At UC Berkeley: He called Me A Fucking Cunt
by Steed Dropout
March, 24, 2016
By Any Means Necessary. Photo by Ted Friedman.Her face turned red, as we conferred on the Caffe Mediterraneum mezzanine, a few years ago.
She had been caressed, hugged, and pressed, without consent, by her professor, whom she assisted. Only I couldn’t write about it.
She said she didn’t want her name “dragged through the mud.”
I appealed to her altruism and argued she could do some good for others if she would come forward.
All the while, I was thinking what a big fish I had on the line—one of the all-time top men in his field.
Why would he do it is complicated, but it trickles down to: he could get away with it. He thought he could get away with it, because dalliances–often given a winking french pronunciation–with students always seemed a faculty perquisite.
Moreover, administrators, possibly embarrassed, were unlikely to take disciplinary action, especially against academic heroes at Cal, which was a player in the 60s free sex movement that may have green-lighted some Cal professors’ panty raids.
Still, the old boy network (supported by like-minded female academics) was making small changes, like mandatory training to curb faculty-student sexual harassment.
Now, the whole steaming Cal sex cauldron has boiled over, as one sex-scandal after another rocks UC Berkeley. Add to this, date rapes and other sex crimes among the student body.
Enter a fearless group named By Any Means Necessary. By any means necessary may include naming alleged rapists, as they did recently at Sproul Plaza, with a small band of supporters.
Recent rape protest. Photo by Ted Friedman.Whether BAMN’s named rapist was a felon or a convenient target is less important than the significance of what may be a turning point in student’s willingness to go public over sexual assaults.
AT THE ANTI-RAPE DEMO
He raped me and called me 'a fucking cunt.' Photo by Ted Friedman.“My name is Stephanie Nicole Garcia. This is me in the poster (shows poster). I was raped…[pause] and he called me [angrily] a fucking cunt.” She repeated it, as if it were worse than the anguish of the alleged rape.
It was not long after this little demo that the university acted swiftly in two sex-scandals.
ABUSERS AS LOSERS
Perhaps the last chapter of the university’s sexual misadventures will be writ by Cal linguist, Robin Lakoff, who dismissed academic pervs as weakling losers.
“Sexual Harassment Isn’t Sexy,” according to Lakoff, who called sex-harassing profs, losers who sought sexual attention they failed to get in high school.
I wish my friend were around (she’s since graduated) to see this shift in Cal policies and attitudes.
I would benefit, too. with my big fish-perp on the line.
Addendum: the ‘big fish’ was not Stanley Fish, Distinguished Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School in New York City, although Fish, a satirist of academic mores, might want to feed on this.
More photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/berkboy/
