Hugging is Out of Bounds at UNC?
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has released a new list of examples of sexual harassment so broad that they infringe upon free speech and possibly even hugging.
Peter McClelland of Carolina Review Daily reports.
UNC Bans Hugs
Those who went to the filming of the Stossel Show at UNC heard a representative of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) discuss the speech codes at our University. UNC has the rare dishonor of being put BACK in the “Red Light” zone. For more on that, you can go here, but the purpose of this post is to address the sexual harassment part of FIRE’s complaints about the University.
The Dean of Students has a list of examples of “sexual harassment” (or “sexual harasment” as they call it). According to this list the University considers you to be sexually harassing another student if you “explicitly or implicitly” ask for sex. Obviously if you do NOT do that before having sex, it is rape.
Also, the list names “sexually explicit jokes” (which is free speech, and quite widespread at UNC in my experience) and ”Physical interference with or restiction of an individual’s movements” (which is so broadly worded that a hug could arguably be banned) as examples of sexual harassment. I’m fairly certain that the vast majority of Carolina students engage in any combination of consentual sex, jokes involving sex, and hugging. These students could potentially have their lives completely ruined were these restrictions fully enforced because in the digital age, “punished for sexual harassment” will follow and plague an individual for the rest of his or her life.
The University therefore has a responsibility to its students to answer FIRE’s criticisms and craft new policy that gives those who are legitimately being sexually harassed recourse, but that does not so grossly over-generalize and overreach on these issues to the point of making them a punchline.
Comments
4. Inappropriate exposure to sexually oriented graffiti, pictures, posters, cartoons, or other such materials
Such as the Vagina Monologues?
5. Physical interference with or restriction of an individual’s movements
Mandatory attendance at feminist indoctination sessions.
8. Insistent invitations for dates
Endless importunities to attend feminist “sensitivity” sessions.
9. Quid pro quo
If you support the feminist line in class, then you will get a good grade. If you don’t, then you won’t.
10. Being told intimate stories of marital problems/sexual exploits
Such as endless stories that “prove” that men are rapists.
11. Course Material, Classroom instruction, classroom environment, instructor that condones or promotes sexual harrassment
Virtually all “women’s studies” materials qualify.
12. Inappropriate questions about your dates or your sexual partners.
Many “sexual harassment” programs expect men to publicly confess their sexist sins, in Maoist criticism/self-criticism style.
Look a lot of perverts walk into men and women they are attractive to; a lot hit them with something they are carrying; a lot pretend to accidently brush their arm on someone’s back or buttocks. Interfering with someone’s movement is a huge problem actually.
These codes are put in place to allow the Administration a) appear to take sexual harassment seriously and b) be as broad as possible so as to allow the administration to take action on any sort of fact pattern as needed.
These reasons are not necessarily illegitimate. When I lived in NYC, many of my female friends would get groped by “incidental” contact. I read somewhere the NY legislature is trying to find a way to criminalize this sort of behavior.
I’m not sure this sort of unwanted touching is as big a problem at a college party as it is on a subway. Sex is pretty rampant on most campi (at least it was when I was in college–I’m sure that has not changed) and these guidelines are ignored and even derided by consenting students.
I find it pretty sad that we need these codes because there are so many people who do not know how to treat others with respect.
These sorts of codes go too far, but there need to be measures to protect women from sexual predators. It’s a simple fact of biology that men are more likely to be over aggressive and more physically able to impose themselves.
The whole issue was summed up well by Chris Rock: “If Clarence Thomas had looked like Denzel Washington, no one would ever have heard of Anita Hill.”
“The Dean of Students has a list of examples of ‘sexual harassment’…”
UNC has taken down that web page. Isn’t that interesting? 🙂