Mitchell Langbert, a business professor at Brooklyn College who looks like a cross between Ray Liotta and an angry fermented potato, writes that “If someone did not commit sexual assault in high school, then he is not a member of the male sex.”
The blog post was reposted in a private group for some 5,000 students and alumni.
Some students were outraged. Corrinne Greene said her campus group, Young Progressives of America, wants Langbert fired.
“To have someone in a position of power espousing sexual assault is not a joke. It’s something that needs to be taken seriously,” she said.Brooklyn College Provost Anne Lopes called the comments in the post abhorrent and counter to the values of the school community.
“However, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects even speech that many experience as offensive, such as the faculty member’s post,” she said. Lopes added that officials will plan a forum to discuss the issue.
I’ve reproduced his original post verbatim below, as failing to provide the full context would otherwise invite accusations of context-shifting or (as the case may be) of failing to understand that it is supposed to be “satire.”
Kavanaugh
If someone did not commit sexual assault in high school, then he is not a member of the male sex. The Democrats have discovered that 15-year- olds play spin-the-bottle, and they have jumped on a series of supposed spin-the-bottle crimes during Kavanaugh’s minority, which they characterize as rape, although no one complained or reported any crime for 40 years.
The Democrats have become a party of tutu-wearing pansies, totalitarian sissies who lack virility, a sense of decency, or the masculine judgment that has characterized the greatest civilizations: classical Athens, republican Rome, 18th century Britain, and the 19th century United States. They use anonymity and defamation in their tireless search for coercive power.
The Kavanaugh hearing is a travesty, and if the Republicans are going to allow the sissy party to use this travesty to stop conservatism, then it is time found a new political party. In the future, having committed sexual assault in high school ought to be a prerequisite for all appointments, judicial and political. Those who did not play spin-the-bottle when they were 15 should not be in public life.
Given that Langbert appears to be confessing to sexual assault, why is he still in contact with students? I’m told by libertarian friends that colleges lack due process in such matters. Why not lack it now?
Ah yes: satire. Since publishing the original article, he’s fig-leaved it as a Swiftian allusion. There’s something funny about the panicked public pants-zipping and shirt-tucking—all his blog posts are just like this, of course—especially when you style yourself as a no-nonsense libertarian business don.
Just think, though: he had no inkling that writing this would make him look bad (Tip: sarcasm isn’t satire: it’s embittered sincerity and everyone will know) He had no idea what he was insinuating about himself! When you read of students being coddled by the academic environment, remember who has the power and authority there.
I used Google Images to try and find a higher-resolution version of Langbert’s blog portrait (above). It couldn’t find one, but it knew what he was.
