Steve Landsburg, University Of Rochester Professor, Defends Rush Limbaugh To Students' Outrage

Students at the University of Rochester are upset with a professor who defended radio host Rush Limbaugh for calling Georgetown University Law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and for suggesting Fluke should be required to post a sex tape online if someone else paid for her birth control.

Steve Landsburg, an economics professor at Rochester, said on his blog that Fluke's advocacy for having contraception covered under health insurance "deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered. To treat it with respect would be a travesty."

Landsburg said he disagreed with Limbaugh for calling Fluke a "slut," and suggested it would've been more appropriate to say "prostitute:"

[Limbaugh] wants to brand Ms. Fluke a “slut” because, he says, she’s demanding to be paid for sex. There are two things wrong here. First, the word “slut” connotes (to me at least) precisely the sort of joyous enthusiasm that would render payment superfluous. A far better word might have been “prostitute” (or a five-letter synonym therefor), but that’s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) She will, as I understand it, be having sex whether she gets paid or not. Her demand is to be paid. The right word for that is something much closer to “extortionist”. Or better yet, “extortionist with an overweening sense of entitlement." Is there a single word for that?

But whether or not he chose the right word, what I just don’t get is why the pro-respect crowd is aiming all its fire at Rush. Which is more disrespectful -- his harsh language or Sandra Fluke’s attempt to pick your pocket?

Landsburg continued to write about his disagreement with Fluke's position, calling those who agreed with her "contraception sponges" in one entry.

Outraged by his comments, 30 students protested March 7 by walking into Landsburg's classroom, dressed in black, and passing out a statement summarizing the issue from their perspective. The 30 protesters then stood between the professor and his class while he attempted to teach, and left after about 15 minutes, according to the The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

"We are appalled by how often women and their bodies have been used for political theatrics, and we refuse to remain passive on this issue," Kelly Rickert, a Rochester student who was a part of the protest, told The Huffington Post. "To do so would be to condone the actions of Professor Landsburg."

Landsburg ended up calling security, but the protesting students left without incident. In an email to HuffPost he said, "in their contempt for the free exchange of ideas, they appear to be comrades-in-arms of Sandra Fluke."

University of Rochester President Joel Seligman said Landsburg has the right to express his opinion, but also condemned the professor's comments.

"I am outraged that any professor would demean a student in this fashion," Seligman said in a statement. "To openly ridicule, mock, or jeer a student in this way is about the most offensive thing a professor can do. We are here to educate, to nurture, to inspire, not to engage in character assassination."

Landsburg discussed the requirement for birth control and contraception to be covered under employer-offered health insurance plans as it relates to the prevention of pregnancy. However, he failed to mention what Fluke testified about on Capitol Hill: that oral contraception is often prescribed to prevent cervical and ovarian cancer, and for the treatment of ovarian cysts. He told HuffPost that despite Fluke's testimony on birth control's benefits, such as treating ovarian cysts, "nobody believes that all good things should be subsidized and nobody believes that all good things should be covered by insurance."

"So Fluke's argument was neither an argument for subsidizing contraceptives or for mandating that insurance cover them," Landsburg went on to say. "Toothpaste also has a lot of health benefits, but it does not follow that the law should require insurers to cover the cost of toothpaste."

Landsburg insisted in a statement he sent to several news organizations that his blog posts did a better job at igniting a lively debate than Fluke's testimony to Congress. He pointed to hundreds of comments on his blog in response to his posts.

A group of Rochester students responded in a statement to HuffPost that in their opinion, what is "not up for debate is the use of violent and derogatory terms with regard to women."

Rickert posed the question, "Which is more disruptive to an educational environment in which the majority of students are women: students standing silently or a professor condoning discriminatory, misogynistic discourse?"

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Comments

[mellow yellow]

04:18 PM on 01/12/2013

I suppose he also believes that people who drive cars and expect to be treated in emergency rooms if they get in an accident are extortionists, but saying that wouldn't be quite as popular as making demeaning comments about a woman who had the nerve to say she disagrees with conservatives men.

[HockeyMom]

06:43 PM on 03/20/2012

Come on women, we must demand panels for men to stand before and prove they need Viagra, yes prove they cannot get blood flow without medication. We must make sure they are not using the medication for recreational use but actually need it. Yes a panel and they must stand before the women and prove their need, after a transanal ultrasound of course and glossy pictures and sign lots of papers and get permission from their legal spouse, and explain to the woman that it could be more painful then normal and as she ages her membranes are thinner so this could be dangerous. And if its not for procreation then the whole deal is off. We must shut these men down.

[PerryWhite]

05:20 AM on 03/21/2012

Pregnancy does not result from disease.

[mellow yellow]

04:23 PM on 01/12/2013

pregnancy can however result in death.
and to be fair, I wouldn't exactly call a normal part of aging a "disease"

[mellow yellow]

04:28 PM on 01/12/2013

And one more thing, birth control is also used to treat conditions which are undeniably diseases like ovarian cysts, which is what Sandra Fluke's testimony was about in the first place.

[snaggle2th]

10:24 AM on 03/20/2012

He must be a pretty lousy PROFESSOR of Economics NOT to realize that the insurance companies involved would CERTAINLY understand their risk exposure in having to cover these costs and explicitly include these expected costs in their premiums.

TANSTAAFL in the famous words of Milton Friedman; everything gets paid for, and the insurance companies AREN'T going to lose. They're intermediaries... and will make money regardless.

[elcastle]

10:09 PM on 03/19/2012

nobody believes that all good things should be subsidized and nobody believes that all good things should be covered by insurance."

so let's cut all medication somehow improving our longevity and health....at the end, we don't need any medication and doctors care at all to be covered by medical insurance...or are we going to be cherry picking???? Lets just ignore all the good things medicine has to offer and lets bankrupt insurance business...that will solve all the problems. Seriously????

[Rynchostylus]

07:39 PM on 03/19/2012

This just goes to show any old shlub can get a PhD these days...

[davesf]

03:53 PM on 03/19/2012

This is like those Star articles where a psychiatrist talks smack about someone in very detailed fashion, using words like "obviously" and then there's a disclaimer that they didn't actually treat the person in question. This guy's an a**.

[addisonsteele]

01:19 PM on 03/19/2012

Professor Landsburg does not seem to realize that calling a woman a prostitute, as opposed to a slut, is defamation per se (that is, he is liable for defamation without the need for proof of actual damages).

[VA Jill]

12:56 PM on 03/19/2012

The good (?) professor also apparently didn't listen to Ms. Fluke's testimony. Just like Rush didn't.

[MrsGreebers]

10:36 AM on 03/19/2012

You'd think an economics professor would know that babies cost money.

[enlightened45]

08:03 PM on 03/18/2012

I'll bet the good professor's contract has a very clear stipulation about his relationship with the university, the students, and the public perception of the university. Here's another bet....this guy will not be getting tenure, and if he already has it, will get the .s.....schedules and class loads.

[lilogie]

06:31 PM on 03/18/2012

I'm so sick of men thinking they have the right to label women for medical treatments they decide to use for their body. Every woman does not want a bunch of kids. It's hard enough out here as it is to add more responsibility to themselves. Hell, many men complain about paying child support, we are throwing them in jail now for past due payments, then they can't get a job...some are losing their driver's licenses, all because of not protecting themselves. Now, let's talk about the man who can't get it up and need medical help, does he hesistate to put that bill thru his insurance.....ok, let's not cover birth control, but we damn sure better not cover viagra either....if that's the case ladies' if we stop covering viagra we won't need birth control to prevent pregnancy the men will do it for us

[jayemjay]

04:59 PM on 03/18/2012

What a lot of people don't understand about Fluke's situation is that ALL students at Georgetown University are REQUIRED to purchase insurance through the school unless they can prove that they already have coverage of at least $100,000 per injury or illness. The school insurance costs each student about $2000 per year, yet does not cover some women's most common prescriptions. Fluke has been lobbying the university for that prescription coverage to be included in the policies students are forced to purchase.

Fluke also testified that contraceptives are often prescribed for debilitating and sometimes serious conditions, not just for birth control.

If Fluke is, as Landsburg contends, an extortionist for expecting the insurance she is required to purchase to cover contraceptives, then Georgetown University is an extortionist for requiring her to purchase it in the first place. In any case, Landsburg's accusation that Fluke is trying to "pick your pocket" is absolutely false. Fluke requests no more than that any valid prescriptions, just like Prof. Landsburg's possible Viagra prescription, be covered by insurance.

[russ in ga]

05:42 AM on 03/19/2012

The school covers BC for health reasons. Also this woman knew the insurance policy when she decided to attend .

[Just a passerby]

08:34 AM on 03/19/2012

You didn't actually read her testimony, did you?

[Skagitonian93]

02:55 PM on 03/20/2012

Russ....please stay in Georgia. And keep Karen Handle there, too.

[Upside]

01:37 PM on 03/18/2012

Landsburg in 1996 also wrote a column called, "More sex is safer sex". The guy seems to have made a career out of counter-intuitive data mining. Unfortunately, correlation of data does not imply causation, as most college freshmen discover.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/books/review/Leonhardt.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[isis]

11:33 AM on 03/18/2012

You are young and have to pay for health insurance although you are not likely to be sick. You should at least have a medication covered. Or maybe birth control pill should be over the counter. That would solve this whole debate.

[Shesme]

11:46 AM on 03/18/2012

Sorry, Isis. While I agree that the young and healthy get little benefit from the premiums they pay and might as well have a medication or two covered, there would be no benefit in having hormonal contraception as an over-the-counter medication. There are too many types of it, all having differing proportions of different hormones used to balance or treat various conditions. It's far from the one-size-fits-all medication that is good to have OTC.

[jayemjay]

05:07 PM on 03/18/2012

Yes, as Shesme says, anyone taking oral contraceptives should be monitored by a health professional. The real way to solve this whole debate is to provide a Medicare-for-all buy-in. People would have a choice to buy private insurance or pay premiums to Medicare for insurance that is transportable. Employers would no longer be on the hook for providing expensive healthcare to employees, or have their "morals" insulted by what that insurance covers. Hopefully, with some of that savings employers could afford to increase employee compensation.

[REDSTATEREFUGEE]

10:41 AM on 03/18/2012

There are several dimensions to the Landsburg story, but one of them is rather obvious. The economics professor emphasizes the Benjamins, instead of far more meaningful issues. What must it be like to endure a semester with this man?