- George Lawlor, 19, driven out of lectures and bars with shouts of ‘rapist’
- University student questioned the effectiveness of 'consent workshops'
- He now fears for his future at Warwick University after being ostracised
- Mr Lawlor fears the furore will affect his academic work and future career
By Eleanor
Harding: A student has been driven out of lectures and bars with
shouts of ‘rapist’ after he dared to question the effectiveness of ‘consent
workshops’. Second-year George Lawlor, 19, fears for his future at Warwick University after being ostracised and bullied for challenging a student union drive to hold rape awareness sessions.
Writing in a blog, he argued that the overwhelming majority of people ‘don’t have to be taught to not be a rapist’ – and that men inclined to commit the crime would be unlikely to attend such a workshop.
He added that he found his invitation to
one of the sessions ‘incredibly hurtful’.
But in the latest example of politically
correct intolerance in universities, the student faced a fierce backlash from
radical feminists. He was attacked on Twitter and Facebook by student activists
branding him a ‘rapist’ and ‘misogynist’.
Mr Lawlor, who studies politics and
sociology, fears the furore will affect his academic work – and his future
career.
The abuse was so bad that he stopped going
to lectures. He told the Daily Mail: ‘I was expecting a reaction, but I was not
prepared for just how horrible it was. I remember putting it online and told a
few people, who were … saying there would be a backlash.’
In the piece, ‘Why I don’t need consent
lessons’, Mr Lawlor said he ‘loved consent’ but that organisers were ‘pointing
out the obvious’ and ‘thinking they’ve saved the world’ by making men listen to
lectures about rape.
He posed with a sign reading, ‘This is not
what a rapist looks like’, to highlight that most right-thinking people know
where the boundaries are. But he was called ‘classist’ and ‘racist’ by people
who thought he was commenting on what the physical appearance of a ‘typical’
rapist was.
The article was covered on news sites in
the US, all over Europe and in Australia.
Mr Lawlor said Warwick student paper The
Boar ‘got all their writers together to gang up’ on him with two one-sided
articles. Others deleted him as a Facebook contact and sent abusive messages.
He added: ‘In real life, the bus to
university was the worst … I heard people talking to each other saying, “I
really want to hit that kid”. Walking through campus, people would go silent as
I walked past. It was really scary … it got really nasty.’
He said that when he ran in student union
elections, someone wrote on his Facebook page, ‘I want to give this guy minus
one vote’, followed by another user adding, ‘I want to give this guy minus 100
per cent oxygen’.
Mr Lawlor added: ‘There was one guy
messaging me on Facebook for over a week, calling me names like racist, rapist
… I’ve stopped going to lectures and seminars because of the perceived threat.’
He said he was driven out of a bar in
Leamington after some students overheard his friend mention his name. ‘These
six guys just crowded round me and started shouting at me … calling me a
rapist, a misogynist, and threatening me … I had to get out of there,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to play the victim card, but
afterwards I cried.’
Mr Lawlor’s critique of the National Union
of Students’ initiative, published on student news website The Tab, came after
he was invited to an I Heart Consent workshop via Facebook. The sessions are
being rolled out with the aim of enabling students to talk openly about
consent. Oxford and Cambridge have scheduled them into freshers’ timetables and
other universities are running voluntary workshops.
Mr Lawlor suggested his ordeal will have a
chilling effect on other students. He said many had told him they agreed with
the article but were afraid to back him publicly.
‘It’s all part of this no-platforming
agenda, where they try and create “safe spaces” … but no-one ever thought to
question whether I was in a “safe space”,’ he said. ‘People were calling for me
to be expelled. You’re only allowed to talk about certain issues, it seems.’
He added: ‘When you search my name all you
find is my name next to the word “rapist”. If you want to be a doctor or a
lawyer you don’t want to risk having this sort of reputation … so there’s a
fear that stops people talking freely.’
Last week, historian David Starkey was
banned from a promotional video for Cambridge University after student union
officials accused him of having a ‘history of racism and sexism’.
Warwick students’ union recently banned
human rights campaigner Maryam Namazie over fears she might criticise Islam.
Two red-top tabloids are also banned.
GEORGE LAWLOR: I ALREADY KNOW WHAT IS AND
IS NOT CONSENT
An extract from George Lawlor’s blog
following his invitation to a consent workshop.
I LOVE consent … but I still found this
invitation loathsome … a massive, painful, bitchy slap in the face.
To be invited to such a waste of time was
the biggest insult I’ve received in a good few years … It implies I have an
insufficient understanding of what does and does not constitute consent and
that’s incredibly hurtful …
I feel as if I’m taking the ‘wrong’ side
here, but someone has to say it – I don’t have to be taught to not be a rapist.
That much comes naturally to me … as I am sure it does to the overwhelming
majority of people …
Brand me a bigot, a misogynist, a rape
apologist, I don’t care … I already know what is and what isn’t consent. I also
know about those more nuanced situations where consent isn’t immediately
obvious, as any decent, empathetic human being does …
You’d think Russell Group university
students would get that … but apparently the consent teachers don’t have as
high a regard for their peers as I do.
I’m not denying there have been tragic
cases of rape and abuse on campuses … but do you really think the kind of
people who lack empathy, respect and human decency to the point where they’d
violate someone’s body are really going to turn up to a consent lesson? They
won’t …
It will just be an echo chamber of people
pointing out the obvious and others nodding … the whole time thinking that
they’ve saved the world.
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