An associate professor working at the Brooklyn College Koppelman School of Business has fallen under major scrutiny amongst both faculty and students alike for his inappropriate comments regarding sexual assault and men that were said in regards to the Brett Kavanaugh scandal that dominated news headlines several months ago.
Mitchell Langbert wrote the blog post on Sept. 27, 2018, in which he called out the Democratic Party as being a “party of tutu-wearing pansies, totalitarian sissies” while their investigation into Brett Kavanaugh’s potential sexual misconduct against Christine Blasey Ford was in full swing, during the controversy surrounding both Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing and his nomination to the Supreme Court.
Langbert continued to write on his blog, arguing that “If someone did not commit sexual assault in high school, then he is not a member of the male sex,” and he followed up this statement by further stating that, “The Democrats have discovered that 15-year-olds play spin-the-bottle, and they have jumped on a series of supposed spin-the-bottle crimes during Kavanaugh’s minority, which they characterize as rape, although no one complained or reported any crime for 40 years.”
Needless to say, many individuals within the campus were outraged, especially when his blog post was reposted to more than 5,000 students and alumni. Many students and other faculty called for his termination from the college, and many others decided to hold a protest on Oct. 4th, displaying signs such as: “Sexual assault doesn’t make you a man” and “Real men don’t rape!” Several hashtags floated around Instagram referencing Brooklyn College and the mass protest, such as #fireprofessorlangbert, as a way of showing support against Langbert for using such inappropriate statements. Langbert, a business professor with 20 years of experience, later clarified that his post was meant to be a parody in regards to the Kavanaugh situation and apologized for the poor choice of words by stating that, “I appreciated that it may have been in bad taste, and I have apologized for that and I will again. I’m sorry people got offended. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings or cause them to not feel respected. I honestly didn’t expect them to read it.”
Many within the college felt otherwise, for example, Corrinne Greene, a representative of the campus group Young Progressives of America, denounced his apology by stating, “To have someone in a position of power espousing sexual assault is not a joke.”
Several officials within the Brooklyn College community also denounced Mitchell Langbert’s blog post and although there had been discussions going on to address the issue with a meeting, Anne Lopes, the Brooklyn College Provost and senior Vice-President for academic affairs did not elaborate on Professor Langbert’s situation. Instead, they stated that “the school protects free speech.”
As of now, Mitchell Langbert still has a faculty page readily available on the Brooklyn College main website, and his blog is also updated frequently, even after his inappropriate attempt at parody shot him into the public eye.
