When Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. appeared on television this week to say Donald Trump deserves forgiveness forboasting about groping women, what students at the Christian university heard was ambivalence to “an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America.” And when advocates listened to Trump’s dismissal of his lewd comments as “locker room talk,” they recognized a familiar and “deeply concerning” pattern of denial that perpetuates what has become known as rape culture.
Waves of campus protest over sexual assault in recent years have made millennials more aware of the problem, and those young voters, with whom Trump was already struggling, have been among his most vocal detractors over the last week week. A recent Quinnipiac University pollfound Trump trailing among likely voters aged 18-34, 48% to 27%. That was before multiple women this week accused Trump of kissing or touching them inappropriately without their consent. Trump denied the accusations as “totally and absolutely false” on Thursday.
Taken together, the developments have made for a collision between the presidential election and the conversations percolating on college campuses across the country.
“Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense—taking the name ‘Liberty University’ with him,” a group of Liberty students said in a statement on Wednesday, denouncing Trump and his association with their school. “‘We’re all sinners,’ Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.”
Sofie Karasek, co-founder of the advocacy group End Rape on Campus, said attempts to discredit or intimidate accusers speak to the “culture of fear” surrounding assault. But she said she’s heartened by the cultural shift, especially among young people, toward taking survivors seriously.
“We have really had a quite a number of moments over the past couple of years where we’ve had a conversation about sexual violence that the country really hasn’t seen before,” she said in an interview, referring to high-profile campus activism. “People have started to pay attention to this issue in ways that they haven’t before.”
http://time.com/4530118/donald-trump-locker-room-talk-college/
Waves of campus protest over sexual assault in recent years have made millennials more aware of the problem, and those young voters, with whom Trump was already struggling, have been among his most vocal detractors over the last week week. A recent Quinnipiac University pollfound Trump trailing among likely voters aged 18-34, 48% to 27%. That was before multiple women this week accused Trump of kissing or touching them inappropriately without their consent. Trump denied the accusations as “totally and absolutely false” on Thursday.
Taken together, the developments have made for a collision between the presidential election and the conversations percolating on college campuses across the country.
“Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense—taking the name ‘Liberty University’ with him,” a group of Liberty students said in a statement on Wednesday, denouncing Trump and his association with their school. “‘We’re all sinners,’ Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.”
Sofie Karasek, co-founder of the advocacy group End Rape on Campus, said attempts to discredit or intimidate accusers speak to the “culture of fear” surrounding assault. But she said she’s heartened by the cultural shift, especially among young people, toward taking survivors seriously.
“We have really had a quite a number of moments over the past couple of years where we’ve had a conversation about sexual violence that the country really hasn’t seen before,” she said in an interview, referring to high-profile campus activism. “People have started to pay attention to this issue in ways that they haven’t before.”
http://time.com/4530118/donald-trump-locker-room-talk-college/
