The College Fix

A UTK CR member also faced a bit of doxxing over the situation

The University of Tennessee Knoxville’s College Republicans are fielding backlash from peers and some alumni for mocking the college’s “Consent Is” campaign and calling on students to “wait until marriage.”

The controversy began after the university plugged its orange T-shirts stating “Consent is Required” on the front and “Consent is an active agreement to participate [in sexual activity].”

The student GOP group screenshot the advertisement and responded on Instagram with “these shirts are so gay and libtard coded. WAIT UNTIL MARRIAGE!!!”

Cue the outrage on Reddit: a user shared a screenshot of the controversial post on UTK’s page and called for “action taken against organizations like these that are officially registered yet are actively making the community feel less safe.”

Before Reddit moderators locked the post, more than 200 comments flooded the page expressing outrage and plans to file complaints to Student Life against the College Republicans.

In response to one of the complaints filed against the group, Ciara Gazaway, the program director for the Office of the Dean of Students, said the post is free speech.

“We understand these events elicit a range of emotions and perspectives along with feelings of discomfort. Despite what took place, we continue to encourage respectful discourse and open dialogue,” she said in her email, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily Beacon student newspaper.

“At UT, we champion the principles of free expression, encouraging our students and campus community to openly voice their opinions, whether in support or against various actions or viewpoints. By law, students and student organizations are able to express themselves freely on social media,” she wrote.

UTK College Republicans have not responded to The College Fix’s request for comment.

UTK’s Center for Health and Wellness, or CHEW, advertised the consent t-shirts as part of its campaign to spread “awareness about consent and helping to prevent sexual assault,” according to its website. Students are encouraged to wear the shirts every Tuesday from Feb. 25 to May 6 to support the campaign.

The UTK College Republicans’ original incendiary post, shared Feb. 4, was followed by a few other posts after the backlash, according to screenshots from the group’s Instagram stories published by the Beacon.

The group posted a screenshot of the university’s speech code with a laughing emoji on Feb. 5, and wrote on Feb. 6, “are there any normal straight guys that are offended or is it all just washed women and effeminate men [?]”

They posted another follow-up on Feb. 6 stating “the problem lies not in consent as a concept but consent as a moral replacement to a licit sexual morality, which is the covenant between man and a woman in the sacrament of marriage governed by Jesus Christ.”

UTK’s College Democrats also took to Instagram to share its perspective on the matter. The group posed and smiled in their “Consent Is Required” shirts, and labeled the caption as “look at our cool new shirts! Here at College Dems we know consent is not political … it’s required.”

The post also included an invitation for all to visit the College Democrats’ next meeting.

“We don’t mind if students attend other organizations’ meetings as individuals to learn from them or discuss issues–we even had some Turning Point USA members attend our first College Democrats meeting this semester,” Walker Kinsler, president of College Democrats at UTK, wrote to The College Fix in an email.

The College Dems called the series of posts by the College Republicans “disrespectful and goes against any healthy attempt at open political dialogue.”

“Every single person deserves to be safe from sexual crimes and promotions such as the ‘Consent Is’ campaign spread awareness of such,” Kinsler told The Fix. “Making fun of an anti-rape shirt is beyond acceptable.”

A UTK CR member also faced a bit of doxxing over the situation. One UTK student was temporarily banned from the college Yik Yak, an anonymous social media app, after inviting users to “flood” the Instagram “DMs” of a well-known College Republican on campus, alleging the group promotes rape, according to screenshots reviewed by The Fix.

The UTK College Republicans changed the location of their meeting scheduled for Feb. 6 to avoid any potential conflicts that might arise if upset students decided to crash it. In fact, the Beacon reported that some students had planned to show up in protest, with one calling the change of location “a coward’s move.”

The Center of Education and Wellness, the Student Conduct and Community Services, the Office of the Provost, and FIRE have yet to respond to The College Fix’s request for comment.

UTK has a “green speech code” rating from Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech on college campuses. “Green light institutions are those colleges and universities whose policies nominally protect free speech,” FIRE’s website states.

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