Actually, I happily would have responded if anyone had actually requested my comment...

All of your contact information is hidden and your old boss doesn’t know your new number! But feel free to respond now; it’s an open forum.

Well, the original resolution that set everything off was, "This house would hold women partially accountable for rape." This is outrageous for fairly straightforward reasons: it blames the victim, it excuses the rapist, it is triggering, it perpetuates rape culture, and it fundamentally misunderstands the act of rape (which is nonconsensual & an act of violence committed sexually, not a sexual act committed violently).

After several people expressed their disapproval the event was cancelled, and subsequently recreated with a new resolution: "This house would hold women partially accountable for rape prevention." This new resolution is not really any better, as it still shifts culpability for the act of violation to the victim.

Now, in debate, both sides have their say and one side wins and the other loses. Presumably the intent was that the proposition in this debate would come off badly and the opposition would win; hopefully the audience would be swayed by this and it would reinforce the agenda of the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign. Unfortunately things do not work out that simply.

Presenting the proposition case and arguments on equal footing with the opposition case and arguments (as happens in debate) validates them, even if they're meant to be blown away. There are a couple of problems with validating these ideas (even if they are held by real people in the real world). First, hearing these things said re-victimizes people who have been the victims of rape and sexual assault - this is a real and tragic harm to real people. Second, people who already believe the arguments on the proposition side (and they are, unfortunately, legion) will be reinforced in their views even if their side loses: confirmation bias takes over - people take away what they want to hear and use it to build up their current position. Additionally, anyone who perceived the intent for proposition to lose would feel that it was an unfair and cheap victory for the opposition side, which totally undermines those arguments.

I appreciate that the intent of those involved was to raise awareness of and combat rape culture, but a debate using the above resolutions would be counterproductive and harmful, and even admirable intentions do not negate the harms of thoughtless action. Rape is not an abstract concept - it is a horrifying reality, all too common in a world steeped in rape culture - so you cannot just treat it on an academic or intellectual level, as if in a vacuum where its only impact is numerical.

The people involved are smart people, but it was ill-advised of them to propose these resolutions. I am really glad that they reacted so quickly to cancel the debates as proposed. Hopefully they will be able to come up with a different topic that is more sensitive to the reality of rape or assist in some other capacity to raise awareness of this issue.

Re: "All of your contact information is hidden and your old boss doesn’t know your new number!"

This does not constitute a "request for comment." Please have some journalistic integrity.

I'm appalled that the ethics of journalism have been trampled on so thoroughly. You should not state blatantly "did not respond to request" when don't try to contact them. Of more concern, however, is that you base an entire story off a screen capture, and do not interview, source out the story, or do anything towards the due diligence as a journalist before posting this for the world to see.

As a journalist, I am outraged.

As a reader, I am horrified.

Is this what has become of our news? Shame on you, and shame on FFWD.

Without knowing the particulars of this case, I won't offer an opinion on the "request for comment" question. But as I see it, the posting on the Facebook page was the comment. This was apparently a public page, and while I know it's easier said than done, anyone who posts on such a page should be aware their comments may be quoted by the media.

Yes, further comment would probably have made this a better story, and it sounds like FFWD sought to obtain that. But I think that if people are going to post on a page like this, it's in their own interest to make themselves easy to contact. Again, I don't know what the particulars were here. But it seems a bit contradictory to me to make a post in a public forum while keeping everything else about yourself private, then complain when you can't be reached for comment.

To clarify, I meant that would seem contradictory if that was in fact the case. I don't know what contact information was available here.

Wow, weird and fierce reaction to something so benign. Yes, the comments form the Facebook page are public and representative of the opposition to the debate. An electronic request for further comment was not responded to in time for the story. Robblee represents one potential source. Appalled? Outraged? Ethics trampled? Um. No.
And no, the entire story, which was short and written on tight deadline, was not based entirely on a screen capture. If you read the story, you will notice that the organizers were interviewed.
I'm genuinely baffled by the reactions here.
I'm curious Jane24, what do you think was left out of this story? Beyond writing a larger piece looking in-depth at the minute details of the effects of this kind of debate, as was articulated quite well by janeinafog, and could not have been accomplished in the space allotted to this story.

I just wish Robblee was not the only one concerned with the heart of the story - public discussions on rape! Is she really the only person more interested in how we talk about sexual assault and whether there are some questions that can't be asked than about the way I phrased a request that she comment here after missing the chance to get her to expand her Facebook comments in the article?