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    HobbesnblueAnna Merlan
    2/10/15 8:07pm

    I'm sympathetic to their concerns, of course, but "mandatory, twice a semester" "consent education" sounds like a corporate sexual harassment seminar-style nightmare that will breed little but resentment and ridicule from most of those required to attend.

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      meltcaHobbesnblue
      2/10/15 9:21pm

      Unless "consent education" also tells students about their rights and responsibilities and helps them to hold administrators accountable.

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    CrewBabyAnna Merlan
    2/10/15 7:29pm

    Eh. This is my Alma Mater, so I've been following this story closely. I have to say, this almost religious drive to make college an absolutely safe space for absolutely everyone (indicated in the tweet above) is not, I think, a good thing. NO PLACE is absolutely safe and pretending we can make it so is a dangerous farce. College is not your mom and dad, it is not your nanny, it is not your lawmaker and police force. It's a strange hothouse environment where a lot of things go on and a lot of people are struggling to mature and learn in a strange new world, but it is not safe. No one is going to make it safe.

    Do I think Columbia and most other schools should have a better system of rape prevention and systems of response? Absolutely. Do I think students are best served by "MANDATORY, comprehensive, and ongoing education" on the issue? Not really. The students that need it won't pay attention, and the ones who will already talk this talk. I was a double major on scholarship with two jobs, and I was irritated that the Ethnic Studies NOW! protests took over a couple of buildings and got in my damn way, because I had no time and my GPA had to stay up. I can only imagine the nervous breakdown I'd have had if I'd had to sandwich in Consent 101 between my mandatory swim test and finishing up my Art Hum requirement so I could graduate.

    On the other hand, there are worse things to protest about, and if these folks take over buildings, maybe they'll open up the underground tunnels between buildings again. That would be pretty cool.

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      nocuzzlikeyeaCrewBaby
      2/10/15 9:26pm

      I completely disagree with you. Safe space on a college campus doesn't mean "mommy and daddy's house." It means access to education without reasonable fear of being beaten, starved, tortured, lynched, or raped while accessing said education. This is like a bare minimum requirement, and it is vital in such a way that those with privilege to ignore such things take their absence for granted.

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      CrewBabynocuzzlikeyea
      2/11/15 11:00am

      I completely agree, college should ABSOLUTELY be a place where you can learn and have reasonable expectation of not being beaten, starved, lynched, or raped. I think most people go to college now with that expectation. I think most people want the whole world to be a place with that expectation firmly in place. When that expectation does not match reality, though, how you deal with that going forward is what defines you. We don't, currently, deal with it all that well.

      I don't think that consent education is going to fix the problem; if "don't rape" isn't something you've already learned by college, that's already a HUGE problem. I think the schools are struggling to find a way to handle a problem that a lot of high level administrators wish would just go away. Those that are making a good-faith effort to fix the system still need to balance supporting the survivors, considering the rights of the accused, and the educational environment as a whole, and it's a very difficult path to walk, even for the most well-intentioned.

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    Firefly20Anna Merlan
    2/11/15 2:55am

    "Cathy Young's "She's probably just lying"-style journalism." Don't you mean "Cathy Young's "Here is some documentary evidence which directly contradicts statements made by a rape accuser, which have already been found to lack sufficient evidence to act on by both Columbia University and the police"-style journalism? Good to see you show the same unwavering willingness to attack anyone who dares to question an accusation of rape that you did when showing your unqualified support for the UVA rape hoaxer.

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      WV_NYC_2015Anna Merlan
      2/10/15 6:18pm

      These students are doing the right thing. I wish though that there would be more dialogue coming from them, and of course from the school too, acknowledging that there are also complaints of sex assault, attempted sex assault, sexual harassment perpetrated by Columbia University professors and heads of Columbia University departments and centers.

      Maybe there are legal reasons as to why Columbia U Bollinger Administration can NOT do that, but if it's just for public image, public relations reasons, then that is negligent of them, and not just a little bit dangerous.

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