Rank that a 1

Last Wednesday, some students were enraged when The Odyssey, “a weekly lifestyle newspaper focused on the greek community at Indiana University,” published a column titled “Rating Girls” by Yale Reardon.

Reardon’s right to free speech is not being contested. However, The Odyssey’s decision to run the article demonstrates an ineffective, or perhaps absent, editing process, as well as inadequate writing skills and poor taste on the author’s part.

Almost every sentence in “Rating Girls” is littered with spelling and grammatical errors, and Reardon’s choice of words does not meet the standards of the average college senior’s vocabulary.

In terms of substance, the article’s content is suspiciously similar to the rating system in Tucker Max’s “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.” In addition to its lack of creativity, Reardon’s rant is nothing more than a redundant stream of shabbily constructed sentences.

Numbers one through five all lament the existence of “fat” and “ugly” women, and numbers six through 10 simply describe the progression of average-looking women to good-looking ones who don’t need a personality.

Although the publication, like the Indiana Daily Student, does not receive any funding from IU, the fact that it has the University’s name stamped under its title requires a certain level of journalistic integrity and a responsibility to represent IU in a professional manner.

Evan Burns, CEO of Olympia Media Group, defends the article because of its placement in the paper’s “humor” section. Rating handicapped individuals and amputees, or women “with a missing limb” as an automatic “1” is a far cry from what most educated adults consider humorous.

Burns described the column as “a satire-based article on pop culture’s characterization of women.” Judging from the language and content of this article, it’s doubtful that Reardon was actually mocking men who rate women in this manner instead of expressing his personal views.

Perhaps taking a cue from Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart would help Reardon achieve his alleged goal of satire the next time. This column did nothing to help break down stereotypes about greek life and the men and women who participate in it.

Stating that, “one of my favorite things to do with my friends is to argue about what number a girl is” hardly represents your community in a respectable manner. It only solidifies the idea that greek life is based on sex, partying and degrading others.

It should be noted that The Odyssey has removed the column from its archives following the backlash the article received from the IU community and beyond. In addition, it removed two unnamed writers from the staff.

If The Odyssey wishes to represent IU in a positive light and be seen as a reputable newspaper, it must implement a legitimate editing process and encourage an intellectual basis for each article rather than sensationalism looking to score a few cheap laughs.