Alex Knepper Is at It Again

This article is from the archive of our partner .

Trivializing date rape is a guaranteed way to generate outrage. American University sophomore and "classical libertarian" columnist Alex Knepper found this out the hard way. Knepper's column in The Eagle, the college newspaper, began by attacking the "emotional cripples" who he claimed helped scuttle a student's campus ballot campaign. Knepper's column quickly devolved into a total-throated bluster apropos engagement rape and feminist culture in full general:

Allow's get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI political party as an bearding onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy'southward room with him is indicating that she wants sexual practice, OK? To cry "date rape" afterward you sober upwardly the next forenoon and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone's head and then later claiming that you didn't ever really intend to pull the trigger.

"Date rape" is an incoherent concept. In that location's rape and there's not-rape, and we demand a line of demarcation. It'due south not clear plenty to merely speak of consent, considering the lines of consent in sex — especially anonymous sexual practice — can get very blurry. If that bothers you, then stick with Pat Robertson and his brigade of anti-sex cavemen! Don't spring into the sexual loonshit if you can't handle the volatility of its practice!

Knepper'south cavalcade quickly attracted more than than 400 comments on The Eagle'due south bulletin board, a mixture of criticism, threats, and anger. A sample of the outrage:

The but way you lot could be more than of a rape apologist is if you had direct said "I'm really glad yous all become raped at parties and I'm not lamentable at all." It's really sad and upsetting that you're the simply conservative phonation at The Hawkeye, because I know a lot of conservatives at this school (and elsewhere who accept read your columns) who are embarrassed to have their political viewpoints associated with you.

[...]

This column is so inflammatory it makes me wonder if the writer is just trying to stir up feminists (or actually any sane individuals who have feelings) and start a comments war or something like it for fun.  Guess what- it'southward not fun and it's not funny.  It is open-facedly offensive.  To say that date rape does not exist is a slap in the face to and so many women, and men, in our generation.  Your definition of appointment rape is also horrendous.

Other educatee frustrations targeted AU's administration: "I am constantly amazed that the AU administration, and the folks in charge of The Eagle, continue to permit Alex Knepper to publicly proclaim his idiotic, misogynistic, and offensive views. He is an embarrassment to the AU community," wrote one commenter. Amanda Hess at Washington City Paper reports that furious students expressed their outrage by vandalizing The Hawkeye's newspaper dispensers and destroying copies of the newspaper.

The Eagle's editorial staff and the assistants responded in dueling posts on The Hawkeye'southward website:

• Goodbye Op-Eds: The Eagle's Editorial Board takes full responsibility for the lack of editorial judgment, pointing to a lack of clearly defined policies regarding the requirements for publishing such columns before suspending their op-ed page until farther notice:

Because in that location is a loftier turnover of editors at higher newspapers, often policies shift and change from editor to editor. Equally a issue, some policies that should be well defined are instead a hodgepodge of previous editors' personal policies stapled together. This has worked relatively well in the by, but has clearly reached its limit...To ensure this does not happen once more, The Eagle must brand a pragmatic motility: understand that our columnists are partly seen to correspond the newspaper and take more responsibility for what we publish. Until we accept a specific policy to do this, The Eagle will exist temporarily suspending the publication of all opinion columns.

• Let's Move On  Between decrying sexual violence of any sort and praising AU students' social activism, Vice President of Educatee Life Gail Hanson and Provost Scott Bass await for a way frontward out of the mess: "In this challenging moment, when many are searching for what they tin do to address the breach that has occurred in the cloth of our community, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the university's position on sexual misconduct and renew your personal delivery to live up to our community values ...We hope that the dialogue will continue to educate and inform the AU community about our values and the standards of behave nosotros wait of our community members."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/american-university-s-ill-advised-date-rape-column/341122/

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