Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

Dear colleagues;

In response to today's Boston Globe piece by Joan Vennochi regarding advocacy groups calling for George Will to be fired because he wrote a recent piece about rape as a privilege - I sent in the following:

Dear Editor;

Joan Vennochi is right that anti-rape advocates should not be calling on George Will to be fired, but she's right for the wrong reason.  

George Will should not be fired because he is CORRECT that rape is a privilege on college campuses.

Rape is a privilege whenever law creates structured inequality based on gender - which has been the status quo in higher education for decades and was recently made worse by the enactment of an amendment to the federal Clery Act, known popularly as the Campus SaVE Act.  SaVE allows schools to treat violence against women under worse legal standards compared to violence against all other protected class categories such as race, national origin and religion.

Firing George Will for telling the truth won't change anything, though firing the heads of all the women's and victims groups that supported SaVE could make a real difference so long as they are replaced with people who won't compromise women's safety and equality by remaining silent about an offensive new federal law as a quid pro quo for piddly government grant dollars that enable them to run useless organizations.

Rather than punishing George Will for telling the truth, advocates should explain WHY what he said IS the truth - and why - if SaVE hadn't been enacted, it wouldn't be. 

Wendy Murphy

New England Law|Boston

617-422-7410