Outraged students are reportedly calling for the ouster of an associate professor of business at Brooklyn College who defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in a "satirical" blog post that argued sexual assault is a rite of passage for young men.
Mitchell Langbert wrote a Sept. 27 commentary mocking Democrats as the "party of tutu-wearing pansies, totalitarian sissies" who have used "anonymity and defamation" to try to take down Kavanaugh amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
"If someone did not commit sexual assault in high school, then he is not a member of the male sex," Langbert wrote in his post. "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."
The argument infuriated some students, including Corrinne Greene of the Young Progressives of America group on campus, who is demanding Langbert's firing, CNN reported.
"To have someone in a position of power espousing sexual assault is not a joke," she told CNN. "It's something that needs to be taken seriously."
Langbert told CNN he was aiming for satire – and missed.
"I was trying to be satirical, but I guess I'm no Jonathan Swift," he told the news outlet. "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."
Brooklyn College Provost Anne Lopes said officials would talk about the issue, but told CNN the college protects free speech.