It’s no secret that Barnard’s very own President Rosenbury has been the subject (read: creator) of quite a few scandals. Faithful to her stifling approach to governance, her approach to free speech in years past at the University of Florida and currently at Barnard College has frequently landed her in controversy surrounding student and faculty expression.
How does she handle critics’ complaints? She opens up Etsy.
Rosenbury detailed, “About a year ago, I was chatting with my bestie, Katrina, about how we can best stop political discourse around campus without getting criticized for it. She then brought up this lady with a tongue piercing and orange hair online, who sells protection spells for “a reasonable price.” Clicking on a bookmarked tab labeled “uh oh! i did something bad,” an Etsy listing popped up for a “Same Day Extreme Protection & Cleansing” spell. The page defaulted to the “Quantity: 25” option.
In addition to the occasional spell, Rosenbury frequently spends 10 minutes before bed writing and reciting affirmations. If she is receiving an especially large amount of hate, as gauged by the number of screenshots of her emails and articles uploaded to Sidechat, she takes the extra precaution of placing each affirmation under her pillow at night. “It helps the affirmations speak to my subconscious mind,” Rosenbury explained.
When asked the total cost of the spells, she shrugged the question off, appearing unconcerned. “It’s on the college’s dime. Why do you think Barnard went into millions of dollars of debt a year ago? The aftermath of that ‘vote of no confidence’ probably cost, like, tens of thousands of dollars worth of spells.” She navigated to another Etsy tab. “Fortunately, I found this listing, ‘Spell to Attract Money,’ a few days ago. The worst it could do is knock the debt up a couple of bucks, but honestly, anything is worth a try at this point.”
