Amelia McDonell-Parry had a hissy fit over the "We-Consent" app that aims “to encourage discussion about affirmative consent between mutual partners” by recording a 20 second video of consent being given/received.
First, McDonnell-Parry rolls her eyes over the fact that the creator of this app was a "dude." Because, presumably, "dudes" have nothing positive to contribute to the public discourse when it comes interactions between men and women. The only voices that count are those of Amelia McDonell-Parry and other members of the sexual grievance lobby.
Second, McDonell-Parry notes that these apps are "icky" (a grown-up term, no?) and unnecessary because they were "created in support of the false narrative which says that women lie about being raped all the time, and thus men need to be protected from bogus accusations. Nothing could be further from the truth." She insists that False rape accusations "are exceedingly rare."
Let's pause and review the facts as opposed to the sexual grievance lobby's talking points. (To quote McDonnell-Parry, let’s cut the shit, dude.) Wanna use numbers, McDonnell-Parry? Okay, let's use numbers. Consider a survey that the sexual grievance industry relies on. Here's how it comes down: 15.6 of rape reports can reliably be classified as false, just 7.8 percent of rape reports can be classified as true. Or how about this--again, using surveys the sexual grievance lobby relies on: an economist proved their one-in-five stat is way too high. Not his opinion--he used their own numbers. Scary, isn't it? But, I mean, if you want to use numbers, we can use numbers, too.
Third, McDonnell-Parry tosses out what she, apparently, thinks is a rhetorical question. "Seriously, people, specifically DUDES, is it really so hard to know for sure if the person you’re having sex with wants to be there?"
Okay, again, let's look at the facts. A new Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation survey reveals that a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. So, McDonnell-Parry, if 44 percent of all college women think their nod in agreement does not signal consent, then, yes, I'd say it really might be that hard to know for sure if she wants to "be there."
Further, feminist Brett Sokolow, the leader of the campus sexual grievance industry, last year wrote that "in a lot of these cases [involving accusations of sexual assault], the campus is holding the male accountable in spite of the evidence – or the lack thereof – because they think they are supposed to . . .." And: "We see complainants who genuinely believe they have been assaulted, despite overwhelming proof that it did not happen." Read it again--"overwhelming proof." Sokolow added that he sees "case-after-case" where "sincere victims . . . believe something has happened to them that evidence shows absolutely did not . . . ." He suggested mental health issues play an important factor in these false accusations. It's easy to have misunderstandings in the bedroom when one party concocts rape out of whole cloth.
Further, the National Institute of Justice has said that when it comes to rape surveys, some people don't give accurate survey answers, but it also noted the possibility that men and women may have different perceptions of the same incident. Of course, that doesn't matter to the sexual grievance lobby. The "yes means yes" movement thinks that "consent is to be determined from the perspective of the complainant." To hell with men's perceptions.
As for McDonnell-Parry's insistence that the new app is unnecessary in this era of affirmative consent, the co-author of California's affirmative consent bill in the state assembly, Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, was asked how an innocent person is supposed to prove consent. She said this: “Your guess is as good as mine." Nice.
But McDonnell-Parry doesn't bother with any of those facts. Nevertheless, she is correct about this: the app cannot guard against someone changing her mind after she's given consent. Let's consider the reality: if a trier of fact sees a woman giving clear consent via this app, it's going to be pretty damn difficult to convict the guy of rape for something that happened later that night. Prosecutors likely won't even bother with cases like that--and, no, that's not necessarily a good thing. The goal here is not to "get away" with rape, it's to protect those who are legitimately innocent. The second worst enemy of the wrongly accused (after their accusers) are sociopaths who rape--they diminish the credibility of every guy accused of rape. It's in everyone's interest to get them off the streets.
On the flip side, if enough college kids started using this strange app, when a hapless college boy who failed to use it is wrongly accused of rape, the fact that he didn't use it might be cited as proof that there was no consent. That, too, is not a good thing.
I scarcely think I need to defend this blog's credentials when it comes to concern for the wrongly accused, but the new consent app strikes me as a barometer of a sad hook-up culture where drunken barnyard rutting has displaced the staid, time-honored rituals of courtship and delayed gratification. I wouldn't say the app is "icky," perhaps "distasteful" is more appropriate.
This app is a lot of things I don't like, but please don't try to tell me that misunderstandings in the bedroom are not a serious concern, or that the men of the hook-up culture have no need to worry about proving consent, because they do. So what's the solution? We need to come up with better ways to protect the innocent or else we're going to see more and more things like this app, as "icky" and as distasteful as they might be.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
California court's decision rips off an ugly scab and reveals how colleges mistreat their male students
Any male student thinking of attending the University of California, San Diego--not to mention the more than 12,000 undergraduate male students currently enrolled there--needs to read the chilling judicial decision handed down last week by Judge Joel M. Pressman of the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego. It can be found here. Sadly, although the decision is about just one case involving just one university, most universities are guilty of the same things that happened here.
In the instant case, a 20-year old male student sought relief in court after a University disciplinary proceeding found him responsible for sexual assault. The court didn't just grant the relief, it made it clear that the male student was treated egregiously by his own university.
Judge Pressman said that the disciplinary panel that decided the male student's case, and the procedures used by the school, were outright "unfair" to the male student. In fact, the Judge used the term "unfair," "unfairly" or "unfairness" seven times in his short opinion to describe the University's treatment of the male student.
The hearing was rife with procedural irregularities that prevented the male student from defending himself. Before mentioning them, it is well to note that the court held the evidence did not support the panel's conclusion that a sexual assault occurred:
Not only did the panel allow this statement to be read, the panel actually relied on Dalcourt's report in deciding that the male student was guilty.
The problem was that Ms. Dalcourt did not testify--the University didn't even bother to bring her to the hearing. The male student on trial had no opportunity to cross examine her. Beyond that, the male student was not even given the purported evidence Dalcourt relied on to reach her conclusion and was, thus, deprived of any opportunity to challenge that evidence--to show it was unreliable or outright wrong. Judge Pressman held that "the hearing did not allow [the male student] any opportunity to refute Ms. Dalcourt's findings."
There is another fundamental problem with the panel's reliance on the Dalcourt report. In a sexual assault proceeding, it is repugnant to due process and all notions of fairness to allow a purported expert to feed the trier of fact the conclusion that a sexual assault was committed. See here. As Judge Pressman explained, "it was the panel's responsibility to determine whether it was more likely than not that petitioner violated the [University's sexual assault] policy and not defer to an investigator who was not even present to testify at the hearing."
Perhaps the most egregious injustice was that the university unfairly limited petitioner's right to cross-examine the primary witness against him, Ms. Roe. The panel screened the male student's questions and refused to ask numerous questions he wanted to pose (the panel did not similarly screen the University's questions). The panel allowed the accuser to unilaterally cut off questions about their consensual relationship after-the-fact, as if such evidence could not possibly shed any light on whether a sexual assault occurred.
The court also held that the accuser should not have been hidden behind a barrier during the hearing--the accused has the right to confront adverse witnesses, and the accuser should not be hidden from the trier of fact given "the importance [of] demeanor and non-verbal communication in order to properly evaluate credibility." This, the court explained, was prejudicial to the male student.
Perhaps the most bizarre, and chilling, aspect of the case is that after the male student was sanctioned, when he filed his appeals (as was his right under the University's policy), the University kept increasing his punishment, without explanation. "Given the lack of rationale by both Dean Mallory and the Council of Provosts for the increased sanctions, it appears the increased sanctions are punitive towards Petitioner for appealing the decision of the Panel."
Read that again: a court in California has ruled that a male student was severely punished by his University for doing nothing more than exercising a right that his University afforded him.
The court also held that the panel made an unfair inference of guilt based on the male student's invocation of his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. The right to remain silent is among our greatest bulwarks against tyranny--this right wasn't designed to shelter the guilty but to protect the innocent. As the Supreme Court has stated, "one of the Fifth Amendment's basic functions is to protect innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances." To punish a male student for invoking it is anathema to fairness.
Judge Pressman's decision isn't some legal outlier, it is wholly consistent with the very serious concerns expressed by many legal scholars, including 16 Penn law professors and 28 Harvard law professors, and many others.
FIRE wrote this about the decision: "The decision in Doe v. UCSD is important because it demonstrates that when courts subject campus proceedings to scrutiny, the ugly truth of their shortcomings is glaring." Insuring fairness in thorny "he said-she said" hearings is difficult even for judges who are trained to do it and who do it regularly. The egregious unfairness in this case illustrates that it is a task that is impossible for amateurs.
I would be surprised if the University doesn't appeal--if Judge Pressman's holding is unchallenged, it will be difficult for the University to explain to its male student population why it treats them unfairly. But Judge Pressman's decision ought to be a wake-up call for all colleges who cavalierly dispense with basic fairness for male students in their sexual assault hearings. The campus sexual assault witch hunt has been driven by a public outcry funded by a wealthy, and overly zealous, sexual grievance industry. Craven politicians who worship at the altar of group identity politics have seized upon it. But Innocence Project guru Mark A Godsey has warned that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases." Judge Pressman's decision fired a shot across the bow of the sexual grievance industry. Let's hope his decision has broader implications.
In the instant case, a 20-year old male student sought relief in court after a University disciplinary proceeding found him responsible for sexual assault. The court didn't just grant the relief, it made it clear that the male student was treated egregiously by his own university.
Judge Pressman said that the disciplinary panel that decided the male student's case, and the procedures used by the school, were outright "unfair" to the male student. In fact, the Judge used the term "unfair," "unfairly" or "unfairness" seven times in his short opinion to describe the University's treatment of the male student.
The hearing was rife with procedural irregularities that prevented the male student from defending himself. Before mentioning them, it is well to note that the court held the evidence did not support the panel's conclusion that a sexual assault occurred:
The hearing was stacked against the accused male student from the outset because of the procedures employed--and they are procedures that could ensnare any male student in the current climate of the academy. The only witness at the hearing was Ms. Roe. Yet, in the closing argument made by the University's representative (a closing argument is not evidence), he was permitted to talk about a report written by someone named Elena Dalcourt of the UCSD Office for the Prevention of Harassment & Discrimination. Dalcourt supposedly conducted an "investigation" of the incident, and the University's representative read from Dalcourt's report in his closing argument: "Based upon the totality of the circumstances and the evidence presented, I find it more likely than not that on February 1, Mr. Doe ignored Ms. Roe's objections to sexual activity in violation of the Student Sex Offense Policy."At the hearing on December 12, 2014, petitioner testified clearly that the allegation of touching on February 1, 2014 was false and did not occur. The only evidence presented in any meaningful way at the hearing was the testimony of Ms. Roe. Ms. Roe stated that petitioner kept 'trying to finger [her] and touch [her] down there.' Also, Ms. Roe did not object to sexual contact per se, and only explained that it was not pleasurable for her at that time.Additionally, Ms. Roe admitted that she voluntarily continued consensual sexual activity with Mr. Doe later that very same day. The Court is not weighing Ms. Roe's credibility. But the incident on the morning of February 1, cannot be viewed in a vacuum. When viewed as part of the entire narrative, the sequence of events do not demonstrate non-consensual behavior. What the evidence does show is Ms. Roe's personal regret for engaging in sexual activity beyond her boundaries. (See AR 20-21) The panel's finding in paragraph 3 illustrates the lack of evidence: "Jane stated that she physically wanted to have sex with Ryan but mentally wouldn't." The record reflects this ambivalence on the part of Ms. Roe. But Ms. Roe's own mental reservations alone cannot be imputed to petitioner, particularly if she is indicating physically she wants to have sex.
Not only did the panel allow this statement to be read, the panel actually relied on Dalcourt's report in deciding that the male student was guilty.
The problem was that Ms. Dalcourt did not testify--the University didn't even bother to bring her to the hearing. The male student on trial had no opportunity to cross examine her. Beyond that, the male student was not even given the purported evidence Dalcourt relied on to reach her conclusion and was, thus, deprived of any opportunity to challenge that evidence--to show it was unreliable or outright wrong. Judge Pressman held that "the hearing did not allow [the male student] any opportunity to refute Ms. Dalcourt's findings."
There is another fundamental problem with the panel's reliance on the Dalcourt report. In a sexual assault proceeding, it is repugnant to due process and all notions of fairness to allow a purported expert to feed the trier of fact the conclusion that a sexual assault was committed. See here. As Judge Pressman explained, "it was the panel's responsibility to determine whether it was more likely than not that petitioner violated the [University's sexual assault] policy and not defer to an investigator who was not even present to testify at the hearing."
Perhaps the most egregious injustice was that the university unfairly limited petitioner's right to cross-examine the primary witness against him, Ms. Roe. The panel screened the male student's questions and refused to ask numerous questions he wanted to pose (the panel did not similarly screen the University's questions). The panel allowed the accuser to unilaterally cut off questions about their consensual relationship after-the-fact, as if such evidence could not possibly shed any light on whether a sexual assault occurred.
The court also held that the accuser should not have been hidden behind a barrier during the hearing--the accused has the right to confront adverse witnesses, and the accuser should not be hidden from the trier of fact given "the importance [of] demeanor and non-verbal communication in order to properly evaluate credibility." This, the court explained, was prejudicial to the male student.
Perhaps the most bizarre, and chilling, aspect of the case is that after the male student was sanctioned, when he filed his appeals (as was his right under the University's policy), the University kept increasing his punishment, without explanation. "Given the lack of rationale by both Dean Mallory and the Council of Provosts for the increased sanctions, it appears the increased sanctions are punitive towards Petitioner for appealing the decision of the Panel."
Read that again: a court in California has ruled that a male student was severely punished by his University for doing nothing more than exercising a right that his University afforded him.
The court also held that the panel made an unfair inference of guilt based on the male student's invocation of his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. The right to remain silent is among our greatest bulwarks against tyranny--this right wasn't designed to shelter the guilty but to protect the innocent. As the Supreme Court has stated, "one of the Fifth Amendment's basic functions is to protect innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances." To punish a male student for invoking it is anathema to fairness.
Judge Pressman's decision isn't some legal outlier, it is wholly consistent with the very serious concerns expressed by many legal scholars, including 16 Penn law professors and 28 Harvard law professors, and many others.
FIRE wrote this about the decision: "The decision in Doe v. UCSD is important because it demonstrates that when courts subject campus proceedings to scrutiny, the ugly truth of their shortcomings is glaring." Insuring fairness in thorny "he said-she said" hearings is difficult even for judges who are trained to do it and who do it regularly. The egregious unfairness in this case illustrates that it is a task that is impossible for amateurs.
I would be surprised if the University doesn't appeal--if Judge Pressman's holding is unchallenged, it will be difficult for the University to explain to its male student population why it treats them unfairly. But Judge Pressman's decision ought to be a wake-up call for all colleges who cavalierly dispense with basic fairness for male students in their sexual assault hearings. The campus sexual assault witch hunt has been driven by a public outcry funded by a wealthy, and overly zealous, sexual grievance industry. Craven politicians who worship at the altar of group identity politics have seized upon it. But Innocence Project guru Mark A Godsey has warned that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases." Judge Pressman's decision fired a shot across the bow of the sexual grievance industry. Let's hope his decision has broader implications.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The claim that only two percent of all rape claims are false is a lie
". . . 15.6 of reports could reliably be determined as false, another 17.9 percent weren't actually crimes and just 1.2 percent (or 2.2 percent) could be reliably determined as true. The remainder would fall into a ''we'll never know for sure' category."
Read the entire article here.
Read the entire article here.
Monday, July 13, 2015
A new app provides evidence of consent between sex partners--and the usual suspects are upset
A new app that records sex partners consenting to the encounter, and thus provides fairly ironclad proof of consent in the event of a rape claim, is being criticized by the usual suspects who are aghast that some men are in fear of being falsely accused.
An organization called the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre slammed the new App for suggesting that that "rape is the result of misunderstanding rather than an attack."
How ridiculous! Rape allegations -- the product of a misunderstanding?! Why, that's rape apology, victim blaming, and misogyny rolled into one!
Except it's not. A new Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation survey contains a very disturbing statistic that has been entirely overlooked in the news about it--a statistic revealing that almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. According to the survey, a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. You'd have to be an ostrich to think that's not recipe for potentially catastrophic misunderstandings.
And consider this. Feminist Brett Sokolow, the guru of the campus sexual grievance industry who has done more to bolster the rights of sexual assault victims on college campuses than anyone, last year wrote that "in a lot of these cases [accusations of sexual assault], the campus is holding the male accountable in spite of the evidence – or the lack thereof – because they think they are supposed to . . .." Note the words "a lot." Sokolow also said this: "We see complainants who genuinely believe they have been assaulted, despite overwhelming proof that it did not happen." Read it again--"overwhelming proof." Sokolow added that he sees "case-after-case" where "sincere victims . . . believe something has happened to them that evidence shows absolutely did not . . . ." Sokolow suggested mental health issues play an important factor in these false accusations. "Case after case." "Overwhelming proof." "A lot." That's not COTWA or some men's rights advocate speaking, that's Brett Sokolow.
And note this. The National Institute of Justice has said that when it comes to rape surveys, some people don't give accurate survey answers, but it also noted the possibility that men and women may have different perceptions of the same incident.
Yet if you express a concern about misunderstandings in the bedroom, you hate women? Seriously?
The new consent app is the product of our sad hook-up culture that strips humanity from the most intimate of human encounters. The absence of genuine emotional intimacy breeds not just rape but false rape claims, and the latter is what prompted this new app. While the new app may be a barometer of a culture where drunken barnyard rutting has displaced the staid, time-honored rituals of courtship and delayed gratification, it is not a barometer of a culture that hates women or that denies rape. That is simply ridiculous.
Instead of attacking those who raise concerns about bedroom misunderstandings, the sexual grievance lobby would do well to spend its resources educating our daughters about consent, about the "regret asymmetry" that separates men and women, and about the horrors of false rape claims.
An organization called the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre slammed the new App for suggesting that that "rape is the result of misunderstanding rather than an attack."
How ridiculous! Rape allegations -- the product of a misunderstanding?! Why, that's rape apology, victim blaming, and misogyny rolled into one!
Except it's not. A new Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation survey contains a very disturbing statistic that has been entirely overlooked in the news about it--a statistic revealing that almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. According to the survey, a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. You'd have to be an ostrich to think that's not recipe for potentially catastrophic misunderstandings.
And consider this. Feminist Brett Sokolow, the guru of the campus sexual grievance industry who has done more to bolster the rights of sexual assault victims on college campuses than anyone, last year wrote that "in a lot of these cases [accusations of sexual assault], the campus is holding the male accountable in spite of the evidence – or the lack thereof – because they think they are supposed to . . .." Note the words "a lot." Sokolow also said this: "We see complainants who genuinely believe they have been assaulted, despite overwhelming proof that it did not happen." Read it again--"overwhelming proof." Sokolow added that he sees "case-after-case" where "sincere victims . . . believe something has happened to them that evidence shows absolutely did not . . . ." Sokolow suggested mental health issues play an important factor in these false accusations. "Case after case." "Overwhelming proof." "A lot." That's not COTWA or some men's rights advocate speaking, that's Brett Sokolow.
And note this. The National Institute of Justice has said that when it comes to rape surveys, some people don't give accurate survey answers, but it also noted the possibility that men and women may have different perceptions of the same incident.
Yet if you express a concern about misunderstandings in the bedroom, you hate women? Seriously?
The new consent app is the product of our sad hook-up culture that strips humanity from the most intimate of human encounters. The absence of genuine emotional intimacy breeds not just rape but false rape claims, and the latter is what prompted this new app. While the new app may be a barometer of a culture where drunken barnyard rutting has displaced the staid, time-honored rituals of courtship and delayed gratification, it is not a barometer of a culture that hates women or that denies rape. That is simply ridiculous.
Instead of attacking those who raise concerns about bedroom misunderstandings, the sexual grievance lobby would do well to spend its resources educating our daughters about consent, about the "regret asymmetry" that separates men and women, and about the horrors of false rape claims.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
The two most shocking things about the "Yes Means Yes" movement
There is much alarm over the "yes means yes" movement, but most people aren't alarmed over the right things. A short tutorial is in order--here are the two most alarming things about the "yes means yes" movement that I've seen:
First: "Consent is to be determined from the perspective of the complainant."
This is astounding, and it appears to be the philosophy underlying or swirling about the entire campus anti-rape crusade. There is a lot of confusion among college women about what constitutes "consent," and I am betting that it's because this outlandish notion has crept into the campus culture. I'll give you an illustration: a new Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation survey contains a disturbing statistic that has been entirely overlooked in the news about it: almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. According to the survey, a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Read it again--it's almost incredible. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. Presumably, the 44 percent think that "consent" is not tied to a woman's words or outward conduct but is premised solely on her subjective beliefs.
Of course, consent is not properly determined from the "perspective of the accuser." Such a standard not only is grossly unjust and unconstitutional, it doesn't work. Consent is not determined based on the subjective state of mind of the complainant but rather her outward manifestations--her words and conduct--as reasonably construed. Note that an accused can't hide behind an unreasonable interpretation of an accuser's words or conduct and thereby transmogrify non-consent into consent. By the same token, a woman who is not incapacitated and who "nods in agreement" to have sex should not be heard to complain later that she didn't consent. Her secret, subjective desires or intentions are of no import if she has outwardly manifested her consent. Period.
The notion that that consent is determined from the "perspective of the accuser" seems to stem from a goofy decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Here's how it's been described:
Second, the "yes means yes" laws would put the burden of proving consent on the accused. This policy flips on its head the long-settled burden of proof and makes the act of love-making -- an act that occurs somewhere in the world countless times every second -- a presumptive offense merely on the basis of an accusation. That is a sea-change in our law.
Not only is shifting the burden of proving consent in rape cases unconstitutional, it is an idea long pushed by extremist victims' advocates. We've been warning about it here for years. Linda Brookover Bourque's Defining Rape said in 1989 that the ultimate objective of rape reform is shifting the burden of proof from "the victim" to "the offender." Mainstream feminist extremist Jessica Valenti advocates that America look to Swedish law as its legislative model for rape, and "activists and legal experts in Sweden want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused; the alleged rapist would have to show that he got consent, instead of the victim having to prove that she didn't give it." Serious feminist scholars have written extensively on the subject in an effort to change the law. Criminal law professor and feminist Michele Alexandre would make the sex act a presumed crime whenever a woman cries rape. See M. Alexandre, ‘Girls Gone Wild’ and Rape Law: Revising the Contractual Concept of Consent & Ensuring an Unbiased Application of ‘Reasonable Doubt’ When the Victim is Non-Traditional, 17 American Univ. Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 1, 41, 55-56 (2009). In Addressing Rape Reform in Law and Practice (2008), Professor Susan Caringella of Western Michigan University's Sociology Department, not only refused to pay lip service to insuring that the innocent aren't punished with the guilty, she goes so far as to declare that men accused of rape are "overprotect[ed]." She writes: "It is high time to give victims a fair shake, to dismantle the zealous overprotections for men accused of this crime, which have been buoyed up by the myths about false accusations, ulterior motives, and so on, commonly embraced when rape charges are levied." Prof. Caringella advocates a shift in the burden of proof by enacting affirmative consent laws.
Last year, the Washington Supreme Court reversed some very bad law that put the burden of proving consent in rape cases on the accused. Unfortunately, college campuses are considered worthy of constitutional protection.
The "affirmative consent" standard is the easy, but not the appropriate, way to respond to the public outcry about sexual assault on campus. Innocence Project guru Mark A Godsey has said that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases."
Finally, a brief word about the consent contracts, in the news the past couple of days. They are just silly. Among the other silly things about them are the following: (1) few, if any, college students who have consensual sex will bother with such a "contract"; (2) even legally operative written contracts with "no oral modification" clauses generally can altered by oral agreement via waiver or estoppel theories, and in the context of sexual relations, consent can be unilaterally withdrawn at any time by either party; and (3) even contracts entered into with ostensible assent can be challenged on the basis of fraud, duress, mistake, unconscionability, or lack of capacity.
On the other hand, if I were representing a college kid accused of rape, I'd be thrilled if he and his accuser signed one of these before the pertinent event.
First: "Consent is to be determined from the perspective of the complainant."
This is astounding, and it appears to be the philosophy underlying or swirling about the entire campus anti-rape crusade. There is a lot of confusion among college women about what constitutes "consent," and I am betting that it's because this outlandish notion has crept into the campus culture. I'll give you an illustration: a new Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation survey contains a disturbing statistic that has been entirely overlooked in the news about it: almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. According to the survey, a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Read it again--it's almost incredible. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. Presumably, the 44 percent think that "consent" is not tied to a woman's words or outward conduct but is premised solely on her subjective beliefs.
Of course, consent is not properly determined from the "perspective of the accuser." Such a standard not only is grossly unjust and unconstitutional, it doesn't work. Consent is not determined based on the subjective state of mind of the complainant but rather her outward manifestations--her words and conduct--as reasonably construed. Note that an accused can't hide behind an unreasonable interpretation of an accuser's words or conduct and thereby transmogrify non-consent into consent. By the same token, a woman who is not incapacitated and who "nods in agreement" to have sex should not be heard to complain later that she didn't consent. Her secret, subjective desires or intentions are of no import if she has outwardly manifested her consent. Period.
The notion that that consent is determined from the "perspective of the accuser" seems to stem from a goofy decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Here's how it's been described:
So, in Canada, when a woman "nods in agreement" to have sex, such clear conduct "may" be relevant to deciding whether she "consented," but what really matters is her secret, subjective state of mind. A woman can nod "yes" but secretly mean "no," and the guy's a rapist if she says so. This is a law and a policy that has crossed the line into pathology. It is self-evidently idiotic.In a series of cases culminating in R. v. Ewanchuk, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that, for the purpose of the actus reus, nonconsent is determined entirely from the perspective of the complainant. Consent focuses on whether “the complainant in her mind wanted the sexual touching to take place.” Consent cannot be implied from silence, passivity, or ambiguous behaviour, because it is the complainant’s state of mind that is at issue. Evidence about her behaviour may be relevant to whether the trier of fact believes the complainant’s assertion of nonconsent, but the focus is still on her thought process, not her actions or inaction.
Second, the "yes means yes" laws would put the burden of proving consent on the accused. This policy flips on its head the long-settled burden of proof and makes the act of love-making -- an act that occurs somewhere in the world countless times every second -- a presumptive offense merely on the basis of an accusation. That is a sea-change in our law.
Not only is shifting the burden of proving consent in rape cases unconstitutional, it is an idea long pushed by extremist victims' advocates. We've been warning about it here for years. Linda Brookover Bourque's Defining Rape said in 1989 that the ultimate objective of rape reform is shifting the burden of proof from "the victim" to "the offender." Mainstream feminist extremist Jessica Valenti advocates that America look to Swedish law as its legislative model for rape, and "activists and legal experts in Sweden want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused; the alleged rapist would have to show that he got consent, instead of the victim having to prove that she didn't give it." Serious feminist scholars have written extensively on the subject in an effort to change the law. Criminal law professor and feminist Michele Alexandre would make the sex act a presumed crime whenever a woman cries rape. See M. Alexandre, ‘Girls Gone Wild’ and Rape Law: Revising the Contractual Concept of Consent & Ensuring an Unbiased Application of ‘Reasonable Doubt’ When the Victim is Non-Traditional, 17 American Univ. Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 1, 41, 55-56 (2009). In Addressing Rape Reform in Law and Practice (2008), Professor Susan Caringella of Western Michigan University's Sociology Department, not only refused to pay lip service to insuring that the innocent aren't punished with the guilty, she goes so far as to declare that men accused of rape are "overprotect[ed]." She writes: "It is high time to give victims a fair shake, to dismantle the zealous overprotections for men accused of this crime, which have been buoyed up by the myths about false accusations, ulterior motives, and so on, commonly embraced when rape charges are levied." Prof. Caringella advocates a shift in the burden of proof by enacting affirmative consent laws.
Last year, the Washington Supreme Court reversed some very bad law that put the burden of proving consent in rape cases on the accused. Unfortunately, college campuses are considered worthy of constitutional protection.
The "affirmative consent" standard is the easy, but not the appropriate, way to respond to the public outcry about sexual assault on campus. Innocence Project guru Mark A Godsey has said that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases."
Finally, a brief word about the consent contracts, in the news the past couple of days. They are just silly. Among the other silly things about them are the following: (1) few, if any, college students who have consensual sex will bother with such a "contract"; (2) even legally operative written contracts with "no oral modification" clauses generally can altered by oral agreement via waiver or estoppel theories, and in the context of sexual relations, consent can be unilaterally withdrawn at any time by either party; and (3) even contracts entered into with ostensible assent can be challenged on the basis of fraud, duress, mistake, unconscionability, or lack of capacity.
On the other hand, if I were representing a college kid accused of rape, I'd be thrilled if he and his accuser signed one of these before the pertinent event.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Donald Trump's fear-mongering about rape
Donald Trump touched off a firestorm with his comments about undocumented immigrants and rape: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said during his campaign announcement earlier this month.
Even though Trump didn't say how many undocumented immigrants are rapists, his words suggest that rape is normalized among undocumented immigrants who are male. That is simply wrong--see here. Trump is being, and ought to be, widely condemned for reducing an entire class of people to vile caricature. He's being kicked off of television networks, is losing his corporate sponsors, and is being branded a nutcase all over America.
It is interesting that Trump is most heavily criticized by folks who would never dream of criticizing a lot of other public figures who think rape is "normalized" among college men, or college athletes, or fraternity men, or "men" in general. You see, those groups aren't considered to be marginalized groups, so, apparently, it's fair to unfairly malign their members by saying rape is "normalized" in their ranks.
Take, for instance, Jessica Valenti--she's the feminist writer who believes that rape is normal for even decent men: "Rape is part of our culture; it's normalized to the point where men who are otherwise decent guys will rape and not even think that it's wrong. And that's what terrifies me." (A few months ago, Valenti tweeted Socialist Michael Laxer's epiphany that "all men" are responsible for the bad things that happen to women. Laxer clucked: "There are no 'good guys,'" and that men, as a class, "are responsible.") I don't see Valenti being ostracized from the public square for those views.
So it's fair to unfairly malign men, so long as we don't narrow the class to undocumented immigrant men or, presumably, other marginalized groups of men.
Get it? Neither do I.
Even though Trump didn't say how many undocumented immigrants are rapists, his words suggest that rape is normalized among undocumented immigrants who are male. That is simply wrong--see here. Trump is being, and ought to be, widely condemned for reducing an entire class of people to vile caricature. He's being kicked off of television networks, is losing his corporate sponsors, and is being branded a nutcase all over America.
It is interesting that Trump is most heavily criticized by folks who would never dream of criticizing a lot of other public figures who think rape is "normalized" among college men, or college athletes, or fraternity men, or "men" in general. You see, those groups aren't considered to be marginalized groups, so, apparently, it's fair to unfairly malign their members by saying rape is "normalized" in their ranks.
Take, for instance, Jessica Valenti--she's the feminist writer who believes that rape is normal for even decent men: "Rape is part of our culture; it's normalized to the point where men who are otherwise decent guys will rape and not even think that it's wrong. And that's what terrifies me." (A few months ago, Valenti tweeted Socialist Michael Laxer's epiphany that "all men" are responsible for the bad things that happen to women. Laxer clucked: "There are no 'good guys,'" and that men, as a class, "are responsible.") I don't see Valenti being ostracized from the public square for those views.
So it's fair to unfairly malign men, so long as we don't narrow the class to undocumented immigrant men or, presumably, other marginalized groups of men.
Get it? Neither do I.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Society gets more outraged over rape lies that are politically incorrect than rape lies that aren't
White supremacist Dylann Roof cried, "You rape our women," just before he shot nine innocent black people in a Charleston church, and media outlets have jumped on that comment as more evidence that whites have historically blamed blacks for atrocities they didn't commit. See, e.g., here.
That minority males have been, and are, on the receiving end of injustice more often than anyone is scarcely a newsflash. The social pathologies of the inner city seem to make it easier -- and somehow more acceptable -- to stereotype and blame the innocent who live there for crimes they didn't commit. This is a problem of monumental proportions that has never been adequately addressed.
But it is curious that, when it comes to false rape claims, progressives and other folks who ought to know better, including members of the black and Latino communities, seem to get more bent out of shape over the political incorrectness of the lie than the lie itself.
In 2009, at Northwestern University, a bogus rape claim prompted two campus-wide emails: the first notified students that a female Northwestern student was sexually assaulted. It provided an explicit description of the suspect as follows: "African American male, approximately 25 years old, 5-6 – 5-7 inches tall, with a thin but muscular build, wearing a black leather jacket and dark jeans." The second email declared the first e-mail’s report as "false."
It was the first email's explicit description of the suspect that drew concerns and provoked a discussion about race on campus. "One student [at a panel discussion about the rape claim] said when she first read the e-mail she was more concerned about how it might reinforce racial perceptions than how it would influence perception of gender. She said she was surprised by the specificity, when previous cases have had more blanket descriptions that could apply to people of any race." A criminology professor said: "All black young men on campus become vulnerable to further suspicion."
Rape lies often include a "scary" black or Hispanic male suspect in an attempt to lend plausibility to the fabrication. In 2011, a Brooklyn "nun" from a fringe Christian sect falsely claimed "that she was choked and raped by a black man." The New York Daily News reported that black men in the neighborhood were angered, but not surprised. According to the Daily News: "Cops even released a sketch of the phantom suspect and pleaded for the public to help catch him. After more questioning, [the accuser] admitted she concocted the assault to cover up her sexual shenanigans with a bodega worker." The men in the neighborhood were "pissed," as one man put it. "I don't know why they must accuse falsely like that. I think it must be prejudice," said a 56-year-old advertising worker who lived across from the house where the "nun" lived.
In 2010, WABC weather forecaster Heidi Jones invented a Hispanic man as her attacker. Many expressed outrage on behalf of the Hispanic community.
Certainly, a rape lie is all the more despicable when it is seasoned with racial animus, but it is sufficiently despicable without it to warrant our outrage.
Contrast those cases noted above with the one involving Brian Banks, who is black. After Brian was wrongly accused, his lawyer convinced him to plead guilty -- because he was a black male: "If [you] go into that courtroom," Brian remembers her telling him, "the jury [is] automatically going to see a big, black teenager and automatically assume [you are] guilty." Brian spent years in prison for a rape he didn't commit--read Brian's harrowing story here. It is curious that when Brian's case is discussed, the connection between his race and the injustice perpetrated on him are mentioned but downplayed, likely because his false accuser was black. The rape lie was not politically incorrect.
Do you remember the Hofstra false rape case? The minority youths accused of rape were automatically deemed guilty and were treated like animals. They were even booed on national television after it was confirmed that they were wrongly accused. The Hofstra case was among the worst rushes to judgment in recent memory, but the accuser was black, and the Hofstra case never attracted the outrage of progressives.
Sadly, for too many commentators in the mainstream media, if the particular injustice doesn't present a morality play about a perceived victim group, they have no interest in it. But it didn't matter to Brian Banks or the Hofstra accused that their accusers were black. Nor did it matter to the Duke lacrosse players that they happened to be white and their accuser was black. The injustice of a false rape claim is an injustice regardless of the color of the accused or the accuser.
That minority males have been, and are, on the receiving end of injustice more often than anyone is scarcely a newsflash. The social pathologies of the inner city seem to make it easier -- and somehow more acceptable -- to stereotype and blame the innocent who live there for crimes they didn't commit. This is a problem of monumental proportions that has never been adequately addressed.
But it is curious that, when it comes to false rape claims, progressives and other folks who ought to know better, including members of the black and Latino communities, seem to get more bent out of shape over the political incorrectness of the lie than the lie itself.
In 2009, at Northwestern University, a bogus rape claim prompted two campus-wide emails: the first notified students that a female Northwestern student was sexually assaulted. It provided an explicit description of the suspect as follows: "African American male, approximately 25 years old, 5-6 – 5-7 inches tall, with a thin but muscular build, wearing a black leather jacket and dark jeans." The second email declared the first e-mail’s report as "false."
It was the first email's explicit description of the suspect that drew concerns and provoked a discussion about race on campus. "One student [at a panel discussion about the rape claim] said when she first read the e-mail she was more concerned about how it might reinforce racial perceptions than how it would influence perception of gender. She said she was surprised by the specificity, when previous cases have had more blanket descriptions that could apply to people of any race." A criminology professor said: "All black young men on campus become vulnerable to further suspicion."
Rape lies often include a "scary" black or Hispanic male suspect in an attempt to lend plausibility to the fabrication. In 2011, a Brooklyn "nun" from a fringe Christian sect falsely claimed "that she was choked and raped by a black man." The New York Daily News reported that black men in the neighborhood were angered, but not surprised. According to the Daily News: "Cops even released a sketch of the phantom suspect and pleaded for the public to help catch him. After more questioning, [the accuser] admitted she concocted the assault to cover up her sexual shenanigans with a bodega worker." The men in the neighborhood were "pissed," as one man put it. "I don't know why they must accuse falsely like that. I think it must be prejudice," said a 56-year-old advertising worker who lived across from the house where the "nun" lived.
In 2010, WABC weather forecaster Heidi Jones invented a Hispanic man as her attacker. Many expressed outrage on behalf of the Hispanic community.
Certainly, a rape lie is all the more despicable when it is seasoned with racial animus, but it is sufficiently despicable without it to warrant our outrage.
Contrast those cases noted above with the one involving Brian Banks, who is black. After Brian was wrongly accused, his lawyer convinced him to plead guilty -- because he was a black male: "If [you] go into that courtroom," Brian remembers her telling him, "the jury [is] automatically going to see a big, black teenager and automatically assume [you are] guilty." Brian spent years in prison for a rape he didn't commit--read Brian's harrowing story here. It is curious that when Brian's case is discussed, the connection between his race and the injustice perpetrated on him are mentioned but downplayed, likely because his false accuser was black. The rape lie was not politically incorrect.
Do you remember the Hofstra false rape case? The minority youths accused of rape were automatically deemed guilty and were treated like animals. They were even booed on national television after it was confirmed that they were wrongly accused. The Hofstra case was among the worst rushes to judgment in recent memory, but the accuser was black, and the Hofstra case never attracted the outrage of progressives.
Sadly, for too many commentators in the mainstream media, if the particular injustice doesn't present a morality play about a perceived victim group, they have no interest in it. But it didn't matter to Brian Banks or the Hofstra accused that their accusers were black. Nor did it matter to the Duke lacrosse players that they happened to be white and their accuser was black. The injustice of a false rape claim is an injustice regardless of the color of the accused or the accuser.
Suppose rape accuser hadn't been wearing a fitness watch
Suppose there'd been no fitness watch. Would some innocent man have been arrested for a rape that never happened?
An inordinate number of alleged stranger rape cases turn out to be false.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/587899/Woman-accused-false-rape-claim-Fitbit-fitness-watch-proved-not-dragged-from-bed
An inordinate number of alleged stranger rape cases turn out to be false.
Woman accused of false rape claim 'after fitness watch proved she wasn't dragged from bed'
Jeannine Risley allegedly overturned furniture in the middle of the night to fake signs of a struggle after being told that she was going to be fired.
She claimed she was asleep in a guest annexe of her boss' home when a booted man pulled her out of bed and raped her at knifepoint.
However, police who examined her wrist-worn Fitbit fitness monitor - which includes people's vital signs and data about their movements - said it showed she had been awake and walking around at the time of the alleged attack.
A court in Florida heard how police who rushed to the home in March following a 911 call fund overturned furniture, a knife and a bottle of vodka.
The 43-year-old later told authorities an unknown man had pulled her out of bed at around midnight, attacked her in a bathroom and raped her at knifepoint, according to court documents.
However, police suspected her story did not add up when they failed to find any footprints in the snow around the home or any evidence of an intruder inside.
They discovered Risley's Fitbit - which she claimed she had lost - in a corridor and accessed the data after she agreed to hand over her login details.
It showed that she was awake and walking around at the time she claimed she was sleeping.
Further documents filed with the court reveal that her boss, who has not been named, had told her she was set to lose her role as a temporary director with his company.
Risley, of Saint Petersburg, Florida, has been charged with false reports to law enforcement, false alarms to public safety and tampering with evidence.
She appeared in court with her husband, but spoke only to confirm her name and personal details.
A trial is now set to take place later this year, unless she chooses to enter a plea.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/587899/Woman-accused-false-rape-claim-Fitbit-fitness-watch-proved-not-dragged-from-bed
Friday, June 26, 2015
Is there a college "rape culture," or are too many college women mistaking consent for sexual assault?
The notion that there exists a college "rape culture" has become ingrained in the academy, and it is used to justify policy after policy eroding the due process rights of college men. Is there a college "rape culture"?
RAINN, the nation's leading anti-rape organization, famously debunked the "rape culture" meme last year in a letter to the White House: "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime." RAINN decried the "inclination to focus on particular . . . traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., 'masculinity'), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape."
We thought that RAINN's reasonable approach would go a long way toward stopping the "rape culture" canard, but we were wrong.
A new Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation survey also suggests there's a "rape culture," but like all such surveys, it treats every accusation of rape as a fact without bothering to consider the other side of the story, much less subject the claims to scrutiny or test them against competing claims of innocence. It is irrefutable that when rape claims are subjected to such scrutiny, the majority cannot be fairly labeled as "rape."
But this new survey contains a disturbing statistic that has been entirely overlooked in the news about it--a statistic revealing that almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. According to the survey, a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. When so many women are mistaking consent for sexual assault, we should not be concluding there's a college "rape culture," we should be insisting that college women be taught things that grade school children ought to know.
Another study showed that "rape" can be cut in half, mainly by teaching women to resist psychological "coercion" and say "no." The implication is both stunning and disturbing because it suggests that college women are being "raped" at epidemic levels even though they have reasonable alternatives to avoid engaging in the sex act but choose not to exercise them. It also suggests that a lot of college men are considered "rapists" not for forcing themselves on women but for doing nothing more than asking for sex in ways that are politically incorrect or overbearing, and that a lot of women are "victims" because they choose to go along with the guys' entreaties. In a culture where the roles of pursuer and hard-to-get have been fairly divided along gender lines for eons, when you suddenly make traditional masculine behavior a punishable offense, is there any wonder there's a "rape culture" and a "rape epidemic" on campus? Of course, this is "rape" only in some extremist gender ideologue's world. Unfortunately, extremist gender ideologues dictate the public discourse, and make public policy, on campus.
It is well to note that the two most celebrated rape accusations in the past year were made by "Jackie" in the infamous Rolling Stone article, and Emma Sulkowicz. Given the substantial competing evidence suggesting (1) that no sex act even occurred in "Jackie's" case, and (2) that the accused is innocent in Sulkowicz's case, in a sane world, neither case would be held out as evidence of "rape culture." But ours is not a sane world when it comes to "rape" on campus.
So is there a college "rape culture"?
In John Ford's elegiac lament to the passing of the old west, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, beloved, long-time U.S. Senator Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) returns to his home town in the West and confesses to the town's newspaper editor that his legendary reputation--in fact his entire career--was built on a lie. Until then, everyone believed that in his youth, Stoddard had shot and killed a notorious gunslinger named Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Now, at long last, Stoddard is coming clean, telling the world that Valance was really shot by a tough-as-nails rancher played by none other than John Wayne.
The newspaper editor hears Senator Stoddard's entire story, and he believes every word of it, but he's not interested in publishing any of it.
"You're not going to use the story?" the Senator asks incredulously.
The editor famously replies: "No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
The college "rape culture" canard has become "fact" -- even though it doesn't really exist.
RAINN, the nation's leading anti-rape organization, famously debunked the "rape culture" meme last year in a letter to the White House: "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime." RAINN decried the "inclination to focus on particular . . . traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., 'masculinity'), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape."
We thought that RAINN's reasonable approach would go a long way toward stopping the "rape culture" canard, but we were wrong.
A new Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation survey also suggests there's a "rape culture," but like all such surveys, it treats every accusation of rape as a fact without bothering to consider the other side of the story, much less subject the claims to scrutiny or test them against competing claims of innocence. It is irrefutable that when rape claims are subjected to such scrutiny, the majority cannot be fairly labeled as "rape."
But this new survey contains a disturbing statistic that has been entirely overlooked in the news about it--a statistic revealing that almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. According to the survey, a full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think "a nod in agreement" indicates consent. When so many women are mistaking consent for sexual assault, we should not be concluding there's a college "rape culture," we should be insisting that college women be taught things that grade school children ought to know.
Another study showed that "rape" can be cut in half, mainly by teaching women to resist psychological "coercion" and say "no." The implication is both stunning and disturbing because it suggests that college women are being "raped" at epidemic levels even though they have reasonable alternatives to avoid engaging in the sex act but choose not to exercise them. It also suggests that a lot of college men are considered "rapists" not for forcing themselves on women but for doing nothing more than asking for sex in ways that are politically incorrect or overbearing, and that a lot of women are "victims" because they choose to go along with the guys' entreaties. In a culture where the roles of pursuer and hard-to-get have been fairly divided along gender lines for eons, when you suddenly make traditional masculine behavior a punishable offense, is there any wonder there's a "rape culture" and a "rape epidemic" on campus? Of course, this is "rape" only in some extremist gender ideologue's world. Unfortunately, extremist gender ideologues dictate the public discourse, and make public policy, on campus.
It is well to note that the two most celebrated rape accusations in the past year were made by "Jackie" in the infamous Rolling Stone article, and Emma Sulkowicz. Given the substantial competing evidence suggesting (1) that no sex act even occurred in "Jackie's" case, and (2) that the accused is innocent in Sulkowicz's case, in a sane world, neither case would be held out as evidence of "rape culture." But ours is not a sane world when it comes to "rape" on campus.
____________________
So is there a college "rape culture"?
In John Ford's elegiac lament to the passing of the old west, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, beloved, long-time U.S. Senator Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) returns to his home town in the West and confesses to the town's newspaper editor that his legendary reputation--in fact his entire career--was built on a lie. Until then, everyone believed that in his youth, Stoddard had shot and killed a notorious gunslinger named Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Now, at long last, Stoddard is coming clean, telling the world that Valance was really shot by a tough-as-nails rancher played by none other than John Wayne.
The newspaper editor hears Senator Stoddard's entire story, and he believes every word of it, but he's not interested in publishing any of it.
"You're not going to use the story?" the Senator asks incredulously.
The editor famously replies: "No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
The college "rape culture" canard has become "fact" -- even though it doesn't really exist.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
The campus rape war is over, and the boys have lost because they never bothered to fight back
Despite all the support from nationally renowned legal scholars, despite an incredible backlash last year, the sexual grievance machine is in high gear, running roughshod over the rights of our sons. There's no slowing it, despite the efforts of so many. I asked myself how this can be, and my conclusion is going to anger some people.
The war on campus rape may be the first witch-hunt in history where the members of the group under attack don't care that they are in the cross-hairs of a lunatic fringe. Since they won't fight back, it's hopeless to think the tide can be rolled back without them.
The sexual grievance lobby has done everything it can think of to assure that a woman's cry of rape is tantamount to a finding of guilt, the evidence be damned, yet the boys at risk of being wrongly accused sit meekly on the sidelines--too ashamed, too emasculated even to protest, much less mount a vibrant defense. In fact, many of them march in lockstep with their moral superiors--the campus rape crusaders (you know, kids and peer pressure and all)--who insist that ours is a "rape culture," that campus rape isn't just a "thing" but an epidemic, that "the rates of false accusation pale — indeed, pale to the point of transparency!," and that masculinity itself needs to be reprogrammed.
The boys act like deer caught in the headlights as United States senators, the mainstream news media, and "experts" purporting to research the prevalence of rape treat every accusation of rape as a fact without bothering to consider the other side of the story, much less subject it to scrutiny or test it against competing claims of innocence. (Can you say "Jackie"? How about "Emma Sulkowicz"?) And when someone dares to air the "he" side of a "he said-she said" rape claim, the sexual grievance lobby has a conniption. Yet college boys don't say a word about it. When Prof. KC Johnson went to Ohio University to talk about due process for those accused of sexual assault, he was vilified by extremist loons, and there wasn't any counter-demonstration to support his message.
The only ones who fight back are the ones who've already been expelled, or their mothers--God bless FACE--but that won't cut it.
The sad part is that if the boys bothered to engage themselves in the issue--if they'd bother to speak up--they'd have ample ammunition to attack the "rape culture" idiocy.
First, some of the brightest, most progressive minds in America have spoken out against the injustices to college men, yet the boys themselves sit back and let the scholars do not just the heavy lifting but all the lifting. One of the more chilling indictments of the current system was lodged by a guru of the sexual grievance lobby, none other than Brett Sokolow, head of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (NCHERM). Sokolow has done more to shape the sexual assault landscape on American college campuses than any person outside the Department of Education. Since the year 2000, NCHERM has had in excess of 3,000 college clients. No group has more effectively fought for the rights of sexual assault victims on college campuses. Yet, last year, even Brett Sokolow painted a chilling picture about the hostility on American college campuses to the rights of men accused of sexual violence. Sokolow said that in the "hook up" culture, the evidence is often too murky to warrant charging and punishing the male accused of sexual misconduct, but that's exactly what too many schools are doing. Sokolow said that "in a lot of these cases, the campus is holding the male accountable in spite of the evidence – or the lack thereof – because they think they are supposed to, and that doing so is what OCR wants." And: "We see complainants who genuinely believe they have been assaulted, despite overwhelming proof that it did not happen." Worse, Sokolow suggested that mental health issues play a role in "case after case" of wrongful claims: "We fear for the mental health issues impacting many students, but in particular for those whose reality contact issues manifest in sexual situations they can’t handle and campuses can’t remedy. We hate even more that another victim-blaming trope – victim mental health – continues to have legs, but how do you not question the reality contact where case-after-case involves sincere victims who believe something has happened to them that evidence shows absolutely did not?" (Emphasis added.)
Second, the "rape culture" myth is built on absurdities that are downright laughable--college guys are reduced to vile caricature because of it, and if they wanted to take issue with it, this blog, and a lot of better sources than this, have been giving them all the ammunition they need for years. Start with the sexual grievance lobby's own internal inconsistencies--their silly "one-in-five" number is incredibly inflated when their numbers are crunched against their own almost-as-silly underreporting number. Hell, the Department of Justice recently said that it's not 1-in-5 college women who are sexually assaulted, it's more like 1-in 52 or fewer, perhaps a lot fewer. RAINN itself, the nation's leading anti-rape organization, debunked the "rape culture" meme: "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime." RAINN decried the "inclination to focus on particular . . . traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., 'masculinity'), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape." Want to know why there's a "rape epidemic" on campus? One reason is because almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. Don't believe me? A full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Seriously. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think it is. Another study showed that "rape" can be cut in half, mainly by teaching women to say "no," which means it probably wasn't rape in the first place. Moreover, a whopping 56 percent of women think it's better that innocent young men be punished for offenses they didn't commit than to allow a guilty man to go free. (I guess they never heard of Blackstone's formulation.)
Third, there are the idiotic things the sexual grievance lobby says. Amanda Childress, Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator at Dartmouth College, declared that campus policies aren't going far enough to protect students. She asked: "Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation?" Dartmouth defended Childress's comment. Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College, said this about lawsuits filed by men for alleged violations of their due process rights in connection with sexual assault claims: "These lawsuits are an incredible display of entitlement, the same entitlement that drove them to rape." Elisabeth Dee, who helped organize a mattress-carrying anti-sexual assault demonstration at Stanford, summed up the prevailing thought. She called on the school to reduce the standard of proof required to find someone guilty of sexual assault below the lowest legally permissible "preponderance of the evidence." Dee said that Stanford, should not be focusing on "defending the perpetrator, because essentially burden of proof is a defense of the perpetrator.” Ezra Klein said its' "necessary" that "colleges will fill with cases in which campus boards convict young men (and, occasionally, young women) of sexual assault for genuinely ambiguous situations." Julia Horowitz, a journalist at University of Virginia’s school newspaper, wrote that "to let fact checking define the [sexual assault] narrative would be a huge mistake.” Zerlina Maxwell wrote this: “Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.”
What, on earth, does it take to light a fire under college men? The protests of law school professors and all the rest can't do it if the victims don't care, and at present, the victims don't care.
Before you cry "unfair," I know there are college guys who are trying to fight back. Some of them write to us. They are to be commended, and this post isn't about them. Unfortunately, they are in the distinct minority.
It's time to admit that the battle is over because it can't possibly be won when the victim doesn't even know he's a victim. It's time to move on to other battlefields, and other victims--victims who actually give a damn that their scrota are marked with a bulls-eye.
The war on campus rape may be the first witch-hunt in history where the members of the group under attack don't care that they are in the cross-hairs of a lunatic fringe. Since they won't fight back, it's hopeless to think the tide can be rolled back without them.
The sexual grievance lobby has done everything it can think of to assure that a woman's cry of rape is tantamount to a finding of guilt, the evidence be damned, yet the boys at risk of being wrongly accused sit meekly on the sidelines--too ashamed, too emasculated even to protest, much less mount a vibrant defense. In fact, many of them march in lockstep with their moral superiors--the campus rape crusaders (you know, kids and peer pressure and all)--who insist that ours is a "rape culture," that campus rape isn't just a "thing" but an epidemic, that "the rates of false accusation pale — indeed, pale to the point of transparency!," and that masculinity itself needs to be reprogrammed.
The boys act like deer caught in the headlights as United States senators, the mainstream news media, and "experts" purporting to research the prevalence of rape treat every accusation of rape as a fact without bothering to consider the other side of the story, much less subject it to scrutiny or test it against competing claims of innocence. (Can you say "Jackie"? How about "Emma Sulkowicz"?) And when someone dares to air the "he" side of a "he said-she said" rape claim, the sexual grievance lobby has a conniption. Yet college boys don't say a word about it. When Prof. KC Johnson went to Ohio University to talk about due process for those accused of sexual assault, he was vilified by extremist loons, and there wasn't any counter-demonstration to support his message.
The only ones who fight back are the ones who've already been expelled, or their mothers--God bless FACE--but that won't cut it.
The sad part is that if the boys bothered to engage themselves in the issue--if they'd bother to speak up--they'd have ample ammunition to attack the "rape culture" idiocy.
First, some of the brightest, most progressive minds in America have spoken out against the injustices to college men, yet the boys themselves sit back and let the scholars do not just the heavy lifting but all the lifting. One of the more chilling indictments of the current system was lodged by a guru of the sexual grievance lobby, none other than Brett Sokolow, head of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (NCHERM). Sokolow has done more to shape the sexual assault landscape on American college campuses than any person outside the Department of Education. Since the year 2000, NCHERM has had in excess of 3,000 college clients. No group has more effectively fought for the rights of sexual assault victims on college campuses. Yet, last year, even Brett Sokolow painted a chilling picture about the hostility on American college campuses to the rights of men accused of sexual violence. Sokolow said that in the "hook up" culture, the evidence is often too murky to warrant charging and punishing the male accused of sexual misconduct, but that's exactly what too many schools are doing. Sokolow said that "in a lot of these cases, the campus is holding the male accountable in spite of the evidence – or the lack thereof – because they think they are supposed to, and that doing so is what OCR wants." And: "We see complainants who genuinely believe they have been assaulted, despite overwhelming proof that it did not happen." Worse, Sokolow suggested that mental health issues play a role in "case after case" of wrongful claims: "We fear for the mental health issues impacting many students, but in particular for those whose reality contact issues manifest in sexual situations they can’t handle and campuses can’t remedy. We hate even more that another victim-blaming trope – victim mental health – continues to have legs, but how do you not question the reality contact where case-after-case involves sincere victims who believe something has happened to them that evidence shows absolutely did not?" (Emphasis added.)
Second, the "rape culture" myth is built on absurdities that are downright laughable--college guys are reduced to vile caricature because of it, and if they wanted to take issue with it, this blog, and a lot of better sources than this, have been giving them all the ammunition they need for years. Start with the sexual grievance lobby's own internal inconsistencies--their silly "one-in-five" number is incredibly inflated when their numbers are crunched against their own almost-as-silly underreporting number. Hell, the Department of Justice recently said that it's not 1-in-5 college women who are sexually assaulted, it's more like 1-in 52 or fewer, perhaps a lot fewer. RAINN itself, the nation's leading anti-rape organization, debunked the "rape culture" meme: "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime." RAINN decried the "inclination to focus on particular . . . traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., 'masculinity'), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape." Want to know why there's a "rape epidemic" on campus? One reason is because almost half of all college women mistake consent for rape. Don't believe me? A full 44 percent of college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent. Seriously. Only 51 percent--the barest of majorities--think it is. Another study showed that "rape" can be cut in half, mainly by teaching women to say "no," which means it probably wasn't rape in the first place. Moreover, a whopping 56 percent of women think it's better that innocent young men be punished for offenses they didn't commit than to allow a guilty man to go free. (I guess they never heard of Blackstone's formulation.)
Third, there are the idiotic things the sexual grievance lobby says. Amanda Childress, Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator at Dartmouth College, declared that campus policies aren't going far enough to protect students. She asked: "Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation?" Dartmouth defended Childress's comment. Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College, said this about lawsuits filed by men for alleged violations of their due process rights in connection with sexual assault claims: "These lawsuits are an incredible display of entitlement, the same entitlement that drove them to rape." Elisabeth Dee, who helped organize a mattress-carrying anti-sexual assault demonstration at Stanford, summed up the prevailing thought. She called on the school to reduce the standard of proof required to find someone guilty of sexual assault below the lowest legally permissible "preponderance of the evidence." Dee said that Stanford, should not be focusing on "defending the perpetrator, because essentially burden of proof is a defense of the perpetrator.” Ezra Klein said its' "necessary" that "colleges will fill with cases in which campus boards convict young men (and, occasionally, young women) of sexual assault for genuinely ambiguous situations." Julia Horowitz, a journalist at University of Virginia’s school newspaper, wrote that "to let fact checking define the [sexual assault] narrative would be a huge mistake.” Zerlina Maxwell wrote this: “Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.”
What, on earth, does it take to light a fire under college men? The protests of law school professors and all the rest can't do it if the victims don't care, and at present, the victims don't care.
Before you cry "unfair," I know there are college guys who are trying to fight back. Some of them write to us. They are to be commended, and this post isn't about them. Unfortunately, they are in the distinct minority.
It's time to admit that the battle is over because it can't possibly be won when the victim doesn't even know he's a victim. It's time to move on to other battlefields, and other victims--victims who actually give a damn that their scrota are marked with a bulls-eye.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Another example of the deplorable way reporters cover false rape claims
My comments in red.
London Underground worker jailed for falsely claiming she was raped
A London Underground worker, who falsely claimed she was raped after a night out, has been jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice, with the judge adding she had “let down genuine rape victims.”
The first thing the article makes sure to tell us is that the real victims here are "genuine rape victims."
The Old Bailey heard how Comfort Yinusa, 23, called police in the early hours one morning in October 2013, claiming two men had attacked her outside a pub near Liverpool Street in East London.
Ms Yinusa, from Tilbury in Essex, wept in the dock as judge Peter Rook QC told her she must be jailed for wasting more than 100 hours of police time.
Next, she must be jailed--because she wasted police time.
He added: “Taking all the circumstances into account, this matter is so serious that only a sentence of immediate prison is appropriate.
“Your actions have led to two innocent men being put through the humiliation of arrest and all the procedures that followed.”
Finally, we learn that the innocent men she named were put through a humiliating arrest. This ought to be the headline and the first line.
The following day after making the allegations, Ms Yinusa refused to be medically examined and also failed to turn up for police interviews.
After telling police detectives she wanted to withdraw her complaint, her lies were eventually exposed when suspicious police detectives analysed mobile phone data and CCTV footage which showed Ms Yinusa joking and laughing with the two men – hours after she alleged the attack had taken place.
The court heard how the two suspects had spent 14 and 16 hours in police custody – in what they have described as a “humiliating” ordeal – as well as six weeks on bail.
The two innocent victims were put through a six week hell--and the article is more concerned about hypothetical rape victims and wasting police time. Wanna hear about "wasting time," reporter? How about six weeks having a false rape claim hang over your head.
One of the men, an accountant, added he felt “shocked, shame and stigma” after being falsely accused by Ms Yinusa, who, the court heard, has had a history of cocaine and alcohol abuse.
He described how he offered Ms Yinusa a lift home after the night out, but that she got angry after he couldn’t remember where he parked his car, leaving her waiting for 45 minutes with his friend.
She told a rape lie because a man kept her waiting for a ride.
Describing the false allegation as “a monstrous act”, Ms Yinusa’s barrister, Neville Rudston, said: “The enormity of the consequences should have been clear. The reality is they weren’t.
“It was an outburst of anger. She said it and then she was stuck with it – she didn’t have the robustness or strength to say: ‘No, I take it back’ and that's why it turned out as badly as it did.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-underground-worker-jailed-for-falsely-claiming-she-was-raped-10339131.html
London Underground worker jailed for falsely claiming she was raped
A London Underground worker, who falsely claimed she was raped after a night out, has been jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice, with the judge adding she had “let down genuine rape victims.”
The first thing the article makes sure to tell us is that the real victims here are "genuine rape victims."
The Old Bailey heard how Comfort Yinusa, 23, called police in the early hours one morning in October 2013, claiming two men had attacked her outside a pub near Liverpool Street in East London.
Ms Yinusa, from Tilbury in Essex, wept in the dock as judge Peter Rook QC told her she must be jailed for wasting more than 100 hours of police time.
Next, she must be jailed--because she wasted police time.
He added: “Taking all the circumstances into account, this matter is so serious that only a sentence of immediate prison is appropriate.
“Your actions have led to two innocent men being put through the humiliation of arrest and all the procedures that followed.”
Finally, we learn that the innocent men she named were put through a humiliating arrest. This ought to be the headline and the first line.
The following day after making the allegations, Ms Yinusa refused to be medically examined and also failed to turn up for police interviews.
After telling police detectives she wanted to withdraw her complaint, her lies were eventually exposed when suspicious police detectives analysed mobile phone data and CCTV footage which showed Ms Yinusa joking and laughing with the two men – hours after she alleged the attack had taken place.
The court heard how the two suspects had spent 14 and 16 hours in police custody – in what they have described as a “humiliating” ordeal – as well as six weeks on bail.
The two innocent victims were put through a six week hell--and the article is more concerned about hypothetical rape victims and wasting police time. Wanna hear about "wasting time," reporter? How about six weeks having a false rape claim hang over your head.
One of the men, an accountant, added he felt “shocked, shame and stigma” after being falsely accused by Ms Yinusa, who, the court heard, has had a history of cocaine and alcohol abuse.
He described how he offered Ms Yinusa a lift home after the night out, but that she got angry after he couldn’t remember where he parked his car, leaving her waiting for 45 minutes with his friend.
She told a rape lie because a man kept her waiting for a ride.
Describing the false allegation as “a monstrous act”, Ms Yinusa’s barrister, Neville Rudston, said: “The enormity of the consequences should have been clear. The reality is they weren’t.
“It was an outburst of anger. She said it and then she was stuck with it – she didn’t have the robustness or strength to say: ‘No, I take it back’ and that's why it turned out as badly as it did.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-underground-worker-jailed-for-falsely-claiming-she-was-raped-10339131.html
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
The families of Dylann Roof's victims are an example to the world
The relatives of Dylann Roof's victims offered this deranged and hateful young killer forgiveness. It was a gesture far more powerful, far more effective, than all the riots and all the angry protests for all the real and all the imagined grievances.
These loving people showed the world the true meaning of brotherhood and, in the process, exposed the hate of people like Roof better than anything they could have done.
These loving people showed the world the true meaning of brotherhood and, in the process, exposed the hate of people like Roof better than anything they could have done.
Women's studies prof calls for 'men control'
Does this really need any comment? Ashwini Tambe, a women’s studies professor from the University of Maryland, wrote this:
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Washington Post rape survey is not reliable--but it points up some very disturbing views held by college women
There's a new college rape survey with some very disturbing findings. The findings are disturbing not for the reasons the sexual grievance industry thinks, but because the answers shine a light on very troubling views held by college women -- about men accused of sexual assault, and men wrongly accused of sexual assault. The survey underscores that that our daughters especially, but also our sons, are in need of much remedial education about concepts that are basic to our jurisprudence. Read on, but not with an empty stomach.
Rape laws and policies are shaped by surveys where every rape allegation is uncritically accepted and none are tested against competing claims of innocence. The impact of these surveys on public policy is significant, even draconian. They are uncritically accepted to make laws that diminish the due process rights of young men accused of sexual assault in American colleges, and that is unjust. The only legitimate way to test for the prevalence of rape on campus would be to take a representative sampling of rape accusations and carefully examine the evidence (including interviewing the accused and all pertinent witnesses) as to each claim in a painstaking, objective manner. Every time rape claims are subjected to scrutiny against competing evidence of innocence, most are either deemed unfounded or false. Why on earth is every assertion in a rape survey accepted as true?
The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation have conducted a survey that, once again, uncritically accepts every characterization of sexual wrongdoing. The survey supposedly shows around 20 percent of college women are sexually assaulted. In fact, the survey is alarming on a host of levels, but not for the reasons the sexual grievance lobby insists. Here are some excerpts--and my comments:
First, college students -- women more than men -- are prone to rush to judgment and assume guilt based on an accusation:
Second, perhaps the most disturbing question of all shows that college students (especially college women) are woefully unschooled in the concept of Blackstone's formulation, that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This concept is imprinted on the DNA of our jurisprudence. We've written extensively about this concept (see here) and won't repeat ourselves here. Yet, in this survey, a whopping percentage of women think it's better that innocent young men be punished for offenses they didn't commit than to allow a guilty man to go free. Little wonder, given that the sexual grievance industry has dominated the public discourse on these issues for so long:
Third, there is a disturbing absence of understanding about what constitutes "consent." As but one example, a dizzying 44 percent of women polled didn't think nodding in agreement constitutes consent. This lack of understanding likely skewed the results of the survey, perhaps significantly:
Fourth, despite the responses of the women surveyed in question 35(e) -- where the vast majority don't think an absence of "no" is enough to show consent -- in the following response, more women prefer the "no means no" standard over "yes means yes" as the "better" standard to show whether an encounter was consensual. The absence of a "no" under the "no means no" standard would show consent. So which is it, ladies? Given the confusion among respondents, we must seriously question the trustworthiness of this survey:
Fifth, the question about "physical force" fails to define "physical force" and fails to ask if the "physical force" was accompanied by the woman's consent (of course, if the women nodded their heads in agreement to sex, as shown above, a significant percentage of them would not think that's consensual anyway):
Sixth, the following query asks about "unwanted" sex -- a subjective standard that has nothing to do with the legal standard of sexual assault since women can outwardly manifest consent while secretly not wanting to engage in the act. The question asks about times when respondents "were unable to provide consent because you were passed out, drugged, or drunk, incapacitated, or asleep." The wording of this question dooms to the survey's usefulness. A reasonable person taking this survey would not assume "drunk" sex is the same as "incapacitated" sex (because the survey uses both words, so it's not reasonable to assume one word is surplusage or that they mean the same thing). By any measure, "drunk"sex is not sexual assault, yet we know that a staggering percentage of sex occurs after imbibing alcohol:
Seventh, sexual coercion (sex obtained by making promises such as inviting you to a party) is apparently considered sexual assault (which is absurd):
The survey is eye-opening because of the percentage of young women who think its better to sacrifice their wrongly accused brothers than to let a rapist stay enrolled in college. This reflects a disturbing undercurrent we've been writing about for many years -- that the wrongly accused are treated as collateral damage in the "more important" war on rape. (Of course, merely expelling a rapist isn't going to stop him from raping college or other women, often in the same off-campus place where he raped while he was a student. The sexual grievance industry doesn't seem very worried about that.)
Put all that aside, the survey is making headlines for reinforcing the 1-in-5 canard. As shown above, the survey is not reliable because of the way the questions are worded. Beyond that, even if the questions were worded properly, it would still be problematic. A recent scientific study shows that some women lie on surveys to minimize their consensual sexual encounters, likely because of societal double-standards that find it acceptable for men, but not women, to engage in sexual activity. These lies are designed to bring women in sync with their expected gender role, and it is the same reason many women lie about rape--to defend their femininity. Should we not expect, then, that some women report in surveys that they've been subjected to unwanted sex even when, in fact, the sex was consensual in order to be in sync with societal expectations about gender roles? The Washington Post survey doesn't take that into account.
Why is it assumed that sexual assault surveys are the moral equivalent of truth serum where women are incapable of telling anything but the one, objective truth? Why is every untested assertion of sexual assault assumed to be true based solely on the "victim's" side of the story? The fact is, people exaggerate, lie, and claim their behavior is better than it really is in all sorts of surveys and other public pronouncements--not just sex surveys. People exaggerate the hours they work; how often they go to church; their height and their weight; and their altruism during emergencies. White voters lie in surveys about their willingness to vote for a black political candidate. Heck, people even lie about the reason they buy a new computer. Nearly one in four women admitted to exaggerating or lying in social media about key aspects of their lives between one and three times per month.
It is well to note that surveys also show that almost 30 percent of women claim to have seen a ghost. Should we conclude there's an epidemic of ghostly encounters afflicting college women? Or would we require some greater proof before reaching that conclusion?
This is a serious question, with serious implications. The issue we raise isn't some abstraction, and we do not write this to engage in some sort of "Oppression Olympics." The fact is, sexual assault surveys are routinely used to justify the policy of diminishing the due process rights of male students accused of sexual assault. There are legitimate reasons for doubting the reliability of these surveys, and these concerns should not be dismissed as rape apology, misogyny, or slut shaming. Nor should we be demonized for merely raising the issue. This is an issue that ought to be seriously, and respectfully, discussed.
Rape laws and policies are shaped by surveys where every rape allegation is uncritically accepted and none are tested against competing claims of innocence. The impact of these surveys on public policy is significant, even draconian. They are uncritically accepted to make laws that diminish the due process rights of young men accused of sexual assault in American colleges, and that is unjust. The only legitimate way to test for the prevalence of rape on campus would be to take a representative sampling of rape accusations and carefully examine the evidence (including interviewing the accused and all pertinent witnesses) as to each claim in a painstaking, objective manner. Every time rape claims are subjected to scrutiny against competing evidence of innocence, most are either deemed unfounded or false. Why on earth is every assertion in a rape survey accepted as true?
The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation have conducted a survey that, once again, uncritically accepts every characterization of sexual wrongdoing. The survey supposedly shows around 20 percent of college women are sexually assaulted. In fact, the survey is alarming on a host of levels, but not for the reasons the sexual grievance lobby insists. Here are some excerpts--and my comments:
First, college students -- women more than men -- are prone to rush to judgment and assume guilt based on an accusation:
Second, perhaps the most disturbing question of all shows that college students (especially college women) are woefully unschooled in the concept of Blackstone's formulation, that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This concept is imprinted on the DNA of our jurisprudence. We've written extensively about this concept (see here) and won't repeat ourselves here. Yet, in this survey, a whopping percentage of women think it's better that innocent young men be punished for offenses they didn't commit than to allow a guilty man to go free. Little wonder, given that the sexual grievance industry has dominated the public discourse on these issues for so long:
Third, there is a disturbing absence of understanding about what constitutes "consent." As but one example, a dizzying 44 percent of women polled didn't think nodding in agreement constitutes consent. This lack of understanding likely skewed the results of the survey, perhaps significantly:
Fourth, despite the responses of the women surveyed in question 35(e) -- where the vast majority don't think an absence of "no" is enough to show consent -- in the following response, more women prefer the "no means no" standard over "yes means yes" as the "better" standard to show whether an encounter was consensual. The absence of a "no" under the "no means no" standard would show consent. So which is it, ladies? Given the confusion among respondents, we must seriously question the trustworthiness of this survey:
Fifth, the question about "physical force" fails to define "physical force" and fails to ask if the "physical force" was accompanied by the woman's consent (of course, if the women nodded their heads in agreement to sex, as shown above, a significant percentage of them would not think that's consensual anyway):
Sixth, the following query asks about "unwanted" sex -- a subjective standard that has nothing to do with the legal standard of sexual assault since women can outwardly manifest consent while secretly not wanting to engage in the act. The question asks about times when respondents "were unable to provide consent because you were passed out, drugged, or drunk, incapacitated, or asleep." The wording of this question dooms to the survey's usefulness. A reasonable person taking this survey would not assume "drunk" sex is the same as "incapacitated" sex (because the survey uses both words, so it's not reasonable to assume one word is surplusage or that they mean the same thing). By any measure, "drunk"sex is not sexual assault, yet we know that a staggering percentage of sex occurs after imbibing alcohol:
Seventh, sexual coercion (sex obtained by making promises such as inviting you to a party) is apparently considered sexual assault (which is absurd):
_________________________
The survey is eye-opening because of the percentage of young women who think its better to sacrifice their wrongly accused brothers than to let a rapist stay enrolled in college. This reflects a disturbing undercurrent we've been writing about for many years -- that the wrongly accused are treated as collateral damage in the "more important" war on rape. (Of course, merely expelling a rapist isn't going to stop him from raping college or other women, often in the same off-campus place where he raped while he was a student. The sexual grievance industry doesn't seem very worried about that.)
Put all that aside, the survey is making headlines for reinforcing the 1-in-5 canard. As shown above, the survey is not reliable because of the way the questions are worded. Beyond that, even if the questions were worded properly, it would still be problematic. A recent scientific study shows that some women lie on surveys to minimize their consensual sexual encounters, likely because of societal double-standards that find it acceptable for men, but not women, to engage in sexual activity. These lies are designed to bring women in sync with their expected gender role, and it is the same reason many women lie about rape--to defend their femininity. Should we not expect, then, that some women report in surveys that they've been subjected to unwanted sex even when, in fact, the sex was consensual in order to be in sync with societal expectations about gender roles? The Washington Post survey doesn't take that into account.
Why is it assumed that sexual assault surveys are the moral equivalent of truth serum where women are incapable of telling anything but the one, objective truth? Why is every untested assertion of sexual assault assumed to be true based solely on the "victim's" side of the story? The fact is, people exaggerate, lie, and claim their behavior is better than it really is in all sorts of surveys and other public pronouncements--not just sex surveys. People exaggerate the hours they work; how often they go to church; their height and their weight; and their altruism during emergencies. White voters lie in surveys about their willingness to vote for a black political candidate. Heck, people even lie about the reason they buy a new computer. Nearly one in four women admitted to exaggerating or lying in social media about key aspects of their lives between one and three times per month.
It is well to note that surveys also show that almost 30 percent of women claim to have seen a ghost. Should we conclude there's an epidemic of ghostly encounters afflicting college women? Or would we require some greater proof before reaching that conclusion?
This is a serious question, with serious implications. The issue we raise isn't some abstraction, and we do not write this to engage in some sort of "Oppression Olympics." The fact is, sexual assault surveys are routinely used to justify the policy of diminishing the due process rights of male students accused of sexual assault. There are legitimate reasons for doubting the reliability of these surveys, and these concerns should not be dismissed as rape apology, misogyny, or slut shaming. Nor should we be demonized for merely raising the issue. This is an issue that ought to be seriously, and respectfully, discussed.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Study shows rape rates sharply reduced by teaching women to say "no"--which suggests that it really wasn't rape to begin with
Do you want to cut the rate of "rape" in half? Teaching women to say "no" would go a long way toward that end, a new study shows.
The study reported on the effects of a new program, developed by a professor in Canada, that teaches women to "recognize . . . coercive situations, get past roadblocks to resist unwanted sexual behaviors and practice verbally resisting the behavior or actions." The professor said: “My idea is that the more confident and sure women are of what they desire, and what they want, the easier it is to say, ‘No, I’m not doing that’ — and there wouldn’t be that prolonged pressure that results in sexual assault or clearly unwanted sex.” The program stresses that “it’s OK to say ‘no,'” and that sex isn’t owed if a date buys dinner. Part of the training "focuses on positive sexuality education, because the more they understand their own desires and values, 'the faster they are at detecting that someone is trying to coerce them to do something they don’t want . . . .'" One participant in the program praised it because "getting in tune with what you’re comfortable with allows you to have confidence in yourself and your own sexuality. . . . If you already know what your limits are, you’re not as likely to get coerced into things that you’re not interested in doing.” For the harder cases--guys who won't take "no"--the program also teaches self-defense.
The overriding theme of the new program is that "rape" can be largely curtailed by teaching college women to just say "no," and the implications of that conclusion are disturbing. According to the folks who dreamed up this program, college women are currently being "raped" in epidemic fashion even though they have reasonable alternatives to engaging in the sex act but choose not to exercise them. In other words, a lot of college men are "rapists" not for forcing themselves on women but for doing nothing more than nagging for sex, and a lot of women are "victims" because they choose to go along with it.
In a culture where the roles of pursuer and hard-to-get have been fairly divided along gender lines for eons, when you suddenly make traditional masculine behavior a punishable offense, is there any wonder there's a "rape epidemic" on campus?
Transmogrifying “sexual coercion” into a punishable offense has been a dream of hard left gender crazies for decades. Twenty-five years ago, writer Joanne Jacobs aptly explained: “In the largest survey of campus date rape, 43 percent of women classified as rape victims had not realized they’d been raped.” Was this because women were hesitant to label rape as a crime? “Hesitant to label rape a crime?” Ms. Jacobs scoffed. “No, they were hesitant to label having sex ‘when you did not want it because you were overwhelmed by continual arguments and pressure’ as rape, which is what happened to most of the ‘victims.’ They weren’t raped; they were nagged.” Writer Sarah Overstreet once wrote: “Our college students need the tools of personal power and responsibility, not a false definition of rape. So do we all. Lacking the skills or confidence to resist verbal coercion doesn’t make it a crime.”
For decades we’ve preached that when a woman says “no,” the man must stop. Now we are telling young men that when a woman says “yes,” they are still rapists because the young men asked too much, or didn't ask in a politically correct manner. The usual suspects have trivialized sexual assault to the point that women who truly do not have reasonable alternatives except to give in to sexual abuse are being lumped in with women who merely regretted the exercise of their own free will the morning after. Colleges are re-imagining “proper” male sexual conduct in an effort to construct a progressive, supposedly female-friendly, sexual utopia, and the gender lunatics have won.
But, alas, it gets even loonier. Even though this program supposedly cuts "rape" in half (largely by telling women to do what every rational person knows they should do), that's a big problem for some radical gender zealots. Kathleen Basile, a lead behavioral scientist in the division of violence prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this: "The main problem with a preventive approach that is focused on potential victims of sexual assault is that it puts the responsibility for preventing the assault on the potential victim, and does not acknowledge the role that potential perpetrators and the larger community play."
Here we go again.
In this new program, no one is "blaming" women for being "raped"--though many of the women the program saves from "rape" aren't really in danger of being raped--and no one is giving license to sociopaths who actually do rape. Nevertheless, extremists in the sexual grievance industry would prefer to withhold whatever good this program does provide in order to conform to some radical gender orthodoxy--the goal is not to stop "rape" but to insure that men are blamed for acting out their masculinity. The mind reels.
What they really need to teach young women, and young men, is about the regret asymmetry that separates young men and women when it comes to sex. Women feel much worse about themselves after a casual hook-up than men, and college students need to understand that. But regret is not rape, no matter how often the gender crazies insist it is.
The study reported on the effects of a new program, developed by a professor in Canada, that teaches women to "recognize . . . coercive situations, get past roadblocks to resist unwanted sexual behaviors and practice verbally resisting the behavior or actions." The professor said: “My idea is that the more confident and sure women are of what they desire, and what they want, the easier it is to say, ‘No, I’m not doing that’ — and there wouldn’t be that prolonged pressure that results in sexual assault or clearly unwanted sex.” The program stresses that “it’s OK to say ‘no,'” and that sex isn’t owed if a date buys dinner. Part of the training "focuses on positive sexuality education, because the more they understand their own desires and values, 'the faster they are at detecting that someone is trying to coerce them to do something they don’t want . . . .'" One participant in the program praised it because "getting in tune with what you’re comfortable with allows you to have confidence in yourself and your own sexuality. . . . If you already know what your limits are, you’re not as likely to get coerced into things that you’re not interested in doing.” For the harder cases--guys who won't take "no"--the program also teaches self-defense.
The overriding theme of the new program is that "rape" can be largely curtailed by teaching college women to just say "no," and the implications of that conclusion are disturbing. According to the folks who dreamed up this program, college women are currently being "raped" in epidemic fashion even though they have reasonable alternatives to engaging in the sex act but choose not to exercise them. In other words, a lot of college men are "rapists" not for forcing themselves on women but for doing nothing more than nagging for sex, and a lot of women are "victims" because they choose to go along with it.
In a culture where the roles of pursuer and hard-to-get have been fairly divided along gender lines for eons, when you suddenly make traditional masculine behavior a punishable offense, is there any wonder there's a "rape epidemic" on campus?
Transmogrifying “sexual coercion” into a punishable offense has been a dream of hard left gender crazies for decades. Twenty-five years ago, writer Joanne Jacobs aptly explained: “In the largest survey of campus date rape, 43 percent of women classified as rape victims had not realized they’d been raped.” Was this because women were hesitant to label rape as a crime? “Hesitant to label rape a crime?” Ms. Jacobs scoffed. “No, they were hesitant to label having sex ‘when you did not want it because you were overwhelmed by continual arguments and pressure’ as rape, which is what happened to most of the ‘victims.’ They weren’t raped; they were nagged.” Writer Sarah Overstreet once wrote: “Our college students need the tools of personal power and responsibility, not a false definition of rape. So do we all. Lacking the skills or confidence to resist verbal coercion doesn’t make it a crime.”
For decades we’ve preached that when a woman says “no,” the man must stop. Now we are telling young men that when a woman says “yes,” they are still rapists because the young men asked too much, or didn't ask in a politically correct manner. The usual suspects have trivialized sexual assault to the point that women who truly do not have reasonable alternatives except to give in to sexual abuse are being lumped in with women who merely regretted the exercise of their own free will the morning after. Colleges are re-imagining “proper” male sexual conduct in an effort to construct a progressive, supposedly female-friendly, sexual utopia, and the gender lunatics have won.
But, alas, it gets even loonier. Even though this program supposedly cuts "rape" in half (largely by telling women to do what every rational person knows they should do), that's a big problem for some radical gender zealots. Kathleen Basile, a lead behavioral scientist in the division of violence prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this: "The main problem with a preventive approach that is focused on potential victims of sexual assault is that it puts the responsibility for preventing the assault on the potential victim, and does not acknowledge the role that potential perpetrators and the larger community play."
Here we go again.
In this new program, no one is "blaming" women for being "raped"--though many of the women the program saves from "rape" aren't really in danger of being raped--and no one is giving license to sociopaths who actually do rape. Nevertheless, extremists in the sexual grievance industry would prefer to withhold whatever good this program does provide in order to conform to some radical gender orthodoxy--the goal is not to stop "rape" but to insure that men are blamed for acting out their masculinity. The mind reels.
What they really need to teach young women, and young men, is about the regret asymmetry that separates young men and women when it comes to sex. Women feel much worse about themselves after a casual hook-up than men, and college students need to understand that. But regret is not rape, no matter how often the gender crazies insist it is.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Repeal the "Dear Colleague" letter, says respected legal journal
The Legal Intelligencer, the oldest daily law journal in America, says the "Dear Colleague" letter needs to be repealed:
2011 Update to Title IX: The Pendulum Has Swung Too Far
2011 Update to Title IX: The Pendulum Has Swung Too Far
The federal law that requires gender equality in higher education, commonly referred to as Title IX, has brought about many laudable results since it was first passed in 1972. But at the behest of the U.S. Department of Education in 2011, the law that was passed to ensure that female students get equal opportunity was refashioned to require that schools investigate and punish sexual assaults on campus under DOE-approved procedures.
In the name of the wholly laudable goal of combating sexual assaults, the DOE placed schools in the precarious position of adjudicating allegedly criminal acts in their discipline systems, with the threat of potentially ruinous sanctions, should the schools' efforts fall short. Recognizing that at least some accusers have historically been mistreated, the department insisted on changes in how the system was to run, but those changes have gone too far and now undercut fundamental rights of those accused of wrongdoing. For instance, the DOE demanded that colleges apply a "preponderance of the evidence" standard in determining whether a sexual assault complaint has merit, and prohibited both the "clear and convincing" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" thresholds. Further, the department dictated that schools should prohibit the accused from cross-examining the accuser, warning that doing so could create a hostile environment—effectively taking the position that everyone accused is guilty, and that having the temerity to question the accuser would compound the trauma.
We can all agree that people who commit crimes should be brought to justice. At the same time, most of us share a profound commitment to affording those accused of a crime with certain rights—to know the accusation, to confront the accuser, to cross-examine witnesses and to due process. We know that each of these rights means that an accusation is less likely to result in a conviction. Yet no serious person proposes doing away with those basic rights, solely for the sake of increasing the conviction rate. If a mere accusation is sufficient to mete out punishment, we know how this story ends.
The damage is not confined to those who are falsely accused, nor to those whose valid complaints have been called into question by others crying "wolf." Even open discussion of the topic has become unacceptable to the zealots driving this initiative. When a professor at Northwestern University recently had the temerity to express her opinion that these measures were misguided and counter-productive for an academic institution whose mission should be preparing its students to become fully functioning adults, she herself was subjected to Title IX investigations at the behest of anonymous accusers. Like any other person facing such an investigation she was not permitted to know what the charges were against her in advance of her questioning, and she was not permitted to have her own legal counsel participate. This may sound like the stuff of an Orwellian dystopia and one that could never happen in a society committed to freedom of speech. Yet here we are—read it for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/p856936.
There are too many wrongs here to count. Higher education institutions are not designed, financed or suited to simultaneously play prosecutor, judge and jury. Faculty, administration and staff cannot magically be transformed into district attorneys and public defenders, even to satisfy the DOE's efforts to combat sex discrimination, and it is bad policy to force the square pegs of academia into the round holes of criminal prosecution. Moreover, those who face the prospect of being labeled as responsible for a sexual assault, expelled and having their future compromised by all that entails are just as vulnerable as those who are being prosecuted in the criminal justice system. We have constitutionally mandated requirements for due process in our criminal justice system, and if schools are to be tasked by the DOE with investigating and adjudicating quasi-criminal accusations, appropriate safeguards must be guaranteed to the accused.
We urge the Department of Education to repeal its 2011 mandate as both unconstitutional and unfair, and we urge that Congress amend Title IX accordingly.
The Hunting Ground's Amy Ziering: "92 to 98 percent of people who report rape are telling the truth."
"92 to 98 percent of people who report rape are telling the truth."
http://forward.com/sisterhood/310001/the-hunting-ground-exposes-campus-assault/
No research has ever shown that.
We've written about it many, many times and won't bore our readers with the breakdown again. While only a relatively small percentage of rape claims can be definitively classified as false claims, only a relatively small percentage of rape claims can be definitively classified as actual rapes. Surprised? The majority of rape claims fall into a grey area where no one can say one way or the other whether it was rape. (Only in polls where every rape allegation is uncritically accepted and untested against competing claims of innocence is every rape claim construed as an actual rape -- but when claims are actually reported, most can't be proven by even a preponderance of the evidence.) Even Dr. David Lisak, whose research is widely touted in feminist circles, has demonstrated that the majority of rape claims can't be definitively classified one way or the other. Of those claims that can be definitively classified one way or the other, the percentage of false claims is much higher than 8 percent.
http://forward.com/sisterhood/310001/the-hunting-ground-exposes-campus-assault/
No research has ever shown that.
We've written about it many, many times and won't bore our readers with the breakdown again. While only a relatively small percentage of rape claims can be definitively classified as false claims, only a relatively small percentage of rape claims can be definitively classified as actual rapes. Surprised? The majority of rape claims fall into a grey area where no one can say one way or the other whether it was rape. (Only in polls where every rape allegation is uncritically accepted and untested against competing claims of innocence is every rape claim construed as an actual rape -- but when claims are actually reported, most can't be proven by even a preponderance of the evidence.) Even Dr. David Lisak, whose research is widely touted in feminist circles, has demonstrated that the majority of rape claims can't be definitively classified one way or the other. Of those claims that can be definitively classified one way or the other, the percentage of false claims is much higher than 8 percent.
The wrestling coach who blogged about his son's ordeal in a college sex kangaroo court has been fired
Chalk up another victory for the college sexual grievance industry. C.D. Mock, the UNC-Chapel Hill head wrestling coach who has openly criticized the way universities handle sexual assault allegations in the wake of his son's ordeal at another college, has been fired. See here. The administration claims the firing was due to "performance" issues, but Mr. Mock says "it’s difficult to ignore the timing of this." He writes:
It is well to note that Mr. Mock expresses many of the same criticisms that many prominent law professors have expressed. Mr. Mock's "mistake" is that his writings are not couched in legal niceties, and he doesn't have the authority of being a Harvard or Penn law professor when he bemoans the absence of due process in college sex tribunals. For that reason, he is much easier to attack than, say, a feminist law professor at Harvard who criticizes the same things that Mr. Mock attacks. See here.
It is telling, and not at all surprising, that Mr. Mock was fired but that college professors and administrators are not even reprimanded, much less fired, for openly expressing the view that an accusation of college rape is tantamount to guilt. One college administrator openly questioned why students who are merely accused of sexual assault aren't simply expelled. Far from being fired, her school defended her. Another administrator asserted that when men and women engage in mutually drunken sex, only the male should be held responsible. A professor said this about lawsuits filed by college men alleging violations of their due process rights in connection with sexual assault claims: "These lawsuits are an incredible display of entitlement, the same entitlement that drove them to rape." Oh, and we must not forget the professor who who touted her allegiance to misandry (I'm sure she was just being "funny.")
Mr. Mock doesn't want to be a martyr to a cause, but whether he likes it or not, he is. His blog is replete with information about his son's ordeal--it is devoted to to raising awareness about these issues, and our readers should check it out.
It’s ironic, the act of firing me may be confirming my viewpoint; there is a very dangerous thing happening across this country that is transforming our concept of personal freedom and individual rights. We are beginning to tolerate the idea that it is ok and in fact a reasonable strategy to silence any opposition to one’s beliefs and views rather than to encourage debate. Was I fired because my beliefs and views differ from those of the leadership at UNC? If one believes this to be true, there should be outrage throughout the Carolina community. Certainly not because a wrestling coach was fired; but, because a major University may have taken extreme measures to silence one of it’s own who is a vocal critic on an issue that has nothing to do with that individual’s job. Is the next firing going to be because of one’s religious preference? Or perhaps, the next coach or professor fired at UNC will be because of his or her views on gay rights? If this is ok, where does this end?Mr. Mock writes about his son's case on his blog. See, e.g., here. Earlier this year, Mr. Mock endured a firestorm of criticism for his blunt indictments of the rush-to-judgment mentality that is the new norm on campus for young men accused of rape. And now he is out.
It is well to note that Mr. Mock expresses many of the same criticisms that many prominent law professors have expressed. Mr. Mock's "mistake" is that his writings are not couched in legal niceties, and he doesn't have the authority of being a Harvard or Penn law professor when he bemoans the absence of due process in college sex tribunals. For that reason, he is much easier to attack than, say, a feminist law professor at Harvard who criticizes the same things that Mr. Mock attacks. See here.
It is telling, and not at all surprising, that Mr. Mock was fired but that college professors and administrators are not even reprimanded, much less fired, for openly expressing the view that an accusation of college rape is tantamount to guilt. One college administrator openly questioned why students who are merely accused of sexual assault aren't simply expelled. Far from being fired, her school defended her. Another administrator asserted that when men and women engage in mutually drunken sex, only the male should be held responsible. A professor said this about lawsuits filed by college men alleging violations of their due process rights in connection with sexual assault claims: "These lawsuits are an incredible display of entitlement, the same entitlement that drove them to rape." Oh, and we must not forget the professor who who touted her allegiance to misandry (I'm sure she was just being "funny.")
Mr. Mock doesn't want to be a martyr to a cause, but whether he likes it or not, he is. His blog is replete with information about his son's ordeal--it is devoted to to raising awareness about these issues, and our readers should check it out.
Monday, June 15, 2015
The reason we have false rape claims
Feminist Avens O'Brien has written Want Fewer False Rape Accusations? Stop Slut Shaming, and it sounds an awful lot like the "regret asymmetry" that I write about. An excerpt from O'Brien's article:
The number of false rape claims cannot be known accurately, but there are many speculations about the percentages. There are many motivations for falsely claiming rape, and the most common one I hear people throw out is that “she was punishing him for something else”. Setting aside the debate about the level of vindictive behavior of some women, let’s not ignore what is definitely a factor in many false rape claims: slut-shaming.
A society that treats women like they lose something from sexual activity is going to find women defending themselves from that alleged loss by any means: including falsely claiming that sexual activity was neither wanted nor consented to.
A woman has sex, and is slut-shamed for it. This may cause her to feel the need to “protect” her perceived sexual “value” – how best to do that? Claim she didn’t want the sex in the first place. Suddenly, the man’s a rapist.
Don’t tell me this doesn’t happen, because it’s exactly what happened to a male friend of mine. A woman who internalized slut-shaming so much that she frequently called other women sluts and judged them harshly for promiscuous sexual activity, fooled around with someone I know, felt shame for doing so, and to protect her reputation as a virgin and someone who would never allow a man like him to have sexual access to her, claimed he raped her and ruined his life.
This is the result of slut-shaming, a concept that really shouldn’t exist amongst civilized people, particularly amongst my fellow libertarians who claim to have a fondness for logic and reason.
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