Student News Site Fires Staff Writer After He Appears on ‘Rapists on Campus’ List

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2014-05-16 20:08

Story here. Excerpt:

'A student news site at Columbia University is receiving attention and some criticism for reportedly removing a writer from its staff after his name surfaced on a much-publicized list of “Rapists on Campus.”

The list has appeared in various forms over the past week in random Columbia restrooms and classrooms — most often scrawled as graffiti or printed as a “rape list flyer” — spurring rampant speculation and increasing media coverage. It features the names of a small number of individuals labeled as “Rapists on Campus” or “Sexual Assault Violators on Campus.” The anonymous inscribing and dispensing of the list is being described as an act of desperation and defiance in line with growing student frustration over the university’s perceived passive or demeaning response to sexual violence on campus.
...
Yet, Bwog’s sexual assault coverage ground to a halt last week when editors found themselves with a gigantic conflict of interest connected to the “Rapists on Campus” list. What was the conflict? According to Slate, “One of the names on the list was a Bwog staff writer.” Yowza.

How did the site react? There is legalese involved in Bwog’s own rendering of what went down, but basically they fired the staff writer. The site released a statement yesterday signed by four top editors and the publisher. It carries the tagline “clearly our lawyer looked over this.”'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

Anonymously accused via bathroom wall = guilty and worthy of job termination. Not even the uni admin'n needs to be involved.

"I try you, find you guilty, and sentence you to X." All in one breath. "X" was usually death, of course. Ah, the good ol' days, when no separation of powers or even a judicial court was needed. And of course, who usually got such treatment? Men, of course, and at the hands of other men.

The student blog's editor is female, but the publisher (i.e., manager) is male.

My how little actually changes. I suppose such things will stop when the names of male (and perhaps female, too) students in such positions on campuses as student blog editors, or student council members, or members of the actual administration, start showing up on anonymously-penned lists of "offenders" found on women's bathroom stalls. And what if they also start to appear on men's bathroom stalls? Will those lists get the same treatment as "authoritative sources" of actionable accusation?

Once people who seek to "get back at" others for real or perceived sleights, or for whatever other reason, realize they need only anonymously accuse them of sexual assault or misconduct and life for the accused gets real hard, no one's safe. This is the world, America, you are sending your college-aged kids into. It's the world you've allowed through passivity and cowardice to arise while you stayed silent bystanders as feminist idealogues slowly and meticulously gained ever-increasing power on college campuses to the point that such ludicrousness exists. You reap what you sow.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2014-05-18 20:16