Slate Columnist Compares Oberlin College to Concentration Camp

“‘Like Holocaust Denialism’: Slate Writer Slams Breitbart Over Dunham Investigative Piece,” John Nolte writes at Big Journalism:

Slate writer Amanda Marcotte ripped into Breitbart News over an investigative piece published Thursday that calls into question Lena Dunham’s story of being raped as a 19 year-old by a campus Republican named Barry.

Responding to a tweet from Bloomberg Politics’ Dave Weigel that linked the story, Marcotte tweeted back, “It’s really time for people to understand that rape denialism is like Holocaust denialism: Broad refusal to accept reality.”

As Nolte notes in his original column (read the whole thing), which caused Marcotte’s rant:

For weeks, and to no avail, using phone and email and online searches, Breitbart News was able to verify just one of these details. Like everyone else interested, we immediately found that there indeed was a prominent Republican named Barry who attended Oberlin at the time in question.

Whatever her motives, Dunham is pointing her powerful finger at this man. But as you will read in the details below, the facts do not point back at him. Not even close. This man is by all accounts (including his own) innocent.

In the comments to his link to Nolte’s response at Instapundit, one of Glenn Reynolds’ readers correctly notes, “Rape IS a heinous offense. But so is accusing an innocent person of rape. And the horror of the first crime does not excuse the commission of the second.” Another proposes a new rule: “Anyone who uses the term ‘denier’ is subject to Godwin’s Law.”

Which dovetails well with Iowahawk’s famous quip earlier this year, “If I understand college administrators correctly, colleges are hotbeds of racism and rape that everyone should be able to attend.”

And Slate’s parent company concurs, despite the Holocaust-level horrors happening every day (just ask Rolling Stone) on these alleged modern-day equivalents of concentration camps. Slate.com is owned by the Graham Holdings Company, which is the vestigial business created when the Graham family sold the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos last year. In addition to Slate, its chief remaining business is Kaplan, Inc., which, as Wikipedia notes, “provides higher education programs, professional training courses, test preparation materials and other services for various levels of education.” I wonder if they realize how badly the end service they represent — higher education — is being trashed by a spokesperson for one of their sister companies.

And as Kevin Williamson writes today on “Tribal Affiliation: Cops vs. Teachers,” at NRO, “If you think that it’s a coincidence that so many campus hate-crime hoaxes — including rape-related hoaxes — are targeted at conservatives, or at such purportedly anti-progressive institutions as fraternities, you are not paying attention.”

Of course, today’s culture sometimes puts the revered classics of the past into a sharp new perspective:

So as I understand it, Atticus Finch is now the bad guy in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” because he doubted a story about rape.

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) December 2, 2014

I wonder if Turner Classic Movies will have one of their hosts add a warning before that movie begins next time it’s shown on that channel, given that TCM is a division of Time-Warner-CNN-HBO, which also employs Ms. Dunham.

And finally, speaking of the college campus as concentration camp:

Die In at Univ. of Chicago library. People stepping over & around us to get to library. Real education is here. pic.twitter.com/SAAKNnXUjr

— Susan Thistlethwaite (@sbthistle) December 4, 2014