Hilarious: Oberlin College Choir Responds To Christina Hoff Sommers Controversy
Satirical song: "Please keep me from the real world..."



Here's the original letter to the editor at The Oberlin Review with the feminist freakout about Sommers' visit.

Robby Soave writes at reason:

"It was so over the top--it was pure performance art."

That was feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers' take on the student-activists who prefaced her talk at Oberlin College on Monday with an appeal for anyone who felt unsafe to seek sanctuary in the designated "safe space."

Why would students have had cause to feel unsafe? What was so threatening to their physical and mental well-being? Was there an axe murderer wandering the campus that evening? No, just Sommers--a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute known for expressing classically-liberal, freedom-inclined views on gender issues.

...Sommers thinks at least some of the students who heard her speak were surprised to learn that she wasn't the monster the activists had made her out to be.

"My talk is liberal: pro-women, pro-feminism, pro-social-justice," she said. "I bet a lot of people in that room agreed with me."

But many others were somehow convinced that Sommers' presence was making them unsafe. Ironically, the campus police reached the opposite conclusion: if anyone was unsafe, it was Sommers. Thus, she was given a police escort during her time at Oberlin.

A professor of dance writes in another letter to the editor:

I was appalled by last week's letter to the editor, titled "In Response to Sommers' Talk: A Love Letter to Ourselves" (The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015). Published three days in advance of Christina Hoff Sommers' public lecture at Oberlin, it read in part: "By bringing her to a college campus laden with trauma and sexualized violence and full of victims/survivors, the Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians is choosing to reinforce this climate of denial/blame/ shame that ultimately has real life consequences on the well-being of people who have experienced sexualized violence."

Presumably, the signatories to this letter would have preferred that OCRL rescind their invitation to Ms. Sommers. That -- I'm pleased to report -- did not happen. The sponsors of this event did not surrender to intimidation. But when it comes to words that might offend a victim of rape, nothing Ms. Sommers said Monday evening can compare with the following sentence in last Friday's letter: "Her talk is happening, so let's pull together in the face of this violence and make our own space to support each other." What I find highly objectionable about this statement is its irresponsible use of the word "violence." Anyone who conflates the distinction between constitutionally protected speech and rape or other forms of sexual violence is doing a tremendous disservice to those who have experienced the unspeakable horror of sexual assault.

Sincerely, -Roger Copeland Professor of Theater and Dance