On Thursday Nov. 30, amid allegations of sexual misconduct, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) cut ties with Garrison Keillor, the creator and longtime host of “A Prairie Home Companion” and one of Minnesota and public radio’s most recognizable figures. A St. Paul native and resident, Keillor’s connections to Macalester are both historic and current. Keillor produced…
I spent my winter break thinking. One of the subjects I constantly found myself coming back to was the problem of sexual assault in our nation, specifically on college campuses around the country. I really began diving into this back in October, when footage of the current U.S. president surfaced before the election. In the…
Pornography websites get more visitors than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. One could ask why this statistic is necessary to point out. Well, consider these statistics: nearly one in five women have been assaulted, one in four women have been beaten by an intimate partner, and erectile dysfunction rates have gotten up in the last…
Although “Consent is Mac” t-shirts are ubiquitous on campus, we, the student leaders of the campaign, want to reaffirm the mission and components of the Consent is Mac initiative. We want to acknowledge the foundation of the campaign and what it seeks to establish. The “Consent is Mac” slogan does not imply that consent is…
Karla Benson Rutten, Title IX Coordinator and Director of Equity, and Laura Linder-Scholer, Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator, both exhibit pride for their new positions. These positions were created to, “respond to increasing awareness and concern about the prevention and response to sexual violence and other civil rights on campuses.” Benson Rutten has the job of…
Allie Belyaev ’17 is a self-proclaimed Russian queen. The Seattle native exudes an aura of self-assuredness that is rare in college-aged young people. Her strong opinions and unapologetically sarcastic delivery are refreshing, and her commitment to presenting her authentic self is evident in her personal style. Belyaev is known for her sass, but this facet…
In a recently dropped federal lawsuit, a former Macalester student sued Macalester and the Department of Education for violating his right to due process and failing to provide him reasonable accommodations for his disabilities during an Title IX investigation against him. During his attendance at Macalester, the student was investigated by the college for an alleged case of sexual assault. The student’s appeal for a restraining order against Macalester, which would have prevented them from carrying out his investigation while the suit was pending, was denied, and the student withdrew the lawsuit and withdrew from the school a few days later.
This year all sophomore, junior and senior students are required to complete a 45-minute online module about sexual violence prevention and Title IX, by Jan. 31. All upperclassman students have received an email with the link to the training. “We don’t only do this because it is a federal mandate. We do it because we…
At the end of the Macalester production of In the Blood, the main character Hester is brutally raped on stage. It was shocking. It was provocative. It made you uncomfortable and it made you think—all good things that might have been exactly what you wanted from theatre. Except, perhaps, if you’re a sexual assault survivor….