The recent controversy over an opinion article and a sex column published in The News-Letter September 16 has garnered a variety of student reactions and has fueled new conversations between students and administrators.
Some students, including members of the Feminist Alliance, believed the article and column to be highly offensive and misogynistic toward female students at the University.
In an e-mail to The News-Letter, the Feminist Alliance explained a petition they have launched calling for the resignation of one of the writers, Greg Sgammato, from the editorial board and semester-long writing suspensions for both Sgammato and Javier Avitia, the other writer. As of last week, the petition had around 150 signatures, according to Yelena Tsilker, the president of the Feminist Alliance.
“Actions have consequences. The published word has consequences. In this case, both of these authors hurt and outraged significant portions of our campus and beyond. Avitia failed in his duty as a writer for the News-Letter, and Sgammato failed at both ends of the publication process—as writer and as Managing Editor. We find it absurd that neither Avitia nor Sgammato have been held accountable for their highly offensive and inappropriate errors,” their petition read.
Other student groups have also had strong reactions to the articles, including the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA), who are sponsoring a “Hopkins Against Hate” event this coming Friday partly in response to the controversy. Hurting other people and making them self-conscious about themselves is a form of bullying, DSAGA President Connie Calderon explained.
“The articles were absolutely offensive to women,” Calderon said. “There are such double standards between men and women…To have someone write this article that objectifies women and puts up a standard that women have to look a certain way and be a certain way…it’s really completely ridiculous.”
The articles have also sparked discussion about the treatment of women at the University in general. Last week, Dean of Student Life Susan Boswell held two student meetings to talk about proposals for assessing the environment for women on campus. Representatives from the Feminist Alliance and Hopkins’ Sexual Assault Response Unit (SARU) attended the meetings, as well as other undergraduate and graduate students interested in the discussion.
“I think we are using this as is an opportunity to move forward with many initiatives on many fronts that will really not only examine the climate for women but see what we can put in place to address it,” Boswell said.
“There have been several status of women reports done at the University beginning in 1985, and I think that one of the things that is really important is to revisit all of the things that were put forward in these various reports as a way to really assess where we’ve come and what we haven’t done.”
Other students, including co-leader of SARU Linda Song, were more shocked than angered by the articles.
“We were really surprised and we were really shocked that something like this would have been published in the school newspaper,” Song said. “ ‘Banging Under the Influence’ was very sensitive to the issues that could happen, while he did bring up some of the maybe positives, there were a lot of negatives that he completely forgot to mention that we just thought were necessary as part of this article that was supposed to be a balanced piece.”
Some students, however, did not have as strong a reaction to the articles.
“I think it could have been more clear that the articles were satire, but I was completely satisfied with an apology from The News-Letter,” Junior Kristian Johnson said.
“It was something that shouldn’t have happened or been published, but I don’t think the News-Letter should bow down to any pressure about having their editors step down. It was something that was probably spur of the moment and funny at the time. It was a silly decision.”
Senior Audrie Chavez agreed that the reaction to the articles seemed overly harsh, especially from the feminist blog, Jezebel, which, in addition to a critique of the articles, posted personal information about the writers.
“I think the article was offensive but I think the reaction from Jezebel was blown way out of proportion,” Audrie said. “I think after the apology they should have just ended it instead of preceding to ostracize the writers.”
Song hopes that the article will bring more attention to women’s issues on campus.
“The articles were probably not published out of malice but more out of ignorance for what happens, so we’d like to see more awareness and more education,” Song said.
