Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/27/baylor-university-infiltrated.html
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Only if there are two or more in the room.
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I’d say they’d ‘Better Call Saul,’ but even Goodman has some standards…
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When these groups organized on campus to comfort each other and demand action from former chancellor Kenneth Starr
Before anyone asks, yep, it’s that Ken Starr who was complicit in sweeping rapes under the rug at Baylor, he who showed so much “concern” over Bill Clinton’s sexual predation.
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This exemplifies republicans and christian organizations at their core. Vile people who come together under collective names in order to harm people who are vulnerable. They can hide behind their charities and pious words but their actions betray them.
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And lest we forget, he’s also the guy who recently said investigations of Trump are just fishing expeditions.
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For all the damage he’s done (supporting CA Proposition H8, representing Jeffery Epstein, requesting clemency for child molester and family friend Christopher Kloman) and continues to do, he’s just another standard-issue GOP Xtianist hypocrite.
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From the article:
“Ketchum provided reputation management counsel to help Baylor University address the serious issues of sexual violence and student safety,” a Ketchum spokesperson said in a statement. “Our goal is to make meaningful change within the institutions we counsel.”
Whatever Baylor was or was not up to, how does one utter a sentence like that without laughing? How is providing “reputation management counsel” supposed to lead to meaningful change on the issue of how sexual assaults are handled?
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Once a grifter . . .
For a few years, Starr collected three salaries as concurrent dean of the law school, a law professor, and chancellor of Baylor. After the 2015 Title 9 sex discrimination scandal under his chancellorship, he resigned from it and the office of dean to limit his exposure to prosecution.
Far be it from me to mention his cover-up of perjury in the 1993 lawsuit against GM for automobile fuel-tank fires, but a search https://www.google.com/search?q=ken+starr%2C+GM+fuel+tank+fires on “ken starr, GM fuel tank fires” is suggestive.
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Is there any way that the Baylor university administration can be declared a militant cult?
The FBI and BATF could handle the arrest process down there in Waco, TX.
What could possibly go wrong?
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Baptists: “Hold my coke.”
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And there’s also yet another circling of the rich-people-and-institutions wagons, where people who have been wronged are seen as threats to endowments, or whatever. The victims are treated like criminals, while these people think they can pray the guilt away at church.
It always does floor me that people who can be so guilty can be so convinced that when they get to this other side that JC is going to see it their way in terms of being forgiven.
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Why wouldn’t Baylor U simply do an above-board connection with sexual assault support groups to find out areas of concern, what they can do to help prevent further assaults, etc?
I think they all “need servants to help them screw their pants on every morning”.
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I see a great comedy skit there.
I realize I have a different perspective than some others here, but how the hell is the Director of Student Activities a mole? He’s a University administrator with a title. He helped them organize public protests and then had the temerity to tell his bosses that there would be a public protest.
If he hired a student to “infiltrate” (also used in the story) the groups and spy on them, he would be a mole. In this case, he was a guy doing his job, openly. He isn’t a rape counselor with a promise of confidentiality. It says that he would “pretend he was helping them organize vigils and demonstrations [about] sexual assault”. Did he help them organize the vigils or not? I think they would have noticed if their vigils didn’t happen. It doesn’t sound pretend to me.
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Q: How many Baptists does it take to hold a prayer meeting?
A: 2 and a fifth
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From the article:
Burchett helped to arrange demonstrations for survivor groups and passed on what he learned to school officials and the communications department, sources said.
It seems from the allegations in the article that his secondary (if not his primary) purpose was indeed to spy on the activities he helped organise and give the school administration a heads-up on times, dates, talking points, featured speakers, etc. so that the communications dept. and the PR agency they hired could get ahead of potentially embarrassing situations that implicated the school in negligence (as turned out to be the case).
To find it acceptable that someone helping to organise a demonstration against an institution is also concurrently feeding information about it to the authorities in charge of said institution is definitely a “different perspective from some others here”: one that makes excuses for authoritarians and their toadies.
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You know that you’ve found a fine christian institution when their answer to “what can wash away my sins?” is “a team of PR flacks and some covert opposition research”.
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There was a reason why Martin Luther got so upset about the Catholic Church offering “indulgences” for every sin. When a wealthy jerk can just ‘pay a fine’ to get his sins ‘wiped clean in the eyes of the Church’, repeatedly, then the entire concept of ‘forgiveness’ becomes worthless.
As far as I can tell, it’s a fundamental aspect of human psychology that we will sacrifice a lot in pursuit of pleasure. It’s how we get the concept of ‘rock bottom’ in addicts, and even somewhat explains how some people will pleasure themselves to death. One of the most difficult challenges in counseling people who have survived almost dying for their ‘fix’ come from guiding their thoughts into truly walking away from their addictions. That’s a whole school of training and well beyond the scope of this discussion.
So, for here, I’ll just say that the addict who still has something left in his or her life that they value more than their fix is in better shape than the one who worships their addiction, because the former might yet get their life back together if they are ever forced to choose between them. The latter, on the other hand, is in a very real sense ‘lost’, because they have rejected any possibility of changing if it means sacrificing their addiction.
Yeah, so you go to the police dept and ask for a permit for a protest march, and the next thing you know the bastard desk sergeant has told the police that you are organizing a protest march.
It seems from the article that he turned over to the administration information that was freely given to him by the organizers who were fully aware of who he was and in whose employ he was. This is neither infiltration nor is he mole. BTW, he is part of the administration.
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