LAFAYETTE, Indiana, February 12, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Purdue University says it won't fire a staff member who said he would rape a pro-life activist's “wife/daughter/great grandmother” in an online comment thread.
On Thursday morning, Purdue police opened an investigation into Jamie Newman, an accompanist in the Purdue Division of Dance, over comments he made on Twitter and Live Action News (LAN)'s comments section. “Obviously, a threat of rape is outside the bounds of any definition of protected speech,” said the university.
However, according to the Lafayette Journal & Courier, the university said police “did not find sufficient evidence to take action” and that while “the speech was repugnant and inconsistent with Purdue values” and “[w]e don't condone it … at this time no personnel action is intended.”
According to deleted comments from the LAN comments section that were provided to LifeSiteNews, Newman made a number of disparaging comments to people who oppose abortions in all cases. Those comments included at least five discussing raping women related to pro-life advocates.
Several of the comments are republished below:
- Like Mario, she supports letting rapists make babies with their victims. Like you, she'd probably get buzzed by watching as it happens. Every sperm is sacred.
- No, no, no. I'd only rape someone if you were watching, because i know it would turn you on to see a beautiful new baby conceived in real time. Last I checked, you weren't my wife.
- Maybe you'd get a thrill holding her down as I rape her, knowing that the three of us would be engaged in the joyful task of making a baby.
- Oh, I'm sorry. So, let me make my intentions quite explicit: I did in fact offer to rape Tom's wife/daughter/great grandmother. Free of charge, even. I'm generous that way.Here's the number for the West Lafayette Police Department: 765-775-5500. Here's the number for the local FBI office: 765-435-5619. Drop that dime! I could strike at any minute.
- If I'm wrong, then your benevolent god will send me to hell for making a mistake. That's the way he rolls, apparently. I'll deal with it. Thank you for your concern, though.
- My hypothesis is that if your wife, daughter, sister or mother were raped, you'd see to it that any resulting fetus was aborted pronto. Shall we attempt to arrange an experiment that might test my hypothesis?
“He doesn't exactly threaten anyone by name on the Purdue campus,” Students for Life communications director Kristina Hernandez said in a statement. “But you put those two things together – if I was a student on campus, I would totally be watching my back. Because you have no idea who this is. What if this guy carries it out and no one said anything and we saw these comments? … It raised a red flag in the minds of our students.”
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According to the timeline provided by the Journal & Courier, Newman began targeting the Purdue Students for Life's Facebook page after pro-life fliers saying “Hands Up, Don't Abort” – encouraging blacks not to abort children – went up around campus. Newman wrote, “You folks are vile, racist idiots, who richly deserve all the opprobrium that will be heaped on you as a result of this unbelievably thoughtless, stupid escapade.”
Newman's other comments came on February 7 and February 8, below LAN articles on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Newman told the Journal & Courier that his comments were taken out of context, and that claims that he intended to rape someone were “false and defamatory” and “a complete fabrication.”
“As for the idea that I actually threatened to rape some random stranger's wife and children – well, that's also a complete fabrication, but one built on a fragment of a much longer conversation,” Newman said. “You could view the whole conversation over at liveactionnews.org, except they took down my side of it. Makes it so much easier to spin when all relevant context is removed.”
Live Action chief communications director Brian Gottstein told LifeSiteNews that “Live Action News removed comments from user 'jamiegnewman' because they violated our site's terms and conditions related to harassment of other users. We do not tolerate commenters harassing other users on our platforms, irrespective of what side of the abortion issue they fall on.”
When LifeSiteNews called Purdue for comment on the circumstances surrounding Newman's comments and the university's decision to not take action, an operator said “there is no comment” and hung up. Another operator subsequently transferred LifeSiteNews to the media relations department, which did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Newman's Twitter account may have been suspended after his interactions with pro-lifers on that method of social media. Newman did not return a request for comment left on his department's voicemail.
“They can't have someone on the payroll at the university who is publicly talking about raping women,” said Purdue graduate and Students for Life of America (SFLA) regional coordinator Anna Held said. “We're asking that they remove him from his position.”
After Purdue's decision, SFLA said in an e-mail to the Journal & Courier that the decision “is an awful precedent. So employees of Purdue University can go around saying they are going to rape people online, and that's OK with them?”
“My question,” said Hawkins: “Will those on the other side of the abortion issue, those feminists who claim to be for women now speak out and join us to say that rape threats are never tolerable?”
