A professor at SUNY Geneseo is facing threats for announcing plans to deliver a lecture on the rhetoric surrounding sexual assault awareness. One such threat is a suggestion that someone should sexually assault him.

“I think Dr. Theodore Fuckhead Everett should be assaulted sexually, then see how he feels about it,” reads a blog post requesting signatures for the petition, obtained in an email to Campus Reform.

The target professor, Dr. Theodore Everett, explained in a statement to 13WHAM News that his lecture, titled "Against 'Sexual' 'Assault' 'Awareness,’” “of course” does not mean he is “against sexual assault awareness.”

“That’s precisely why the title has those three words separately in quotes,” he said. “My central concern is that the sexual assault awareness movement counts too many borderline cases, (for example, badgering somebody into letting you give them a kiss) as a true sexual assault ... This diverts attention away from the truly damaging core cases of rape that everybody cares about and toward borderline cases that no one believes are equally important, even though they also should not happen.”

Student Sam White started a petition to the college’s president to condemn the lecture, which attracted 1,690 signatures.

Geneseo President Christopher C. Dahl sent an email to the student body acknowledging the petition, but stating that the college would allow the lecture to take place on Wednesday due to its commitment to “academic freedom.”

“The college’s administration cannot comment on a presentation that has not yet been given,” he added.

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