And she’s from West Virginia, no less: Katelyn Campbell. Been a long tiring week around here, so I’m gonna steal Stefan BC’s brilliant Wonkette summary:
… It all started when the good folks at George Washington High School decided to address this rampant problem of teen sluttery by having a guest speaker come in to yell at their students about their whorish ways. No for reals the speaker, Pam Stenzel… decided that the best way to get her message across to these kids requires a healthy dose of apoplectic misogyny with a sprinkling of utter bullshit:
At GW’s assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” She also asserted that condoms aren’t safe, and every instance of sexual contact will lead to a sexually transmitted infection…
Katelyn Campbell, a senior at the school and the student body vice president, took the initiative on her own to make sure that future classes aren’t subjected to that level of derp:
Campbell refused to attend the assembly, which was funded by a conservative religious organization called “Believe in West Virginia” and advertised with fliers that proclaimed “God’s plan for sexual purity.” Instead, she filed a complaint with the ACLU and began to speak out about her objections to this type of school-sponsored event. Campbell called Stenzel’s presentation “slut shaming” and said that it made many students uncomfortable.
Well the school’s principal, George Aulenbacher, was none too pleased that Campbell exposed his decision allowing a puritanical crazy person from one of those sham pregnancy crisis centers onto campus for the sole purpose of stigmatizing sexually active young women…
Aulenbacher threatened to call Wellesley College, where Campbell has been accepted to study in the fall, after she spoke to the press about her objections to the assembly. According to Campbell, her principal said, “How would you feel if I called your college and told them what bad character you have and what a backstabber you are?”…
More at the link. That’s right, fellow hedonist pagans, SooperJenius Aulenbacher labors under the delusion that Wellesley College wants its students to be properly submissive to God-given authority figures, and also no backstabbers. I just hope I’m around (she said piusly) when Secretary of State Campbell testifies about the Mars-Benghazi incident in 2061…
Joey Maloney
The best part is Wellesley’s tweet linking to the news story and welcoming Campbell to the class of 2017.
2liberal
Wellesley College @Wellesley 17 Apr
Katelyn Campbell, #Wellesley is excited to welcome you this fall. http://bit.ly/13jqRet
Joey Maloney
Tweet here, in Gawker’s writeup.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Yeah, read about her on Thursday, she’s got a great future ahead for her.
The prophet Nostradumbass
On another subject, where’d “Ben Franklin” go?
RobNYNY1957
A bold and brave woman.
Groucho48
You go, grrl!!!
LesGS
Well done, Ms Campbell. It’s young folk like you that give me hope that humans just might make it through the next few decades. Hope we haven’t made it impossible for your own children to have a chance at being just as awesome.
Debbie(aussie)
A bit of an of question regarding so metre always Ames me mobile , am on iPhone, rather go to full site, can some one help pls, thanks in advance.
This is most certainly a woman with a future, you go girl!
Wildweasels
That’s 2059 not 2061, get your facts straight. And it has something to do with water…
c u n d gulag
Sometimes, I’m just SOOOOOOOOOO proud of our young people!!!
Sly
Nevermind the intimidation; putting a whackjob Liar for Christ like Pam Stenzel up in front of a group of kids to lecture them about human reproduction ought to be a fireable offense:
And I’m sure this piece of shit informed the students that their physical and psychological well-being was irrelevant because her Best Friend in the Sky is a puritanical sadist that’ll roast them for eternity, given her stern support of “telling kids the truth.”
raven
Atta girl!
mai naem
I saw this story earlier this week and I was surprised one of the BJ front pagers didn’t link to it, being that it’s been just such a slow news week.
OT, there was a 6+ earthquake in China. Same area where an earthquake in 09 killed 90K. I cannot wait till the end of today. What an awful week.
low-tech cyclist
As I was reading, I was thinking, “I bet she’s exactly the sort of person Wellesley wants in its student body.” I’m glad to see they’ve already said so themselves.
What a terrific young woman, and what an asshat of a principal.
Kay
It’s good that they all picked up on the “loud” and “screaming at them.”
There’s a cherished idea among conservatives that screaming at kids is really, really effective.
Everytime I’ve ever watched one of these presentations, whether it’s screaming at them on sex, or grades, or staying out of jail I’ve
felt as if the adult was out of control. As if i
t’s ABOUT the adult’s frustration and anger.
low-tech cyclist
@mai naem:
I think The Onion said it best:
JPL
@raven: How did the bride sleep?
Linda Featheringill
@raven:
How’s the bride?
Darkrose
I absolutely love the idea of this asshat trying to threaten her and in the process revealing that he’s a complete and utter moron. “I’m going to tell the people of the incredibly liberal college known for turning out educated, independent, accomplished women that you think for yourself! Take that!”
J.
Wellesley could use a gal like Katelyn.
–Back-stabbing Wellesley alum of bad character
CarolDuhart2
@Darkrose: Is this guy smart enough to be a Principal? Imagine, telling a young girl that he’s going to call a big famous college and thinking that they will do anything other than hang up.
And he’s a moron for even thinking about a speaker like this. Think about it: no medical degree, no counseling degree, no practical experience on such a sensitive subject, and she’s a mandatory epeaker for young impressionable kids?
And he no doubt sends transcripts all over the country for Seniors going to college, and he hasn’t heard about Wellesley? It’s like not hearing about Harvard or Yale or Berkley. Where did he get his degree, and are we sure it wasn’t from a diploma mill? If it wasn’t the school should revoke his-he clearly hasn’t earned his.
chopper
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
it’s a conspiracy.
chopper
LOL. “how would you feel if I called up Wellesley and told them that you were an uppity liberal woman who stands up for herself?? huh?”
Baud
I’ll never understand why people think a practice used by long married couples would work for post-pubescent teenagers.
Ash Can
Hats off to Katelyn Campbell for turning out to be such a fine student despite attending an evidently shitty high school. I hope she continues to excel, at Wellesley and beyond, and that the asshat principal is hounded out of hIs job and never allowed to forget this.
Baud
Too bad George Aulenbacher’s mama didn’t practice abstinence only.
gelfling545
God’s plan, eh? You know I find it really difficult to accept the notion an omnipotent, omniscient deity who creates humans with interesting interactive parts and a strong drive to use them in a variety of creative ways but doesn’t really want them to use them. If it’s strictly about reproduction it could have made humans like bedbugs where the female only needs to mate once & is perpetually pregnant for its whole life cycle. Yeah, I know, garden of Eden, fruit of the tree, etc. but that looks like a pretty big slip up in production too.
Todd
@Sly:
Talibornagain.
Black Onion
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
My guess is he was struck by lightning.
Todd
@Baud:
I see what you did there.
In other words, abstinence occurs naturally once the bride consumes her wedding cake…
arguingwithsignposts
I’m sure it was an error. The principal probably thought the school was named after famous Methodist preacher John Wellesley. /snark
Baud
Hey, cut Aulenbacher some slack. At least he realized that woman are permitted to get a college education these days.
JPL
Alexandra Petri has a good article about the Boy Scout’s new ruling about gays. link
Don’t bother with the comments because they were approved by Pam Stenzel.
qwerty42
The Campbell story got picked up on Jezebel, which reports back this distressing news for the principal:
Unfortunately for Aulenbacher, Wellesley College appears to not give a shit — having recently posted to their Facebook page and Twitter: “Katelyn Campbell, Wellesley is excited to welcome you this fall.”
Honus
I’m kind of surprised that this happened at GW high school. GW is not in some rural depressed area; it’s in South Hills, the most affluent area of Charleston, the state capitol. The student body there consists largely of the children of doctors, lawyers, college professors and other professionals. Kind of hard to believe they have a principal that would book a fundamentalist speaker, and also threaten an honor student.
OTOH, South Hills has the highest concentration of “Friends of Coal” bumper stickers and license plates (yes, we have these, they’re solid black) in the country. Stenzel’s visit was probably set up by some Bush supporter/coal operator resident.
WereBear
My first reaction was, “No wonder Wellesley accepted her.”
Dolly Llama
@Sgaile-beairt: They must’ve honored your request, because I’m not seeing it. But now I am intrigued …
DankNuggets_420weed_guy
i have something i’d like to talk about today
Ken
My favorite bit is the principal calling her a “backstabber”, as part of a threat to go behind her back to Wellesley. Also, “backstabber” implies a previous alliance, or some other loyalty – was he really expecting that?
NotMax
First, piously.
Second, why aim so low? President Campbell works, too.
Check that. By 2061, she’d be around 65. Make that retired President Campbell.
Although the way this century has played out thus far, it is looking more and more as if “I wish you a life in politics” is the new “May you live in interesting times.”
the Conster
Wellesley College is two miles from my house. I’m so glad I live in civilization – I don’t know how people live amongst so many fucktards.
Schlemizel
I was in Southern Louisiana on Highway 61 in 1994 & stopped at a gas station in some tiny town. A mom walked in with her teen aged son in tow “Well, thats it! He’s expelled!”
TL;DR version
Class valedictorian, accepted at one of the ivys. At the senior party the night before graduation the Principal sidles up to him and says “If you think you are getting a diploma you better get a hair cut”, the kid had collar length hair. He refused.
I often wonder how the kid made out.
Matt McIrvin
One of my Facebook friends said “it’s like threatening to tell MIT that you’re really into Star Trek.”
Mike E
@the Conster: )-;
NotMax
@Schlemizel
One can hope that, with some of the proceeds from the lawsuit, he bought the gas station.
Baud
Now she’ll never be able to transfer from Wellesley to Liberty University.
aimai
@Sgaile-beairt:
I believe people don’t think he was exaggerating what really happened but rather that he made all that shit up. It happens somewhere, sure, but did it happen to him?
SiubhanDuinne
@Dolly Llama:
@Sgaile-beairt:
Funny, I still see it and was so intrigued (albeit puzzled by the non sequitur) that I looked up Drabek-Chritton. Jeez, what a horror.
Schlemizel
@NotMax:
I was thinking more like the mortgage on the principals house!
There are far too many petty thugs in the education system. Those people who care more about control over kids than education of kids. They make the whole profession look bad.
When I started high school I had a good principal who did a great job but he was replaced in my senior year with a bloated clown who insisted he be referred to as DOCTOR because he had a PhD. I knew him from outside school and always took some joy in always calling him Mr. When he corrected me I would ask him for medical advice – yeah I was a smart ass
Schlemizel
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
IS there a reason you are asking? Did I miss something? Stuff always happens here, new announced, major explosions, when I’m not around.
I feel like Admiral Stockdale most days!
grandpa john
@Sly: Well she had on e thing right, one day she will answer to God, but I doubt that she will like the answer.
kindness
Morning all.
Happy 4 20. You know the drill.
stinger
@CarolDuhart2: Oh, he had no intention of actually calling her college. He’s just a BULLY. And should be removed from his position immediately, for a number of reasons.
Baud
@grandpa john:
“And then Jesus snapped his fingers, and they were gone.”
aimai
Well, I clicked the link on Drabek-Chritton and it was about what I expected, but I followed the links to their “defense fund” page and lo and behold what do I find but this:
This is why the far right/talebangelicals are not wrong to argue that “the family” is under attack by the feminists and the social workers and the government. Their definition of “the family” does not include rights and autonomy for children. Anything that breaks into that magic circle of control is, by definition, the enemy.
Pontiac
I went to that high school – lived within walking distance, close enough to go home for lunch. I graduated in 1994, and when I got my PhD in 2004 I called out the education I got at that school in my thesis acknowledgements.
Boy, it’s gone downhill. I might write some letters.
aimai
@stinger:
I wish all the best colleges would take out a full page ad in the local newspaper saying
“We welcome applications from free thinking, mature, progressive students and we hope that you consider coming to our schools. Regardless of what your local authorities may tell you there is a wide, wonderful, world out there of opportunity, education, and growth. Don’t let these people scare you or keep you back.”
grandpa john
@Honus:
well he may not be principal much longer as she is getting the ACLU involved and they intend to take this to the school boards next meeting
aimai
@grandpa john:
One more thing on this subject: follow the money. These free lance scolds are not doing this for free. You can bet your boots that he raided money that was either Bush Era “faith based,” or “abstinence” based or other non earmarked funds and if he isn’t getting a kickback from her I’d be very surprised. He must be very frightened that this will all come out if he resorted to trying to personalize this and attack her directly.
dr. bloor
@grandpa john:
You’re right. He’ll be promoted to Superintendent in no time.
grandpa john
@Baud: should be future tense will snap.
Baud
@grandpa john:
I’d also like to see a broader push back against abstinence only. I bet most parents think it’s merely encouraging kids not to have sex, rather than the more sinister messages that are apparently being delivered to children.
Baud
@grandpa john:
I will suck.
lojasmo
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
squid cloud of butthurt.
grandpa john
@dr. bloor: Well, since this is WV you could well be right.
Elizabelle
I hope we have more Katelyn Campbells in our Jackie Robinson world than Pam Stenzels in a Pam Gellar dystopia.
Interesting items from the West Virginia Gazette, which covered Katelyn’s story.
Op ed by Adri Duarte, who graduated from Katelyn’s high school and now studies sociology at Rice University.
Sex Culture Makes Abstinence Difficult
Horrible headline, but Adri takes on the double standard of permissible boy behavior vs. what girls are taught, and how teens need information so they can make the best choices for themselves.
Adri brings up an online essay, Un-Memorizing the Silence is Sexy Date script, which was fascinating for (a) being written by a lesbian on a LGBT blog and (b) applying really well to hetero relationships as well.
It’s about putting young women — or any person, really — in a position to say “yes” rather than having to say “no” constantly. On supporting and strengthening an individual’s freedom while experimenting with what life and adulthood bring. And having your boundaries respected.
SO: If George Washington High School has produced some thoughtful young women like Katelyn and Adri — and their ideas get out to their colleagues, as the internet permits — it’s got some wiggle room for being administered by a fool like Principal Aulenbacher.
Schlemizel
From your lips to His noodley appendages!
Honus
@grandpa john: I’m not sure the ACLU has a lot of juice in South Hills or with the Kanawha County School board. But they might get some traction with upscale parents that won’t like a principal that threatens to sabotage their kid’s admission to college.
CarolDuhart2
@stinger: Yes, he’s a bully. And a stupid one too. But he may have pantomined a call just to get her upset and afraid that she would lose her education.
As it would have probably happened in the 1970’s pre-internet, when too many kids had to go by what just the people in their community said about something. Unless they ran into someone who believed differently.
aimai. Yes this is Shrub-based grift squared. To pay off his fundamentalist backers, he allowed government payoff to the most backward and grifting folks available. Think of this as the faith-based version of the steal-anything-that-wasn’t nailed down policies in Iraq. $4-6k for a school assembly? Woman, I was old enough to remember when folks came for free or for a free lunch afterwards. It was considered near graft to ask for any money besides gas money to speak to high school or grade school kids. Talking to them was you pay back for all of the good things you got.
It’s also the blinders of those folks as well that they still are at it in the age of Twitter, Google, and explicit
You-Tube videos that say something different. I mean, you really have to be completely blind and arrogant to think that just because you say awful stuff and come from out of town, those kids would believe you.
Hunter
@Baud: She did. That’s how well it works.
Honus
@grandpa john: Not so fast there. As the saying goes, “Hell yes we have (toothbrushes, shoes, literature) This ain’t Kentucky.”
@Elizabelle:
Katelyn is not without antecedents. Ann Magnuson and Jennifer Garner are also GW alumni.
Villago Delenda Est
@gelfling545:
You’re applying critical thinking to the topic.
This is a sign that you’re an agent of Satan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
Tragic, that is.
low-tech cyclist
@Schlemizel:
“Where do you want this expulsion done?”
Sgaile-beairt
@Dolly Llama: tis a horrible home schooling family abuse case mentioned on patheos, drabek-chritton family made the eldest daughter/stepdaughter a slave, worse than cinderella, starved beaten forced to drink urine eat garbage & kept in a moldy dungeon — and let the oldest son molest her & he was also a known molester from years before…
eventually the girl escaped & was rescued by a passing driver, you might remember the news articles??she weighed less than 70 lbs as a teenager….neighbors had tried to report it turned out but the state kept finding nothing too wrong EVEN THO THEY KNEW SON WAS A MOLESTER, said just keep him away from her….unbelievably messed up, even the defense lawyer cldnt stomach it after a bit, ((either tha t or too many people were calling him out for calling her a liar) see here:
http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/Madison_Police_Investigation_Case_of_Significant_Child_Abuse_139305473.html
Sgaile-beairt
@aimai: well when the book first came out that was what people were saying around here, it cldnt be real bc nobody wld do that to their own kid….only what the drabek-chritton family did was all that & then some….
stinger
@CarolDuhart2: When I was in high school, 1970-ish, we had a “speaker” at one assembly, talking about the evils of drugs and sex. He was meant to be cool and appealing, despite the negativity of his message, as he was young and strolled around the basketball court strumming an electric guitar while he talked. Was I the only one who noticed that the song he was strumming was “Good Day Sunshine”? (“And then we lie beneath the shady tree, I love her and she’s lovin’ me”) Didn’t they think we’d know the lyrics? Or that the Beatles probably weren’t the best representation of an anti-drug/anti-sex message?
Hal
Stenzel and Christine O’Donnell should merge into one pure being and travel the country slut shaming every kid who dares to have the evil sex. There is something so pathetic about grown ass adults so paranoid about the human body.
Dead Ernest
@low-tech cyclist:
“Where do you want this expulsion done?”
Beautiful, just f’in beautiful.
Hat’s off to stellar caliber cleverness.
CarolDuhart2
@stinger: They probably thought they were trying to “save” us. Epistemic Closure started that long ago and is inevitable with Fundies trying to be hip and to stay fundie. The statement is that a fundie should stay away from the “corrupting” influence of mass media. But if they do that, there’s no way to be relevant to your audience. So they came up with Pat Boone. Who was then roundly mocked by the real rock and rollers and dismissed by everybody else because they saw his
We had an anti-abortion speaker at our school who pretended to be a folk singer. It didn’t work. I remained both Protestant and pro-choice. And I bet a lot of my Catholic classmates still used birth control and was also pro-choice.Pretending to be hip doesn’t change the underlying message, or change the underlying realities under the whole thing about pregnancy and childrearing.
Origuy
@CarolDuhart2:
Someone on another site said that authoritarian types tend to think that other people in authority think likc they do.
trollhattan
@Dead Ernest:
Yup, I award twenty quatloos.
burnspbesq
Wellesley should give this young lady Hillary Clinton’s old dorm room.
Nutella
@CarolDuhart2:
Principal Bully’s web page gives his education as
Education and Honors:
WVSU – 1998
MUGC – 2003/2005
Doesn’t say whether he graduated or not!
J
@Nutella: If those are the years he was in school as a student, wouldn’t that make him a ridiculously young principal, with next to know classroom experience?
MsInformed
@2liberal: Noice.
Michael C
@Kay: It IS about the adult’s anger and frustration. That’s what “conservatism” is.
ruemara
@aimai: hmm. For the longest, I did all the chores in the house. I also could not eat at the dinner table with the family. I was not invited to family events, except if my mother would pay for me. My grades were checked regularly, my brothers were not. My brothers could get a license, I could not. I couldn’t eat any cereal but the generic corn flakes not the name brand. Same with bologna vs good stuff like roasted turkey. When you’re a step, sometimes things are fine and sometimes, you’re made to feel very unwelcome. I’m thankful that beyond head games and destroying stuff; I didn’t go through what that girl went through. But I believe it more than most because I lived it and no one ever believed me.
Pontiac
Anyway, folks, I graduated from that high school in 1994. Never got the sense that it was like that then. Larry Lohan was the principal, seemed to do a good job to me. It was a senior high school, that is 10-12 at the time, which if it’s true today sorta sets note on the story: it’s not like they’re talking to 15 year olds there; this is 16-18 for the most part.
From what I hear, Pete Corbett (who was a crazy dude, the phys ed teacher, and again I suppose he was right wing politically but so was I when I was in high school…) became vice principal sometime in the late 90s and maybe that was the start of the trend toward crackpottery.