Letter: Rape = Academic Freedom?

"Every woman has a rape fantasy. Every man, deep down ... hates women."

- Robert Crumb, in a speech sponsored by the Modlin Center for the Arts

If you didn't know any better, you might think this unbelievably misogynistic rhetoric was from one of those terrible scenarios you hear about in diversity training, but you would be mistaken. These are actually the long-held sentiments of Robert Crumb, founder of Underground Comix, expressed during an appearance in Richmond on Tuesday night sponsored by the Modlin Center for the Arts.

Crumb was to appear in Richmond to promote his new work called "Genesis," which portrays the first book of the Bible in comic format and boasts a "sexually explicit" warning. If that's not offensive enough, consider this: In 1989, Crumb published an autobiographical compilation of cartoons entitled, "My Troubles with Women." That book features a number of appalling depictions, such as the raping of a little girl, forced oral sex with a woman chained to a desk, and a picture of Crumb sitting on top of a pile of drugged, raped women dressed as a king. Believe it or not, that book made the syllabus as mandatory reading in professor Bertram Ashe's English course titled, "Geeks and Social Misfits in Society."

Certainly Crumb's work has played an influential role in world of comics, but being historic doesn't make it honorable, particularly in a classroom (such as Ashe's) where, by his own admission, it was a "stretch" to include in the curriculum. Comics have traditionally served as a medium through which society is elevated and the good of the human spirit is proclaimed, but Crumb's "artwork" delves into the realm of the subversive merely for the sake of being subversive. Drawing himself raping women isn't the only thing that's gotten Mr. Crumb in trouble, though. Time Magazine's art critic, Robert Hughes, notes that many have lambasted Crumb for work which has been widely seen as racially insensitive. Add to this Crumb's comments both in a documentary about him (also required viewing for Ashe's class) and the "rape fantasies" comment from Tuesday evening and we have a person who single-handedly contradicts many of the values this university claims to hold dear.

After a meeting with Dean Boehman on this issue, I was told that professor Suzanne Jones, the chairwoman of the English department, considered Ashe's decision to a) include the rape scenes on his syllabus and b) make Crumb's speech mandatory, to be a legitimate invocation of academic freedom. This, of course, begs the question - what are the bounds of academic freedom? Is it really permissible for any professor to include anything he or she desires in any class? In almost every other instance of intolerance on this campus, the university community has answered with an emphatic no.

As a man of Richmond College, I know that we go to great lengths to prevent violence against women and create a culture where demeaning attitudes and harassment are not acceptable. The Student Conduct Code defines harassment as the "creation of a hostile or intimidating environment ... that is likely to affect adversely an individual's living conditions on campus." Included in this definition is making "offensive jokes or unwelcome innuendos." This leads me to believe that if I drew pictures of rape or proclaimed that women have "rape fantasies," and posted this around campus, I would be in violation of the University's Conduct Code and (rightly) subject to sanctions. I fail to see how university officials' decision to invite Crumb, force students to view his drawings of rape and make attendance at his speech mandatory is any different, except that they did it under the guise of academic freedom.

If we truly believe what we so ardently advocate in our talk, I expect the university to walk the walk and publicly apologize for the invitation it extended to Crumb and for the faculty members who made his speech mandatory. I would also hope that the Modlin Center would stop honoring Crumb and remove their display of his artwork. In response to the misogynistic e-mail from a Kappa Sigma member last year, Steve Bisese, vice president for student development, wrote: "This is a serious incident and signals the need for a broader campus discourse on issues of misogyny and gender stereotyping. We will be working with students to foster important conversations about gender, respect and standards of personal conduct."

Crumb has depicted only in pictures what that e-mail said in words, and I hope for an equally forceful and impassioned response. If we are to be taken seriously when we speak as an institution, we cannot retreat when things become uncomfortable and our principles are challenged.

The cartoons by Crumb mentioned in this article are too inappropriate to put in print. If you would like to see examples of Crumb's work, use the following links or simply google "Robert Crumb."

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/arts/2005/03/08/crumb8.jpg

http://www.avclub.com/assets/images/articles/article/2399/crumb_jpg_300x1000_q85.jpg

http://www.spankingblog.com/spanking-pictures/robert-crumb-spanking.gif