College Exam Asks: ‘Why Did Monica Lewinsky Have Affair’ With Clinton?

Image by Getty Images
School is hard. There’s homework and pop quizzes and senior theses and sometimes your grade depends on why you think Monica Lewinsky engaged in an extramarital affair with President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Wednesday evening, Twitter user @lacyalexandraaa shared a picture of a college midterm from a class called “Intimate Relationships” (??????) on which one multiple-choice question read “Why might Monica Lewinsk[y] have been willing to engage in an extramarital affair with President Bill Clinton?”
this is an actual question on the midterm i’m taking… @MonicaLewinsky please help pic.twitter.com/36ZhHiEM0q
— ⛈lacy⛈ (@lacyalexandraaa) March 15, 2018
The question offered four explanations for Lewinsky’s actions, one of which was presumably “correct”. Among the answers students were able to select was, “Because her parents argued a lot when she was young, Monica learned that long-term relationships are not worth pursuing.”
There was not, presumably, a question regarding the motivation behind Bill Clinton’s actions, although I suppose we can assume it’s because his father never took him to baseball game.
Although the Twitter user, who says she is a Human Services major, has not yet confirmed which college she attends, a bit of good, old-fashioned Twitter sleuthing suggests the test was distributed at East Tennessee State University.
Lewinsky retweeted the picture with the comment, “I can help you with extra credit, your teacher/professor spell my last name incorrectly: it’s y, not i. Also … weirdest test question ever.”
i can help you with extra credit… your teacher/professor spelled my last name incorrectly: y not i
also… weirdest test question ever. https://t.co/mSTIqI2RJI
— Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) March 15, 2018
The student has not yet received the test results but I’m sure America will be excited to finally know for sure whether Monica Lewinsky engaged in an extramarital affair with Bill Clinton because she was looking for a long-term relationship and thought he might leave Hillary for her or because it gave her access to the most powerful man in the world!
Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Opinion Stephen Miller’s cavalier cruelty misses the whole point of Passover
- 3
Opinion I co-wrote Biden’s antisemitism strategy. Trump is making the threat worse
- 4
Opinion Passover teaches us why Jews should stand with Mahmoud Khalil
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Jews thought Trump wanted to fight antisemitism. Why did he cut all of their grants?
-
Opinion Trump’s followers see a savior, but Jewish historians know a false messiah when they see one
-
Fast Forward Trump administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil for undermining U.S. foreign policy on antisemitism, judge rules
-
Opinion This Passover, let’s retire the word ‘Zionist’ once and for all
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.