Education

With logo feminist says intimidates women and empowers rape culture, UConn sweeps NCAAs

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The men’s and women’s basketball teams at the University of Connecticut pulled off quite a feat this week: They both won their respective NCAA Division I basketball tournaments. This impressive deed has been accomplished just once before in history (at the University of Connecticut in 2004).

Why did UConn win it all – twice in a couple days – this year? Obviously, the cause was the school’s new logo: A terrifying, vicious, red-tongued Husky dog that replaced the school’s cuter, grey tongue-wagging Husky dog.

The new logo was unveiled last April to mixed-to-negative reviews.

One student, self-proclaimed feminist Carolyn Luby, harshly criticized the redesigned, meaner logo because, she suggested, it will surely intimidate women and empower rape culture. (RELATED: College’s husky dog logo promotes rape, says student)

UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma had said the logo “is looking right through you and saying, ‘Do not mess with me.’ This is a streamlined, fighting dog, and I cannot wait for it to be on our uniforms and court.”

In her response, presented as an open letter to UConn President Susan Herbst, Luby wrote, “What terrifies me about the admiration of such traits is that I know what it feels like to have a real life Husky look straight through you and to feel powerless, and to wonder if even the administration cannot ‘mess with them.’ And I know I am not alone.”

There were two sexual assaults at UConn involving athletes in the past year, Luby said.

The logo and the teams it represents are menacing, she wrote.

“The face of real life UConn athletics is certainly capable of frightening college women,” Luby explained, signing her open letter with the closing “In solidarity.”

Luby’s full letter is still available at the website Change.org.

“Please sign to support Carolyn Luby, a safer UConn, and urge Susan Herbst to step up and be a leader to end rape culture, at UConn and on campuses across the nation,” a corresponding Change.org petition implores.

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