I had a truly interesting conversation with some students at Ohio State the other day, on the topic of standing for justice on campus.

It’s fairly non-controversial to advocate for victims, especially anonymous ones, especially ones far, far away—Uganda, for example.

It’s a lot less popular to judge against perpetrators, especially if they are wrapped in the shimmering robes of enlightened, avant-garde wisdom.

The case in point: one student talked of an art class, in which one (male) student repeatedly showed works depicting women in sexually submissive and degraded positions. He was never challenged, even by the self-proclaimed feminists in class, who were working on awareness issues for domestic violence.

The (female) student telling this story was the only one, and when she brought it up toward the end of the semester, she got no support from her fellow students.

As we discussed the situation, we came to the sense that Christians are in a peculiar situation on campus: the dominant campus narratives of Christian Puritanism militate against an effective Christian stance against gendered violence, as long as there’s even a whiff of eroticism in the latter. This is because there are no ears to hear a case for gendered justice when voiced by parties already known as anti-sex.

Can this possibly be true? Are our campuses so locked into a logic of license, that we cannot hear critiques from some who may be in a position to bring courageous action to bear on a destructive environment?