George Will Comes Under Fire For Rape Comments

[Tiberius]

"Finally, a major newspaper has axed George Will—and apologized—for his truly disgraceful column on how "privileged" and "alleged" rape victims on campus are often the real victimizers. And are so often "delusional." Why? Because victomhood has supposedly become "a coveted status that confers privileges."

 

The column was turned down by the Chicago Tribune, criticized in Congress and led to some groups calling for the Washington Post (his home paper) to drop him.

 

Now the venerable St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the leading news outlet in that neck of the woods, has decided to free Will. Editors revealed yesterday: "

 

http://m.thenation.com/blog/180328-major-news-outlet-axes-george-will-over-rape-column

[DC Tom]

Victimhood is a coveted status that confers privileges.

[Tiberius]

Victimhood is a coveted status that confers privileges.

Some people that were victims can ask a non-victim to give up there seat on a bus?

[B-Man]

Some real information........................................from some real sources.

 

 

Today, Will sent the senators a response. Here is an excerpt:

 

 

Dear Senators Blumenthal, Feinstein, Baldwin and Casey:

 

I have received your letter of June 12, and I am puzzled. You say my statistics “fly in the face of everything we know about this issue.” You do not mention which statistics, but those I used come from the Obama administration, and from simple arithmetic involving publicly available reports on campus sexual assaults.

 

The administration asserts that only 12 percent of college sexual assaults are reported. Note well: I did not question this statistic. Rather, I used it.

 

I cited one of the calculations based on it that Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute has performed {link}. So, I think your complaint is with the conclusion that arithmetic dictates, based on the administration’s statistic. The inescapable conclusion is that another administration statistic that one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college is insupportable and might call for tempering your rhetoric about “the scourge of sexual assault.”

 

As for what you call my “ancient beliefs,” which you think derive from an “antiquated” and “counterintuitive” culture, allow me to tell you something really counterintuitive: I think I take sexual assault much more seriously than you do. Which is why I worry about definitions of that category of crime that might, by their breadth, tend to trivialize it. And why I think sexual assault is a felony that should be dealt with by the criminal justice system, and not be adjudicated by improvised campus processes.

 

 

Read the senators’ letter here, and Will’s response in full here.

 

 

C-SPAN VIDEO:

 

 

 

 

Related: Hugh Hewitt interviews the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor who cut George Will’s column.

 

His name is Tony Messenger, and he became so flustered that he hung up and ran.

 

 

 

 

THEY DIDN’T “MISREAD” GEORGE WILL. They deliberately misrepresented George Will to advance a political agenda. That’s who they are, that’s what they do. And the St. Louis Post Dispatch is joining in because it’s just part of the team.

 

 

.

[Gary M]

Some real information........................................from some real sources.

 

 

Today, Will sent the senators a response. Here is an excerpt:

 

 

 

 

C-SPAN VIDEO:

 

 

 

 

Related: Hugh Hewitt interviews the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor who cut George Will’s column.

 

His name is Tony Messenger, and he became so flustered that he hung up and ran.

 

 

 

 

THEY DIDN’T “MISREAD” GEORGE WILL. They deliberately misrepresented George Will to advance a political agenda. That’s who they are, that’s what they do. And the St. Louis Post Dispatch is joining in because it’s just part of the team.

 

 

.

At this point , What difference does it make?

[Fingon]

George Will is absolutely correct. The government has shifted the burden of sexual assault cases to college campuses. They are literally sued by the Federal Government if they don't try these cases in their kangaroo courts. The problem is that the burden of proof goes from beyond a reasonable doubt to merely preponderance of evidence.

[Tiberius]

His argument that victimhood of rape is a status symbol is absurd. There is a very real problem of women not wanting to come forward and in the wild atmosphere of college with horny guys, alcohol, super hot women--drunk guys and not so hot women--lines will get crossed. Sure, it's hard to tell sometimes when a line has been crossed, but making it seem like victims of sexual assault are privileged citizens, or just on power trips is a really stupid argument.

 

"“They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. . . . And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

 

Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped."

 

 

Ok, and then what happened? He wants us to believe that all reported sexual incidents are like this? Hes an angry man who let's his emotions guide his options, IMO

[IDBillzFan]

The entire premise of the article is based on the fact that the publication is a "major news outlet," which is like saying a plastic lamp shaped like a fishnet stocking-covered leg is "a major award."

 

Keep up the good work progs! You're really doing a great job making yourselves obsolete.

[Tiberius]

The entire premise of the article is based on the fact that the publication is a "major news outlet," which is like saying a plastic lamp shaped like a fishnet stocking-covered leg is "a major award."

 

Keep up the good work progs! You're really doing a great job making yourselves obsolete.

Why isn't it a major news outlet?

[IDBillzFan]

Why isn't it a major news outlet?

 

Hey, I'm not the one who said it was a major news outlet.

[B-Man]

George Will pointed out that there is another privilege on campuses — false or contrived claims of victim status. Will did not argue that real victims, be it of actual racism or sexual assault, share some special privilege, but rather, that there are people who contrive or encourage others to falsely create victimhood where none exists.

 

We see it in theories such as microaggression, where in the absence of proof of actual racism, critical race theorists find racism in routine everyday interactions where the participants do not even realize they are being “racist,” much less have any racist intent.

 

We see it in repeated instances of fake, self-inflicted “hate crimes” in which the victim is, in fact, the perpetrator.

 

We also see it in the lowering of the standards of proof and definitions of what constitutes sexual assault.

 

I think everyone agrees that sexual assault as used in the criminal law deserves condemnation and punishment. But colleges, under pressure from the Justice Department and supposedly feminist groups, have started using definitions of sexual assault that can reach absurd results.

 

 

 

 

 

George Will: ‘I take sexual assault more seriously’ than those trying to silence me

 

Will highlighted a growing concern among students and parents over the increasing frequency of accusations of sexual misconduct, and the appearance that the accused are often presumed guilty before being proven innocent.

 

“Questions about sexual assault policies in higher education have emerged as a national issue in recent years as more young women file complaints with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights about how their cases are handled by campus administrators,” USA Today reported on Friday.

 

The issue has become so pressing that the Department of Education revealed new regulations on Friday designed to address those growing concerns.

 

“The proposals also would allow both accusers and the accused to bring an ‘advisor of their choice’ to campus disciplinary proceedings,” the USA Today report continued. “Colleges also would have to provide more information, including a list of possible sanctions, about how disciplinary cases involving sexual violence are handled.”

 

Though the matter of consent and what constitutes consensual sex, an issue at the heart of many disputed campus sexual assault cases, remains unaddressed in the new Education Department rules.

 

Writing about this issue, Will took on the sensitive subject of what constitutes consensual sex in colleges. At one point, Will recounted the testimony of one woman who said she permitted sexual intercourse with a friend, although she did not want it at the time, and reported that incident as a rape six weeks later.

 

“Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of ‘sexual assault’ victims,” Will wrote. “It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.”

 

His take on the subject sparked a significant backlash.

 

{snip}

 

When asked to respond to one critic who accused Will of trivializing the crime of sexual assault, the conservative columnist said he takes sexual assault more seriously than his critics do. “When someone’s accused of rape, it should be reported to the criminal justice system that knows how to deal with this, not with jerrybuilt, improvised campus processes,” he asserted.

 

Will went on to dismiss those for whom he said “indignation is default position.” He added that the outrage over his column will, like “summer storms,” dissipate as rapidly as it arose. In conclusion, the columnist said that he would not take one word of his column back if he had the chance.

[Azalin]

there's nothing quite like intentionally taking a columnist out of context in order to have them silenced. while the deployment of this stratagem isn't solely property of the left, they use it more frequently and in greater earnest than any other group I've seen. when you can't win a debate on principle, simply silence the other side by smearing them.

[Tiberius]

Well, when you completely trivialize a problem many people see as something very serious and turn the victims of sexual abuse into the real villains, ya, you are going to get some push back for your ignorance. Poor George Will can now wear the victimhood of "political correctness"

 

 

[3rdnlng]

Well, when you completely trivialize a problem many people see as something very serious and turn the victims of sexual abuse into the real villains, ya, you are going to get some push back for your ignorance. Poor George Will can now wear the victimhood of "political correctness"

 

Except that's not what he did. It's too bad your lack of intelligence doesn't allow you to differentiate between real victims and the fake ones.

[Azalin]

Well, when you completely trivialize a problem many people see as something very serious and turn the victims of sexual abuse into the real villains, ya, you are going to get some push back for your ignorance. Poor George Will can now wear the victimhood of "political correctness"

 

and once again, you prove my point by doing exactly like I said.

 

Except that's not what he did. It's too bad your lack of intelligence doesn't allow you to differentiate between real victims and the fake ones.

 

to them, it doesn't matter if a victim is genuine or not. ergo, they're in the business of creating as many as they can.

[Tiberius]

So what privilidges are these victims getting? You guys believe anything that comes out of a right wing mouth.

[IDBillzFan]

So what privilidges are these victims getting?

 

Why don't you explain why they're not getting privilidges [sic]?

[Rob's House]

His argument that victimhood of rape is a status symbol is absurd. There is a very real problem of women not wanting to come forward and in the wild atmosphere of college with horny guys, alcohol, super hot women--drunk guys and not so hot women--lines will get crossed. Sure, it's hard to tell sometimes when a line has been crossed, but making it seem like victims of sexual assault are privileged citizens, or just on power trips is a really stupid argument.

 

"“They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. . . . And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

 

Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped."

 

 

Ok, and then what happened? He wants us to believe that all reported sexual incidents are like this? Hes an angry man who let's his emotions guide his options, IMO

 

He said nothing of the sort. This is just another case of leftists exploiting an issue (one that creates real victims no less) to try to create a scandal that the double digit IQ crowd will be too stupid to understand anyway.

 

And if you thought he was saying that college rape victims covet the privilege of their victim status then you're significantly dumber than you get credit for, and that's saying something.

[Tiberius]

He said nothing of the sort. This is just another case of leftists exploiting an issue (one that creates real victims no less) to try to create a scandal that the double digit IQ crowd will be too stupid to understand anyway.

 

And if you thought he was saying that college rape victims covet the privilege of their victim status then you're significantly dumber than you get credit for, and that's saying something.

 

Here is what he said:

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate.

 

I can see why people would get angry. Many institutions don't want to deal with this issue--see US NAVY--and sweep it under the rug and try and quiet it up. So naturally shining a light on the problem will bring forth more victims. He's making it sound like these girls are suddenly stars on campus. What an utter and malicious nonsense.

 

Then he calls it the "supposed" epidemic of college rape. What, its in the poor little dears heads that this is taking place.

 

Does anyone remember the SNL Skit of George Will trying to throw a baseball? Or how he is proud to only own one or two pairs of blue jeans?

 

He doesn't live in the real world

 

As to the left exploiting an issue, if by trying to stop rape and helping victims is exploiting something, then I'm all for it. Just another case of Conservatives screaming bloody murder when someone tries and fix a problem. Cry babies

[Azalin]

 

Does anyone remember the SNL Skit of George Will trying to throw a baseball? Or how he is proud to only own one or two pairs of blue jeans?

 

 

what the hell does a SNL skit or his clothing preferences have to do with anything, Herr Einstein?

 

 

He doesn't live in the real world

 

 

YOU accuse anyone of denying reality?

 

 

As to the left exploiting an issue, if by trying to stop rape and helping victims is exploiting something, then I'm all for it. Just another case of Conservatives screaming bloody murder when someone tries and fix a problem. Cry babies

 

not only does the left routinely exploit issues, they usually create them and then exploit them. that's pretty much Will's point, which you obviously didn't grasp to begin with.