Rutgers pres sends Eisgruber a weak-ass pseudo-apology for vandalism
Entertains the idea that maybe someone besides RU drew red dicks on our statues
The president of Rutgers has sent President Eisgruber an email apologizing for the acts of vandalism that occurred on Princeton’s campus last week—just without actually admitting that his school did it.
President Robert Barchi wrote: “Both of us know of the long history of student mischief between our institutions. While we at Rutgers are happy to enjoy a friendly rivalry with Princeton, we do not condone the childish and lawbreaking behavior of whoever did this to your campus.”
He even offered to send Rutgers students to help assist with the cleanup process, but added that he would be “deeply embarrassed and diminished” if he were to learn that Rutgers was responsible for the graffiti.
Come on, man.
If it was Rutgers? “Whoever did this”!?
This shit has been going on for literally hundreds of years. The idea that this could have been anyone but Rutgers is laughable.
“Fuck Penn State” and a giant dick in red spray paint?
I can guarantee there is no other academic institution in America clever enough to have engineered this masterpiece. Even if we all woke up with amnesia tomorrow and forgot about your school’s embarrassingly long history of painting stupid shit on our campus, the unparalleled juvenility of this artwork makes it an unmistakable Rutgers ploy.
Barchi’s I’m-sorry-but-only-if-it-was-us half apology is classic.
It’s kind of like when OJ Simpson released his novel/hypothetical diary/definitely-not-confession entitled, “If I Did It.”
Meanwhile, the offer to make his students come clean up the mess they may or may not have made feels a lot like that time the New England Patriots fired two equipment managers for their involvement in the #deflategate scandal—while maintaining that there was no #deflategate scandal.
The saddest part of this whole thing though, is that it’s not the first time Barchi has had to cough up an embarrassing apology on behalf of his barbarian undergrads.
In 2014, he had to write a letter to Penn State’s president after his students showed up to a football game rocking t-shirts and signs that mocked the Sandusky pedophilia scandal—a solid three years after the case broke.
Their paraphilia bore the phrase “Ped State” and graphically depicted children being abused.
Barchi even had to say sorry on behalf of his athletic director, Julie Hermann, who made a joke in a staff meeting about Rutgers fundraisers “reaching out and touching the donors” but not “in a Sandusky way.”
Princeton has cleaned up the cannon and the tiger statues for the umpteenth time this century, but there are certain things you can never truly wash away.
Stay classy, Rutgers.