Caleb Bonham
Campus Reform
March 27, 2014
A “Fat Justice and Feminism” seminar sponsored by Swarthmore College blamed Ronald Reagan for the suffering of fat people and accused the Body mass index (BMI) of having “direct links to a white supremacist.”
The workshop, taught by feminist activist Cora Segal and self-identified “angry, man-hating lesbian,” Nicole Sullivan, took place Thursday and sought to “address the ongoing exploitation and oppression of fat people.”
The Swarthmore Independent reports that Segal and Sullivan took aim at a variety of subjects including President Ronald Reagan, who they claimed “f*cked everything up” for fat people—though the Independent drily reports that “[n]o specific evidence about Reagan’s perverse policies or animosity toward obese people was offered.”
Segal and Sullivan also argued in favor of “communism and socialism as viable alternatives to capitalism and exploitation” and against oppressive healthy eating and exercise programs. The two reportedly went so far as to claim that “every physician is bought off by lobbyists and the diet industry.”