Satire is a traditional preserve of campus newspapers, but in a sensitive day and age, even student journalists are increasingly being accused of overstepping their bounds.
Over the past few weeks, the Daily Princetonian was slammed for a decidedly racist joke-piece on overachieving Asian-American students, and the Dartmouth Review castigated for a “scalping Indian” cover. The most recent offense has come from Central Connecticut State University’s student newspaper the Recorder, which was barraged with withering criticism after publishing John Petroski’s op-ed essay “Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It” in their Feb. 7 issue.
The latter piece, which purports to comment on sensationalism in modern news media, describes rape as a “magical experience that benefits society as a whole.” According to the Hartford Courant, many students felt Petroski’s essay reinforced misogynistic stereotypes. The American Association of College Women reports that 20 to 25 per cent of women will be raped during their college career.
While the paper’s Editor-in-Chief Mark Rowan defended Petroski as a “bold satirist whose message fell on deaf ears,” the essay failed to appeal to many students and campus leaders, who argued it belittled and worsened the suffering of rape victims.
The controversial piece drew strong negative reactions from CCSU students, with public protests forming outside the newspaper’s office calling for the resignation of Petroski as Opinion Editor and Rowan as Editor-in-Chief. An official statement issued by Connecticut State president Jack Miller condemned the article as abhorrent and “a clear violation of responsible journalism and the community standards of this institution,” but did defend Petroski’s right to freedom of speech.
On Feb. 11, an emergency board meeting of the newspaper’s staff voted to strip Petroski of his position as Opinion Editor, but a motion to suspend him as a contributor failed, leaving him able to continue writing for the Recorder in the future.
Professor Russell Brown, supervisor of studies for English at University of Toronto Scarborough, remarked that Petroski’s article made it difficult to determine intent until the final paragraph, while many students would have stopped reading earlier in disgust or confusion over poor arguments and offensive remarks.
“Simply, it’s poorly done. With good satire like Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, there is at least an underlying feeling of being impossible in seriousness, and here there was none of that ’till far too late.”
