WI White Privilege Conf. Organizer: Rape Isn’t Intrinsically Bad
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the University of Wisconsin System, and the City of Madison have all sponsored a conference at which one organizer flatly declared that rape isn’t intrinsically bad. Video footage obtained by the Education Action Group of the White Privilege Conference held in Madison in March shows an unidentified organizer of the conference declaring that nothing is intrinsically wrong. When asked if that statement applied to rape, she said it did.
The stunning exchange between an investigator and the unidentified organizer went like this:
Investigator: “Would you define discrimination as something intrinsically bad?”
Organizer: “No I wouldn’t say it’s intrinsically bad…As a sociologists, I think context means everything, history and context, and in some contexts I think some things are appropriate and other contexts…”
Investigator: “Rape isn’t intrinsically bad?”
Organizer: “It’s not.”
Media Trackers first exposed the City of Madison’s financial support of the White Privilege Conference, and the MacIver Institute has discovered that both the University of Wisconsin System and the state Department of Public Instruction spent money on the conference.
According to the City of Madison’s Lucia Nunez, who leads the Department of Civil Rights, $1,500 in City money was used to help sponsor the conference. Additionally, at least one city employee was loaned to event organizers to help put together the conference.
Using the government transparency website OpenBook.WI.gov, the MacIver Institute found that the UW System spent $18,157.50 sponsoring the White Privilege Conference. The DPI spent $2,070 on the event.
The shocking comment about rape was not the only controversial statement made by event organizers or speakers. One speaker, according to the MacIver Institute declared, “There has been a longitudinal study that finds the longer you are in the Tea Party, the more racist you become.”
Tags: City of Madison, DPI, Education Action Group, MacIver Institute, UW System, White Privilage Conference