Words Reopen Scars At CCSU
By Matt Burgard, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
Feb. 9–NEW BRITAIN — Sarah said she couldn’t keep her knees from buckling and the tears from welling in her eyes when she picked up a copy of the student newspaper at Central Connecticut State University this week.
Sarah, a freshman at the university who asked that her last name not be used, said she was raped when she was 15. She said all the hard emotions of her attack came flooding back to her — the shame, the rage, the despair — as she read an article in the campus newspaper, The Recorder, headlined “Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It.”
“I couldn’t believe the things I was reading,” she said Thursday, a day after the article appeared. “I couldn’t believe anyone in this day and age would write something like that, and that other people would let it be published.”
The article, written by opinion editor John Petroski, details several “benefits” that rape has made to civilization over the years. The article describes rape as a “magical experience” that has been a blessing to “ugly women.”
“If it weren’t for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with a man who isn’t drunk?” the article asks.
Student editors at the paper said the article was meant to be a satirical jab at the sensationalistic nature of the modern news media. But dozens of students said the article fell well short of being funny. Instead, they said, it caused deep pain for those who have already been raped, and that it reinforced age-old, misogynistic stereotypes.
On Thursday afternoon, dozens of students turned out for a protest outside the university’s student center calling for the resignations of Petroski and Mark Rowan, the editor of The Recorder.
Some students at the rally identified themselves as victims of sexual assault and demanded that the administration create a safer environment for women and other groups on campus. They held signs reading “Real Men Don’t Rape” and “Take Back The Recorder.” Some faculty members attended the rally, but none spoke.
Garry Griffin, one of the students protesting the article, said Petroski chose a poor topic for making his point.
“There are some things that just aren’t funny, and rape is one of them,” Griffin said. “I mean, what’s next? The Holocaust? Slavery? There’s nothing funny there, I’m sorry.”
Sarah said she and other students who have been raped have discussed the article since it was published.
“It’s just unbelievably hurtful because it again gives people the idea that rape victims are somehow asking for it,” she said. “Whatever they meant to say with the article, they failed badly. They only ended up making themselves look bad and the entire university look bad.”
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Jack Miller, university president, said the article crossed the lines of journalistic freedom.
Miller said he planned to convene a panel of students and faculty in the coming weeks to discuss the issue, but he stopped short of taking any action against Petroski or the paper’s editors and faculty advisers.
“Rape is a profound violation of body and spirit, and to make light of it, even in satire, is abhorrent,” Miller said. “We need to be sure that students understand that such hateful speech is not protected and simply is not worthy, on any ground, of publication.”
The editors of The Recorder, in another statement released Thursday, said they regretted the harm the article caused, adding they would not have published it if they had realized how people would react to it. Yet at the same time, the statement defended Petroski as a gifted satirist whose intended message “fell on deaf ears.”
The statement said television news coverage of the controversy has been one-sided.
“John has been grossly misrepresented,” the statement said.
Rowan said Thursday that Petroski and other editors felt the article was a humorous condemnation of media sensationalism. Rowan said the controversy over the article has proved the point it was trying to make.
“The front page of the paper had a very important story about students losing their Social Security numbers, an issue that affects the entire campus,” Rowan said. “But nobody is talking about that. They’re only talking about the rape article.”
Rowan said the controversy over the article has taught him that he and the rest of the editors on the paper might not understand the campus community as well as they thought they did.
“I don’t think we appreciated the climate we’re in,” he said.
Lillian Brabner, head of the university’s advocacy group for gay and lesbian issues, said many students contend that The Recorder has become increasingly homophobic and misogynistic in its editorial tone this year.
Some parents of university students said they were concerned that the article would make female students more vulnerable to being attacked.
“If these are the kind of men who are holding down positions of authority on campus, then something’s wrong,” said the mother of a female student, who asked not to be identified out of fear for her daughter’s safety. “It’s absolutely appalling.”
Contact Matt Burgard at mburgard@courant.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Hartford Courant, Conn.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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