Eckerd College’s student body just got a reality check in the form of a very patronizing email from its president.
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On Sunday, President Donald Eastman III sent an email to both students and faculty concerning Eckerd’s recent efforts at minimizing sexual assault on campus.
Speaking as if rape is merely the result of intoxication, Eckerd wrote,
And you know that these incidents are almost always preceded by consumption, often heavy consumption, of alcohol, often by everyone involved in them.
Eastman continued with a set of potential solutions to the problem. According to him, rape and assault are the results of less than “virtuous” behavior, which includes partying and sex.
He continued,
You can do your part in helping this College and this culture address this nexus of problems by doing two relatively simple things:
1. By limiting your own consumption of alcohol, and encouraging your friends to do the same. Socrates included wine at his Symposium, but he did not get drunk.
2. You can be thoughtful about the dramatic and often negative psychological effects that sexual activity without commitment can have. Virtue in the area of sexuality is its own reward, and has been held in high esteem in Western Culture for millennia because those who are virtuous are happier as well as healthier. No one’s culture or character or understanding is improved by casual sex, and the physical and psychological risks to both genders are profound.
Eckerd students aren’t pleased with Eastman’s victim-blaming and assumption that casual sex causes rape. There’s even a petition demanding Eastman readdress the issue.
The president has yet to issue a statement on the controversy, but Twitter has plenty to say.
by Emily Arata
This post originally appeared at Elite Daily. reprinted with permission.
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Emily Arata is a Staff Writer raised in the Twin Cities. She graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx and previously wrote for First We Feast. She writes about the unlikely ways in which millennials connect with one another.
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Photo: M31/Flickr