It’s the end of August and college football is in the air!!! At my house, we are getting fired up for our two UM’s: I am a proud University of Miami alum and a die-hard Miami Hurricane, and my boyfriend Blair bleeds maize and blue for his Michigan Wolverines. As I was reading, researching, and acquiring stats for this weekend’s Michigan V. Bama game, I came across a t-shirt that completely shocked, horrified and angered me – – –
The t-shirt above is being worn and sold around the Ohio State University campus. I understand that there is a long-standing rivalry between the University of Michigan and Ohio State, but this t-shirt absolutely crosses the line. There is nothing remotely funny about children being raped and abused, and this shirt inappropriately makes light of a situation that the victims and the Penn State community are trying to heal from. It is just appalling to me that the people responsible for this shirt, and those who have purchased it, think joking about child sexual abuse is acceptable under any circumstances.
Gayle Saunders, OSU Assistant Vice President of Media Relations, wrote in an e-mail: “This is not a university-sanctioned t-shirt, and we have no knowledge of where it originated.”
Well, I am just not satisfied with that response. I think that it is the University’s responsibility to ban the shirts from campus and do much more to denounce this tasteless, disturbing and despicable display.
Shame on you OSU.
I urge everyone who reads my blog and all of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers to comment on how this shirt makes you feel so that we may continue this dialogue. We owe it to the victims of the Penn State scandal, and the 42 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America, to take things like this seriously and change our culture’s view on CSA.
Sincerely,
Lauren
