Purdue staffer who made rape comments resigns

Jamie Newman, the Purdue University staff member facing pressure for online comments about raping a pro-lifer’s female relatives, has resigned.

“Yeah, I just quit. Tell the world,” Newman said in an email to the Lafayette Journal & Courier. Purdue spokeswoman Julie Rosa confirmed the school  accepted his resignation, calling it “the appropriate outcome.”

Live Action News reported over the weekend that Newman told a pro-lifer on this website that, “I did in fact offer to rape Tom’s wife/daughter/great grandmother. Free of charge, even. I’m generous that way” over the course of an online argument over abortions in rape cases. The confrontation follows Facebook comments in which he called Purdue Students for Life “vile, racist idiots,” for campus flyers about abortion’s disproportionate impact on black babies, and encouraged others to do the same.

Purdue attorney Steve Schultz followed up the university’s initial announcement that no action would be taken against him by demanding Newman make a “full apology and explanation from him about the intent of his statement” in order “to cure the harm he’s done.”

Newman responded with a letter claiming that Schultz “should probably be begging my forgiveness – for facilitating the dissemination of fabricated and defamatory statements about me, and for failing to vehemently denounce the effort made of Students for Life to destroy my life and career,” which he claims have resulted in violent threats against him.

On Monday, Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said, “As a group who has experienced threats of violence ourselves, we condemn all threats of violence against anyone for any reason.”

Despite claiming the accusations against him were “fabricated and defamatory,” Newman previously acknowledged that he made the comments in question, merely maintaining that the context mitigated their shocking nature. Screenshots of some of the comments can be seen here.