If you’ve followed our coverage in the past year, you might remember the philosophy department at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the multiple sexual-harassment allegations involving its male faculty in some role.
Allegedly, it’s evidence of rampant misogyny in the philosophy discipline.
Though those claims have been hotly contested in both court and administrative proceedings, there’s a bizarro situation on the other side of the country involving a female philosophy professor.
The facts don’t appear to be in dispute. It’s all about the professor’s rather convenient view of “consent.”
Questioning my approach is ‘hate speech’
A document detailing the sexual relationship between Rutgers-Newark professor Anna Stubblefield and a severely mentally disabled man will be admissible at her sexual assault trial later this year, a judge ruled today.
It’s a story worthy of Jerry Springer, with Stubblefield being put on administrative leave and losing her chairmanship of the department:
The case rests largely on whether D.J. consented to the sexual activity – and a controversial technique championed by Stubblefield, known as “facilitated communication.”
Stubblefield has claimed the technique allows the disabled to communicate with the assistance of a “facilitator,” who helps guide the individual’s hand as it moves over a keyboard or steadies the body so he or she can strike keys.
After meeting D.J. in 2008 through his brother, Stubblefield allegedly worked with him with the technique and brought him along to conferences, where she held him out as a success story, according to a lawsuit filed against her by D.J.’s family.
NJ.com‘s previous reporting goes into the history of Stubblefield’s relationship with D.J. and the disputed practice of “facilitated communication.”
Amazingly, Stubblefield has accused critics of “FC” of practicing hate speech:
“Anti-FC rhetoric functions not as principled scientific debate intended to help humanity in its quest for truth but rather as hate speech intended to silence dissenters, with the result (whether intended or not) of contributing to the ongoing marginalization and oppression within our society of people labeled as intellectually impaired,” she wrote.
The power to define consent
Let’s consider how Stubblefield’s view of consent compares to the allegations at CU-Boulder.
The male philosophy professors are in trouble for allegedly violating boundaries with students during social drinking. You can point to the power differential between professor and student, but ultimately these were consensual relationships, aided by booze. University policy doesn’t even prohibit such relationships, but rather regulates the academic relationship between “amorous” parties.
Stubblefield, by contrast, is making a pretty audacious claim: that under her direction, behind closed doors, a severely mentally disabled man gave his consent for sexual activity. She had all the power in the relationship, and the gall to try to shut down others’ criticism of her activities by accusing them of hate speech.
Ambiguous sexual consent on campus seems largely to spring from poor judgment while drinking and subtle behavioral changes during sex itself. It’s a symptom of the sexual liberation that gripped campuses starting in the 1960s, giving everyone the expectation of mind-blowing, consequence-free coitus in college.
This Rutgers professor is inventing a whole new definition of consent than owes more to communicating with spirits than taking an affirmative-consent seminar.
At least she’s getting the benefit of the criminal justice system and not a “more likely than not” standard of guilt, imposed by the feds.
Greg Piper is an assistant editor at The College Fix. (@GregPiper)
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