics, House Cleaning 101 and the Perils of Feminism will be offered each semester.”
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School officials also concluded that the article did not create a hostile environment on campus and does “not meet the definition of sexual harassment.” They further noted that the piece is protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Sun Star journalist who wrote the April Fool’s piece, Lakeidra Chavis, noted that her goal was to poke fun at the number of buildings at UAF shaped at least vaguely like penises.
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Lakeidra Chavis is a female, according to her Facebook page.

A few days after filing her complaint about the April Fool’s Day piece, Anahita filed a second complaint. This one alleged “hate speech” and another hostile environment in a different Sun Star article about the UAF Confessions Facebook page.

Chavis noted that the newspaper did nothing illegal when it published screenshots of the Facebook page and reported on what was in it.

“It was a public Facebook page,” she said.

School officials again concluded that the newspaper did nothing wrong.

In at least one of the complaints, Anahita bizarrely charged that The Sun Star had violated Title IX, a federal law intended to thwart sex discrimination in schools. School officials determined that Title IX doesn’t apply to school newspaper articles.
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The Poynter Institute notes that Anahita has some history of trouble with the student newspaper. In 2010, for example, the gender studies professor dispatched the manager of UAF’s women’s center to the offices of the paper after a photographer took pictures at a panel discussion in defiance of a request for privacy.

Anahita refuses to comment on the fracas she has created.'

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Comments

... if it is possible to have a "rape culture" at a women's college?

How would it be characterized? Let's say it's a women's college that does not allow men in at all, not even graduates. And let's say that it has a strong WST dept. Neither here nor there, let's say it isn't a "moderate" such dept. but instead, one of the real hell-fire ones.

Would they ever suggest such a college has a "rape culture" and if so, how would they characterize it? Would they say that despite the lack of men, it still exists due to the "larger society being patriarchal"? I dunno. But I did find one example of a women's college in the US that seems to be concerned about it: Wellesley. The list of student "social awareness" groups is here. Search on "rape culture" and you'll see it listed as a concern for the SAAFE group. I don't know how they characterize the topic. Maybe they think it exists at other colleges and talk about that.

I wonder if there are any men's colleges in the US that have social awareness groups that talk about things like paternity fraud?

BTW, in case anyone is wondering, this is a list of women's colleges in the US:

http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2009/03/11/list-of-womens-colleges

It does not appear as if there is a high relative total enrollment; a quick general tally is ~64,550 students. There are ~20.7 million undergrad students enrolled in US colleges and universities (see here). Assume reported trends are accurate and that about 60% are female and you get 12.42 million (12,420,000) female students. That means for every 1 female student at a co-ed college, 0.005197 of a female student is at a women's college. Or to put it another, clearer way, for every female at a women's college as an undergrad, another 192.4187 are at co-ed colleges as undergrads.

So I have to wonder, if getting raped were so common an experience for college women, why aren't there more women at these colleges and why aren't there more women's colleges, period? If I counted right, there are 48 listed. The number has been steadily dropping, in fact (see here). This seems counter-intuitive to the notion that co-ed colleges are veritable rape-chambers for hapless young women. After all, wouldn't their older sisters and friends be telling them to stay away from co-ed colleges after being sexually harassed/raped or knowing other girls who have been? It simply doesn't add up.

As for men's colleges, Wikipedia lists 5 non-sectarian men's colleges, with the rest being sectarian whose mission is to educate men for a religious calling and/or occupation. The number of men-only colleges has all but collapsed these past 50 years. You'd think feminists would find that troubling in its own way; after all, the more men going to men-only colleges, the fewer are going to co-ed colleges, thereby, in their minds anyway, making the campuses safer for female students. Really, aside from championing the idea of women-only colleges, they ought also to be championing the idea of men-only ones, too. But that may be a possibility for them if they actually wanted men to be college-educated. As I have said before, based on their behavior, it's pretty obvious what feminists in higher ed really want for men: to get them tossed more or less permanently from it. Having men go even to men's colleges would mean men get college degrees, and that is something feminists want to see reserved only for women.

While I think since we live in a co-ed world, it is better for college students to go to co-ed schools, if I were an 18-YO high school grad thinking about what college to go to, as a male, I would consider a men's college pretty strongly. After all, the chances of getting through all 4 years without being accused of something are far less. And as we know, an accusation is sufficient on its face to presume guilt, but only if you're male.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2013-11-30 22:07