Crap Like This Makes All Professors Look Bad

Lara Logan, a CBS correspondent, was brutally beaten and raped by part of the 'freedom loving' protesters in Egypt. 

Logan was with a CBS crew in Tahrir Square last Friday when they were surrounded by, a network statement said, “a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy. In the crush of the mob, [Logan] was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.”

The New York Post reported today that a network source reported that her attackers screamed, "Jew! Jew!" during the assault. A day earlier, Logan told Esquire.com that Egyptian soldiers who had hassled her and her crew accused them of being Israeli spies. Logan is not Jewish.

Nir Rosen, a research fellow at NYU's School of Law, had this  - and more - to say about the attack.

*“Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson. Where was her buddy McCrystal." (That is a reference to CNN journalist Anderson Cooper, and to retired Gen. Stanley Allen McChrystal, who was forced to resign as commander of troops in Afghanistan by President Obama for unflattering comments about administration officials attributed to McChrystal in a Rolling Stone article.)

*“Yes yes its wrong what happened to her. Of course. I don’t support that. But, it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too.”

*“Jesus Christ, at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should at least remember her role as a major war monger”

*“Look, she was probably groped like thousands of other women, which is still wrong, but if it was worse than [sic] I’m sorry.”

To review: He made a joke of a brutal beating and sexual assault; he suggested that perhaps she concocted the sexual attack; he called her a warmonger; he said it would have been funny if Anderson Cooper had been attacked, too.

When the backlash against his disgusting remarks began to build, NYU finally took bold and decisive action.

They allowed the asshole to resign.

New York University’s Center on Law and Security allowed one of its fellows, Nir Rosen, to resign after he tweeted vile things about veteran CBS war correspondent Lara Logan, who sustained a brutal sexual assault and beating in Cairo during pro-democracy celebrations.

Reality TV shows are tougher on the people who don't make the cut than NYU, a supposedly prestigious institution of higher learning, was in reacting to Rosen's vile comments. 

Crap like this tars all universities and all faculty with the same brush. In defense of my colleagues and my profession, I can only say that I have never encountered anyone in academia who is remotely this warped and insensitive. Political and professional disagreements, sure. But nothing like this.

Maybe if Rosen was beaten and gang-raped he'd have a little more empathy...

(Source for much of the material here.)