{"id":10354,"date":"2010-06-23T12:54:14","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T19:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10354"},"modified":"2010-06-23T12:54:14","modified_gmt":"2010-06-23T19:54:14","slug":"the-jake-baker-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10354","title":{"rendered":"The Jake Baker Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard’s story in this post<\/a> reminds me of is the Jake Baker case<\/a>, in which a male student posted an explicit fantasy about raping and murdering a female classmate, and posted the story on Usenet<\/a>, signing his own name. The story also named and described the student Baker fantasized about murdering.<\/p>\n

After Baker’s story was noticed, the authorities searched his computer and found emails he was exchanging with a Canadian man he met online. In the emails, the two men were either planning to work together to carry out their rape\/murder fantasies in real life, or (as Baker claimed) they were role-playing. Or, alternatively, Baker was role-playing but the man he was corresponding with was serious).<\/p>\n

Baker was expelled from the university and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but was found not guilty at trial. Several civil liberties organizations objected to Baker’s treatment, saying he had a free speech right to write his stories and exchange emails about fantasies.<\/p>\n

I agreed with Baker’s expulsion.<\/p>\n

1) Publicly posting a rape\/murder fantasy about another student, including her name and description, isn’t behavior that colleges should tolerate. In a very real way, publishing the story was an attack on his fellow student.<\/p>\n

2) It would have been unreasonable to expect the target of Baker’s fantasy to continue attending the same school as Baker; but if she and Baker can’t attend the same school, then Baker, as the one who created the situation, should be the one to go.<\/p>\n

3) The University had to take a risk. If they expelled Jake Baker, they risked expelling a student who actually never would have physically harmed anyone, and was guilty mainly of having horrible fantasies. If they hadn’t expelled Jake Baker, they risked that eventually Baker’s fantasies would have turned into real-world attacks on female students. Given that choice, it’s better to risk expelling Baker than to risk not expelling Baker.<\/p>\n

Since this case took place 15 years ago, it might seem strange to post about it now. It still feels relevant to me because the Jake Baker case was what convinced me to stop being a free speech absolutist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard’s story in this post reminds me of is the Jake Baker case, in which a male student posted an explicit fantasy about raping and murdering a female classmate, and posted the story on Usenet, signing his own name. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}