By Elaine Magliaro
UPDATE: Rolling Stone has posted a note to its readers about Sabrina Erdely’s article A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA. Click here to read the letter.
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Sabrina Rubin Erdely has an excellent article over at Rolling Stone titled A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA. The article tells the story of an eighteen-year-old student named Jackie who was just beginning her freshman year at the University of Virginia “when she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party.” Erdely says that when Jackie tried to hold the men accountable a “whole new kind of abuse began.” Jackie’s story illuminates why so many sexual assault victims are discouraged from and reticent about speaking
Victims say UVA covering up rape claims
Excerpt from Erdely’s Rolling Stone article:
“Shut up,” she heard a man’s voice say as a body barreled into her, tripping her backward and sending them both crashing through a low glass table. There was a heavy person on top of her, spreading open her thighs, and another person kneeling on her hair, hands pinning down her arms, sharp shards digging into her back, and excited male voices rising all around her. When yet another hand clamped over her mouth, Jackie bit it, and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. The men surrounding her began to laugh. For a hopeful moment Jackie wondered if this wasn’t some collegiate prank. Perhaps at any second someone would flick on the lights and they’d return to the party.
“Grab its motherfucking leg,” she heard a voice say. And that’s when Jackie knew she was going to be raped.
She remembers every moment of the next three hours of agony, during which, she says, seven men took turns raping her, while two more – her date, Drew, and another man – gave instruction and encouragement. She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the men’s heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana. Most of all, Jackie remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.
Paul Farhi wrote about Erdely and her Rolling Stone article in The Washington Post yesterday:
The gruesome details of the alleged assault and the hard-drinking atmosphere surrounding it were harrowing enough. But the story also focused on what happened to Jackie after she told friends and campus officials that she had been brutalized. Erdely recounted a virtually systemic whitewashing of Jackie’s allegations, from peers who counseled her to remain silent to an indifferent and conflicted school administration, caught between adjudicating a serious crime and protecting the university’s platinum reputation.
Farhi said that one “remarkable” thing about Erdely’s article is that no one had reported about what had happened to the young woman at the frat party before–even though a few dozen people “in and around U-Va. were aware of Jackie’s story — friends, family, administrators and the small circle of people associated with One Less, the campus sexual assault awareness organization that Jackie had joined.” Still, Jackie’s story remained untold for more than two years.
Erdely spoke with Judy Woodruff on PBS Newshour recently. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY:
…When I first encountered Jackie, I was absolutely shocked by her story. She went to the administration and told them that she had been gang-raped at a fraternity house by seven men while two others watched. And the administration did nothing about it.
And even though a year later, she actually came to the administration again and told them that she had heard of two other women who had come to her telling them that they, too, had been gang-raped at the same fraternity, the administration also chose to do nothing about that.
So that was incredibly shocking to me, that the administration would decide not just to do nothing in her case, but nothing to warn the campus at large that there was a fraternity that was having parties and holding fraternity rush and so forth that had had numerous now allegations against it for gang rape. But nobody was ever warned.
Judy Woodruff’s Interview with Sabrina Rubin Erdely:
Sabrina Rubin Erdely on Morning Joe:
UVA Fraternities suspended because of alleged sex crimes on campus
Click here to read Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s Rolling Stone article.
SOURCES
A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA (Rolling Stone)
Sabrina Rubin Erdely, woman behind Rolling Stone’s explosive U-Va. alleged rape story (Washington Post)
Article on brutal sexual assault provokes investigation at the University of Virginia (PBS Newshour)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
The story at the link was so hard to read. The objectification of women is epidemic.
Bettykath,
I agree. The article was hard to read. It’s troubling to think that this kind of thing happens at many other colleges and universities in this country.
Our ‘Rape Problem’ Can’t Be Solved By Colleges
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/the-college-rape-problem-_b_6228844.html
Excerpt:
The Rolling Stone article came fast on the heels of allegations made against revered Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi (who was arrested yesterday) and critical media coverage of decades old allegations of rape against American icon Bill Cosby (whose accusers now number 19). At the same time, lost in the awful news shuffle of the past two weeks, was a detailed story about the sexual abuse of girls, competing in USA Swimming, by their coaches and another about three high school girls in Oklahoma bullied at school after reporting their rapes. Even though the Internet has heightened public awareness, many people simply refuse to believe that one in five women in the United States experience sexual assault. For men that number is one in 77, although I suspect it is higher. But, these statistics are, if anything, low.
Rape, and unconscionably high institutional tolerance for rape, is a problem on campuses, and there are ways that schools can reduce its occurrence, but sexual assault is everywhere. It’s important not to focus on UVA when talking about UVA. Rape is a military problem. A Catholic Church problem. A celebrity problem. A respected media personalities problem. A Rotherdam problem. An early marriage problem. A gang problem. An elder care problem. A problem in mental institutions. A prison problem. A problem in the sciences. A problem in the Occupy movement. In police departments. In football. In swimming. On borders. In war. And, perhaps most frightening of all for many people a family problem. I say this because it’s in families where investments in, and the effects of, gender binaries and their hierarchical outcomes, are intimate and personal. Where people become complicit as individuals, for what is often referred to as “unpleasantness.” To understand how rape works as an oppressive, regulatory force in culture, it’s necessary to understand how gender stereotypes and binaries work as oppressive and regulatory principles.
What is almost impossible for some people to contemplate is that there are human cultures where rape is virtually unknown. Societies where women don’t calibrate themselves, for their entire lives, to its threat. More than 40 years ago, anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted an extensive cross-cultural study of rape involving more than 150 human societies around the word. She found that 47% of societies she studied had no rape, 36% had some incidence of rape, and 17%, of which we are one, were definitively rape prone.
What marked cultures where rape was missing were that women had authority in the community that was not related to reproduction — they were political or religious leaders and made valued economic contributions to society; feminine qualities were valued by communities; the relationships between men and women was not defined as hierarchical; boys were taught to respect girls and women (something altogether different from learning to protect them); these societies were stable and peaceful, making reliance on brute male physical dominance less likely; divinities were not uniquely male; and, lastly, these cultures had great respect for their environments and did not destructively exploit them.
I wouldn’t go “all-in” on anonymous reports of lurid goings-on without more corroboration. The alleged victim in the piece did not go to police when the event occurred despite being advised to do so, the author of the piece showed considerable disdain for UVA officials despite the alleged victim’s praise of those same officials, and the reaction of UVA to shut down all Greek organizations — including dry sororities — is nothing short of draconian. It’s classic “prisoner of the moment” thinking that drives this firestorm. We need to step back, investigate the allegation if the victim will come forward and punish the guilty if they are in fact and legally guilty.
Mespo,
The girl’s name is actually Jackie. Other victims came forward. Their real names were used in the article. Did you read the entire article?
mespo,
The UVA Gang Rape Allegations Are Awful, Horrifying, and Not Shocking at All
By Bonnie Gordon
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/11/25/uva_gang_rape_allegations_in_rolling_stone_not_surprising_to_one_associate.html
Excerpt:
UVA has a rape culture problem. Rape culture normalizes rape as part of a larger system of attitudes and understandings of gender and sexuality. Rape culture can include victim blaming, and assuming that rapists are strangers. Rape culture accepts rape as a norm that women have to work to avoid. Rape culture reflects a community grounded in patriarchal privilege and gender inequity. For example, that mural. Or the fact that our sacred founder, Thomas Jefferson, had sex with a 14-year-old enslaved girl. (That’s not consensual.)
UVA also has an over-the-top drinking culture. In my experience with students who come to me with stories of being assaulted or harassed, the vast majority of sexual violence here involves alcohol consumed by one or both parties. (When a student comes to me, I always send him or her—and it’s almost always her—to the counseling center and to Nicole Eramo, the UVA employee who was featured unsympathetically in the Rolling Stone piece. I almost always encourage them to report to the university or the police.) UVA also has a recent history of terrifying domestic violence. In 2010, student George Huguely brutally murdered another student, Yeardley Love, who he had dated and abused in the past.
Nothing in the Rolling Stone article about university culture is new. Yale made the national news in 2013 because only one in six students found responsible for non-consensual sex were suspended. The past few years have witnessed a steady stream of alleged rapes at schools with big revenue-generating sports cultures and Greek systems. Part of the supposed shock of the article involves a sense that we as an institution are committed to high-minded ideas and taking care of our students, and that we ought to be better than this, even better than the rest of the society. If only that were true: UVA is one of more than 70 institutions under Title IX investigation by the Department of Education for the possible mishandling of sexual violence and harassment reports. UVA has its own brand of white southern patriarchal privilege but it is definitely not alone. Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, William and Mary, and UNC Chapel Hill made the list too.
Many of us at the university who work on sexual violence issues—either through teaching feminist theory courses, working with survivors of rape and harassment, or pushing the university towards gender equality—have made the point this week that rape is not a new emergency at UVA. Harassment, assault, and rape have been going on for years, in fraternities and in many other parts of the university. If this Rolling Stone article prompts social change, that will be amazing. But for that to happen, we all need to exit panic mode.
My colleague, Jennifer Rubenstein, a professor in the politics department, has explained that calling a moment an “emergency” can, in the end, normalize top-down political systems. Emergency implies something unexpected that needs immediate attention. An emergency indicates that things were normal until now. The easiest way to return to business as usual, which was part of the problem, is to stress the Rolling Stone article and the alleged gang rape as an exceptional moment. The second easiest way to return to business as usual is to assume that if we shut down the frats for some amount of time the problem will be fixed.
Elaine: No sense asking about Mespo’s reading comprehension skills…. Mespo is a big Frat boy at heart, and I’ll bet is someone who’s is still intimately involved with his Frat, many years later…let’s see if he denies it.
The alleged rape at a University of Virginia frat house and the fraternity gang-rape culture
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/24/university-of-virginias-rape-scandal-and-the-fraternity-gang-rape-culture/?tid=hp_mm
Excerpt:
But as shocking and as horrifying as Jackie’s story is, it bears a striking similarity to other stories of fraternity gang rape, a survey of academic literature shows. The narratives found in such analyses hint at a decades-old pattern of behavior as well as a generational shift in perception — from the era of “Animal House” to modern times, when campus rape is more closely scrutinized. The studies convey a culture of impunity, where group-think and hyper-masculinity treat sexual assault as something ordinary, even desired.
“There is a similarity of pattern in these incidents,” Lois G. Forer wrote in the foreword to the landmark 1990 book “Fraternity Gang Rape.” “The men are on their own ‘turf,’ whether it be a part of a park, a shack, or a fraternity house. The identity of the woman is irrelevant. Anyone who happens to be at or near the premises will suffice. All the men drink a great deal of liquor. Then, in the presence of the entire group, each has sex in turn with the female. … While individually they probably would not engage in such brutal or degrading conduct, when reinforced by their companions they exhibit no sense of what most men and women consider decency or compassion.”…
In such an arena, danger lurks. In 2002, David Lisak, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, and Paul M. Miller of Brown University studied 1,800 college men to determine the prevalence of rapists on campus as well their similarities to incarcerated rapists. The study found that the vast majority of rapes — about 90 percent — were committed by the same serial rapists, each of whom on average committed nearly six rapes.
“The evidence that a relatively small portion of men are responsible for a large number of rapes … may provide at least a partial answer to an oft-noted paradox: namely, that while victimization surveys have established that a substantial proportion of women are sexually victimized, relatively small percentages of men report committing acts of sexual violence,” they wrote.
US universities battle scourge of campus rape
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-us-universities-battle-scourge-of-campus-rape-2014-11
Excerpt:
Washington (AFP) – Last spring, emails written by members of American University’s Epsilon Iota fraternity were leaked, revealing to a horrified public the strategies — from manipulation to outright drugging — the brothers used to get sex.
The messages from the members of the unofficial group at the campus in the US capital gave tips on targeting first-year female students — perceived to be more naive — and the best places to have sex without being seen.
One email suggested inviting girls over for drinks before a party, so they “would feel more relaxed and safe.”
That “would be such a good idea to get the bitches in the right state of intoxication,” it said.
The problem at American University is one that colleges across the nation are confronting — how to stem the rising tide of campus sexual assaults.
Why Victims of Rape in College Don’t Report to the Police
http://time.com/2905637/campus-rape-assault-prosecution/
Excerpt:
So, why don’t victims go to the police? Every victim is different, but there are a few common themes that ran through the testimony at the hearing and through conversations with experts in the field.
1. They don’t want anyone to know. In the round table, confidentiality was the most often sighted goal of both victim’s advocates and police officers and prosecutors who work most closely with victims. Survey data backs them up. Contrary to Washington Post columnist George Will’s bizarre theory that reporting sexual assault could confer a “coveted status” for victims, research shows that college victims don’t report sexual assault to the police because they don’t want anyone to know. In the 2007 study, 42% of the “physically forced” victims who did not report the incident to the police said it was because they “did not want anyone to know.” Nearly half of the victims gave the same answer in an earlier survey (also funded by the National Institute of Justice) that randomly surveyed 4, 446 women attending two or four year colleges during 1997.
Victims, especially those in college, know that reporting rape comes with a social risk, especially when the perpetrator is someone they know. At a small or midsize college, the rapist is likely to be part of the victim’s social circle. “I’ve seen this in every single case. The victim lose friends or becomes a social pariah. If you report on a really small campus, its really difficult to re-integrate after you report,” says Bruno…
3. They are afraid the police won’t believe them. In the more recent 2007 study, 21% of physically forced victims and 12% of incapacitated victims did not report because they didn’t think the police would take the crime seriously and 13% of forced victims and 24% of incapacitated victims feared the police would treat them poorly. Victims have also reported that their colleges discouraged them from reporting.
Victims aren’t wrong in their perception. According to research funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, only 18% of reported rapes result in a conviction.
“The alleged victim in the piece did not go to police when the event occurred despite being advised to do so, ”
No. She was discouraged by her “friends” from even going to the hospital. The “advocate” gave her three choices in a “neutral” way. Considering that the advocate had a conflict of interest, the well-being of the victim and protecting the university, I don’t have confidence in the neutrality of her description of the choices. Lots of sympathy for the victim and telling her how awful she must feel, subtly implying that she isn’t strong enough to deal with the cops instead of letting her know that she is strong and will feel even stronger and more empowered by confronting her attackers is a way to downplay the importance of reporting the attack to the police.
Binghamton University (which should be State University of NY at Binghamton but for the grandiose ideas of a former chancellor) has instituted a new procedure. I’m not sure of the details, but the part I like and remember is that the attacker cannot return to the school until the victim graduates. She will not run into him in a class or at the pool.
Bill Cosby, UVA and Rape
Nicholas Kristof
NOV. 26, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/opinion/nicholas-kristof-bill-cosby-uva-and-rape.html
Excerpt:
Yet let’s be real. The dominant problem is not an epidemic of men falsely accused of rape, but of women who endure sexual violence — including about one female college student in five, according to the White House.
One study published in 2002 found that about 90 percent of college rapes were committed by a tiny number of serial rapists.
So bravo to those speaking up, male and female alike. In Norman, Okla., high school students say that a male student raped several girls and distributed a pornographic video of one of them. Frustrated by what they saw as administration passivity, the students have been waging protests to educate school officials about right and wrong.
Sure, sexual violence may be embedded in parts of American culture, but, in my lifetime, we’ve changed other cultural norms. Drunken driving is no longer comical or silly, but repugnant. What will it take to get a serious response to all accusations of rape?
.” Jackie’s story illuminates why so many sexual assault victims are discouraged from and reticent about speaking out”
A point that was being made during the earlier Bill Cosby thread.
Eniobob,
Right! Got to shame/blame victims of sexual abuse. That’s a good way to keep many of them from telling their tales. Make them into pariahs if they don’t keep their mouths shut. Let serial rapists get away with their misdeeds…forever.
High-ranked firm hired to scrutinize UVa’s sexual assault policies, procedures
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/high-ranked-firm-hired-to-scrutinize-uva-s-sexual-assault/article_b5193ac4-781a-11e4-85e4-3bfd2c8b946c.html?mode=jqm
Excerpt:
“When I see a university hiring a law firm, I assume they’re doing it for two reasons,” Foubert said. “First, to make sure they’re meeting the minimum legal standards, and, second, to clean things up.”
In UVa’s case, Foubert said, the latter could take work. Of the six universities where Foubert has worked, he said, UVa stands out in his mind for both the frequency of sexual assaults and the administration’s lack of urgency in handling assault cases.
Foubert said students told him that administrators encouraged them to pursue alternatives to reporting assaults to police. Doing so would have triggered the university’s federal reporting requirement, he said.
“If a university’s primary consideration was their reputation, they would not want cases to be reported to police,” Foubert said.
He was an assistant dean at the school from 1998 to 2000.
Don’t ignore charges at U.Va.
http://hamptonroads.com/2014/11/dont-ignore-charges-uva#
Excerpt:
“As a student at Mary Washington College in the 1960s, I knew of the pervasive problem of sexual assault at U.Va. and refused invitations to spend the night or date anyone from U.Va.,” state Sen. Linda T. “Toddy” Puller said in a statement last week. “Since then, it has only become a bigger problem.”
Susan Russell, whose daughter reported being raped on campus in 2004, has spent years demanding reform and an apology from the university after she said it mishandled her daughter’s case.
This summer, a congressional subcommittee reported that more than 40 percent of some 300 U.S. universities and colleges hadn’t investigated allegations of sexual assault on campus in the past five years.
Administrators have too often ignored the scope of the problem, opting instead to protect the institution rather than treat violent crimes with the seriousness they demand.
U.Va. remains the subject of a federal Title IX investigation into its handling of sexual assault. It has long treated reports of sexual assaults far differently than it treats cases of plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty, as Rolling Stone and student-run outlets have reported.
Since 1998, according to WUVA, the university has expelled 183 students for Honor Code violations; in that same period, none has been expelled as a result of sexual assault. And it’s not as if such crime isn’t occurring.
While sexual assault is typically underreported, federally mandated data shows 51 forcible sex assaults were reported at the University of Virginia in just the past three years.
Even when the perpetrator has admitted raping a fellow student, he isn’t expelled.
Bottom line Elaine is that none of the article’s sources have presented credible and sufficient evidence to the police to permit criminal charges to be filed.. All were offered the choice. Unsubstantiated allegations are easily made and are destructive to all parties. UVA has a progressive approach to sexual assault allegations and the coordinator is top notch. Even the mysterious “Jackie” admits that fact. it was the article’s author who cast aspersions on the coordinator not the purported victim. I do not condone guilt by association or some notion that an organization is defined by the alleged actions of a few. I also think the investigation is seriously compromised by the near two year delay that was caused by the victim herself. I certainly understand the embarrassment such an allegation entails and know the psychology that fosters this dilemma, but for a system to work the victim has to be willing to present her evidence to the authorities. Articles pointing up the problems of rape investigations and prosecutions are useful but this Rolling Stone article painting UVA as some rape haven is untrue, unfair, and destructive to the reputations of good people and good institutions. Lest you think otherwise, three years ago a female UVA lacrosse player was battered and killed by a fellow male player. That case was tried and a conviction resulted. None called for the suspension of the lacrosse team or said that UVA had a murder culture. The reason was that such a position was untenable and there we had a conviction in a court of law. Why are we so anxious to jump to the opposite conclusion when we have no charges, no trial and no conviction? It’s pitchfork and torches time and no one has even seen the “monster.” All we have are allegations.
mespo,
Sexual violence against girls and women in this country is a serious problem–at the high school level, at the college level, in domestic situations. Too often females who make public accusations against their abusers face being blamed/shamed for what happened to them…have their character called into question…are accused of making things up. That’s why they often remain silent and live with their pain. The “monsters” are the serial rapists who get away with sexually assaulting women without having to face any consequences.
You say you “understand the embarrassment such an allegation entails and know the psychology that fosters this dilemma”–but do you really? You want traumatized rape victims to go to the police and bring evidence of their sexual assaults. You want the “system” to work. I want educational institutions to do their best to help protect young women from sexual predators on their campuses–just as I would have expected that the Catholic Church would have done everything in its power to rid its clergy of pedophiles/sexual predators. Unfortunately, sometimes respected institutions go out of their way to protect their reputations…even if it means innocent victims get no justice.
mespo,
UVA’s answer to rape allegations a farce
By John Foubert
http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/25/opinion/foubert-uva-rape-allegations/
Editor’s note: John Foubert is the author of “The Men’s and Women’s Programs: Ending Rape Through Peer Education” (Taylor & Francis). He is the founder and national president of One in Four, a public nonprofit rape prevention organization with 15 campus-based chapters whose programs have been presented to 100,000-plus college students and military personnel worldwide. He is a professor of higher education and student affairs at Oklahoma State University
Excerpt:
(CNN) — The nation’s colleges have a serious rape problem. Five percent of college women experience rape or attempted rape every year on campus. Most universities are doing little to nothing about this.
From 1998 to 2000, I was an assistant dean of students at the University of Virginia. Of the six universities where I have worked, the University of Virginia stands out among them for not only the frequency of rape allegations but also for the unresponsiveness of administrators.
This issue, which affects so many students, is finally coming into light, led by the excellent reporting of Sabrina Rudin Erdely in Rolling Stone, detailing an alleged, horrific gang rape in a Virginia fraternity.
Only now is the university really doing anything about it, some two years later. Its most recent action is to suspend all fraternities through Jan. 9, some 45 days or so. To an outsider this might seem like an admirable first step. In reality, it is a farce.
Suspending fraternities’ functions at this point essentially means that they are not able to have official parties during the week between Thanksgiving and final exams. One week. Fraternities are self-supporting houses off campus anyway, so who is to say they won’t just have a social gathering in their houses and not call it a party?
The trouble runs deeper, though. Recent interviews with university administrators show that they are highly reluctant to expel a student who commits rape (watch this eye-opening video). When I worked there, I was once asked to meet with a student who had been found responsible for sexual assault. He was instructed to read a book about sexual assault and then discuss it with me. That hardly seems like an adequate punishment.
I also sat through sexual assault board hearings where clear cut cases of rape occurred and supported survivors when they found out that the perpetrator was found “not responsible.” In most cases I was aware of, male students were not found responsible. Occasionally suspensions would occur; those were, of course, temporary.
During my tenure there, rape survivors would commonly tell me that they had wanted to file charges against their attacker but were told by administrators that their cases were more fit for mediation. It is unconscionable to mediate a felony. And in fact, the Office of Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Education ordered universities in 2011 to stop mediating rape cases.
Elaine M:
How does an institution help victims when the alleged victim doesn’t report the allegation or when it has two competing claims made by students and no corroboration for either student’s story which is often the case? Universities are not law enforcement and they can only investigate so far with no power of subpoena. Just what could UVA have done differently under these facts? And how do you justify punishing all for the actions of a few? This is emotion run wild with no thought of how to do it better. It’s just blaming people who likely were not even on the scene in 2012 for an alleged crime that happened then.
mespo,
From the CNN article:
“During my tenure there, rape survivors would commonly tell me that they had wanted to file charges against their attacker but were told by administrators that their cases were more fit for mediation.”
Do you think the college administrators should have discouraged rape survivors/victims of sexual assaults from filing charges?
Professor Foubert is a zealot as this excerpt from the Los Angeles Times points up. Foubert is defending his position that 25% of university coeds have been sexually assaulted:
“Despite all this, the numbers have stuck. Today, John Foubert, an education professor at William and Mary College (and founder of a group called One-in-Four, which works on sexual assault issues and has chapters on 17 campuses), says, “The one-in-four statistic has been replicated in several studies for several decades. To the extent that social science can prove anything, which I believe it can, the one-in-four statistic has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. My instincts tell me that the statistic is actually much higher.”
Yet subsequent campus rape studies keep turning up the pesky divergence between the victims’ and the researchers’ point of view.
A 2006 survey of sorority women at the University of Virginia, for example, found that only 23% of the subjects whom the survey characterized as rape victims felt that they had been raped—a result that the university’s director of sexual and domestic violence services calls “discouraging.” Equally damning was a 2000 campus rape study conducted under the aegis of the Department of Justice. Sixty-five percent of those whom the researchers called “completed rape” victims and three-quarters of “attempted rape” victims said that they did not think that their experiences were “serious enough to report.”
Believing in the campus rape epidemic, it turns out, requires ignoring women’s own interpretations of their experiences.”
-LA Times (2/24/2008)
Elaine M:
The problem is that Jackie says she was offered the option to go to police by UVA officials but declined because her friends discouraged her — not UVA. Jackie is a pawn in a high stakes political game by the proponents of rape culture against those who decry the notion.
mespo,
I never said that UVA officials discouraged Jackie from going to police. I think the author of the article made it pretty clear that many victims succumb to peer pressure.
*****
Sexual Assault and College Campuses – Statistics
http://www.slc.edu/offices-services/security/assault/statistics.html
The following statistics were compiled by the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault
At least 1 in 4 college women will be the victim of a sexual assault during her academic career. Hirsch, Kathleen (1990)”Fraternities of Fear: Gang Rape, Male Bonding, and the Silencing of Women.” Ms., 1(2) 52-56.
At least 80% of all sexual assaults are committed by an acquaintance of the victim. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001.
48.8% of college women who were victims of attacks that met the study’s definition of rape did not consider what happened to them rape. Bureau of Justice Stats. “Sexual Victimization of Collegiate Women” 2000, US DOJ.
More than 70% of rape victims knew their attackers, compared to about half of all violent crime victims. Dennison, Callie. Criminal Victimization 1998. Bureau of Justice Stats, DOJ.
There are 35.3 incidents of sexual assault per 1,000 female students on a campus as recorded over a 6.91 month period (the academic year of ‘96 – ’97) as reported in the 2000 DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics report “The Sexual Victimization of College Women.”
On average, at least 50% of college students’ sexual assaults are associated with alcohol use Abbey et al., 1996a, 1998; Copenhaver and Grauerholz, 1991; Harrington and Leitenberg, 1994; Presley et al., 199). Koss (1988), Within the study’s nationally represented sample of college students the results found that 74% of perpetrators and 55% of rape victims had been drinking alcohol prior to the assault.
In a survey of high school students, 56% of girls and 76% of boys [some of whom may be incoming college freshmen] believed forced sex was acceptable under some circumstances. Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime, 1991.
Elaine M:
The one-in-four number is a farce as the article you cites exposes. That CNN article says 5% of all coeds claim sexual assault which probably is about right. We have no idea what the numbers are at UVA and that should be compiled.
Elaine M:
It’s true you never said UVA officials discouraged reporting rape. It was Foubert, whom you cited, who said that. That’s why he’s not to be believed in the current context as his data, if true, is at least 14 years old.
Mespo,
The one in four number may be incorrect. That doesn’t mean that women being sexually assaulted on college campuses isn’t a serious problem. I’ve read a number of articles about colleges trying to keep the stories of campus rapes and assaults quiet to protect their reputations.
DISPATCH SPECIAL INVESTIGATION | CAMPUS INSECURITY
College discipline system findings trouble officials
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/11/30/discipline-findings-trouble-officials.html
Excerpt:
“American colleges and universities should be safe spaces to learn and grow,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in a statement responding to the investigation. “That’s why it’s so important that any criminal allegations are handled fairly and responsibly –– to guarantee students’ due process while delivering justice for victims and ensuring all students are protected.”
To achieve that goal, Brown added, there must be minimum training standards for campus employees, greater transparency in their work and more accountability for schools.
The investigation was based on discipline records from almost 2,000 violent cases provided by 25 public universities across the country, including all 13 in Ohio and two of their branch campuses. It found that:
• Colleges have dealt light punishments for offenses as serious as homicide and sexual assault, sometimes issuing no more than probation or ordering students to write a reflective essay on their misconduct.
• Schools widely refuse to publicize discipline decisions for violent offenses, despite laws that allow and sometimes require the release of those records to the public.
• Secrecy by schools can make it easy for students to hide violent histories when they transfer to another school.
• Campus courts don’t guarantee students many of the rights that are required in criminal courts.
The Dark Power of Fraternities
A yearlong investigation of Greek houses reveals their endemic, lurid, and sometimes tragic problems—and a sophisticated system for shifting the blame.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/the-dark-power-of-fraternities/357580/
Fraternity Culture Linked To College Sexual Assault Problem
10/21/14
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/oct/21/fraternities-and-campus-sexual-assault-problem/
Excerpt:
“Right now a lot of attention is being paid to intercollegiate athletics (regarding sexual assaults)” said Peter Lake, a professor of law at Stetson University in Florida. It’s only a matter of time, he said, before the focus shifts to another highly visible student group: fraternities. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating how more than 80 schools respond to rape on campus.
Experts and Greek insiders agree that a competitive, testosterone-driven environment fueled by alcohol and casual sex is part of fraternities’ sexual assault problem. So are the large-scale parties at fraternity houses, which can be ideal surroundings for predatory behavior.
Two studies in 2007 and 2009 published in the NASPA Journal suggest that fraternity members are more likely than non-fraternity members to commit rape. One of those studies found that women in sororities are 74 percent more likely to experience rape than other college women.
Victims often don’t report rapes at fraternity houses because of fear of retaliation from its members. And brotherhood loyalty pressures some fraternity members to protect known perpetrators. Meanwhile, college and universities, along with the national fraternity industry, carefully measure oversight to avoid liability.
Elaine,
I have to say that the KPBS story matches my anecdotal experiences with fraternities (and to some much smaller degree sororities). I went to a lot of parties in college, GDI and frat alike and, with one or two exceptions, if I saw truly appalling human behavior towards women (or indeed anyone not in the frat or within the fraternity system) it was at a frat party. I was asked to pledge one once, but by that time I’d seen enough to know I wanted no part of fraternities. They very often promote the gang mentality every bit as much as a street gang, just better dressed and with Mommy and Daddy’s credit cards.
Elaine M:
Sexual assault is an endemic problem throughout the society. No one seriously disputes the prevalence of this criminal manifestation. But the issue here is the allegations in the RS article and their effect on innocents including the alleged victim. I rarely find it useful to “go public” with an issue unless the institution charged with addressing the problem refuses to act. Here UVA offered the still unknown Jackie the opportunity to go the police or activate the administrative process to seek redress. She declined. One must then ask, “why now?” The only solution I can glean looking at the piece is that the author and the purported victim wanted to make it public for reasons satisfactory to themselves. They surely knew that an investigation at this late date would likely be unsuccessful from their point of view with the most likely outcome being an outright denial by those involved or a dispute over the issue of consent.
If justice wasn’t the motivation what was it? Hype? Publicity for a cause? We’ll have to see what the investigation derives but right now all we have are unsupported allegations and a whole lot of group punishment with little basis except a lurid tale designed to inflame the audience.
Mespo,
Who are the “innocents” of which you speak? The alleged victim chose to tell her “lurid” story to the author of the Rolling Stone article. Often after one victim speaks out, other victims get the courage to do the same. I think it would be better if victims of sexual assault were less reticent to speak out. Then students would know what was going on at their schools. Female students could be made aware of campus “danger zones.” You think it best not to make public the fact that young women are being raped/gang raped at certain fraternities? I disagree. Silence on the subject allows the same type of violent behavior to continue unabated. We should not allow sexual predators to continue assaulting young women on college campuses without any consequences. Silence on the subject is akin to sweeping it under the rug.
Funding Alone Can’t Change How Sexual Assault Is Handled On Campus
By MONICA VENDITUOLI
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/funding-alone-cant-change-how-sexual-assault-is-handled-on-campus/
Excerpt:
In November 2009, a freshman at the University of Michigan was allegedly raped by another freshman, a kicker on the school’s football team, at a fraternity party. The victim immediately reported the incident to the Student Services Office, and to the campus and local police, but the university did nothing. Her story got out, and she and her friends began getting harassed by members of the football team; one player even threatened to rape her again, she claimed. She was intimidated and stopped cooperating with a police investigation, according to an account of the events provided to the university’s president.
It would be more than four years before the accused, then a graduate student, was expelled from the university after he was found in violation of the school’s sexual misconduct policy. The woman’s case became the basis for one of two complaints that led to the university being placed under investigation in February for violations of the gender-equity law Title IX.1…
A number of other schools that received the grant have made headlines for their alleged mistreatment of victims, and many of those cases have resulted in pending Title IX investigations. The University of Southern California received more than $1.6 million in grant funds from 2002 through 2008 but was placed under investigation for Title IX violations in June 2013, after a complaint alleging campus police said a woman was not raped because her assailant didn’t orgasm. The University of Connecticut, which received more than $600,000 total in grant funds in 1999 and 2001 and some of the nearly $500,000 given as part of a consortium grant awarded in 2009, was placed under Title IX investigation in December. A college police officer there allegedly told a victim: “Women need to stop spreading their legs like peanut butter, or rape is going to keep happening until the cows come home.”…
Douglas Smith, a former professor of pathology at the University of Michigan, filed the Title IX complaint against the college for its alleged mishandling of the freshman’s 2009 sexual assault. He said his main concern with the grant program was that colleges might use the funds to protect themselves rather than victims. At Michigan, which began receiving funding in 2004 and received its last three-year grant in 2008, he said the college used its status as a grant recipient as a public relations ruse.
“It’s really about protecting the university’s reputation,” Smith said, particularly criticizing the school’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. “SAPAC was not about identifying problems and trying to prevent rapes or even get justice for women who had been raped. It was secretive.”
Campus Sexual Assault: What Are Colleges Doing Wrong?
http://www.propublica.org/article/campus-sexual-assault-what-are-colleges-doing-wrong
Excerpt:
During their time at college, the Department of Justice estimates one in five women will be sexually assaulted, and as many as 95 percent of the cases go unreported.
So how are colleges failing to protect students from sexual assault? We sorted through the reporting to highlight a few cases that show the system’s greatest shortcomings.
When Football Goes on Trial
Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide ten days after reporting to Notre Dame campus police that she had been sexually assaulted by a Fighting Irish linebacker. As news of the allegations spread, Seeberg was threatened by the player’s teammates. “Don’t do anything you would regret,” one texted her. “Messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea.” The campus authorities didn’t interview the accused player until 15 days after receiving Seeberg’s statement, five days after she committed suicide. The police declined to bring charges and Notre Dame declined to discuss the case when it was first reported.
Since 2010, there have been investigations into rape and sexual assault by football players at the University of Missouri, Baylor College, the US Naval Academy, University of Texas, Vanderbilt, Appalachian State, and numerous others.
And officials have frequently faced scrutiny for their response. When a freshman at Florida State University reported that star quarterback Jameis Winston had raped her, the case was kept under wraps until TMZ broke the news. The New York Times later detailed how authorities failed to promptly investigate even though records show that the athletic department knew about it less than a month after the victim came forward. The university declined to speak to the Times about the case, citing privacy laws.
In another case, a panel at Hobart and William Smith colleges in upstate New York quickly cleared three football players of a complaint brought against them by a freshman named Anna. Records of the case obtained by the New York Times showed that the football players lied to campus police at first, and then gave a story that did not align with evidence collected in Anna’s medical examination. Yet because colleges usually keep those proceedings confidential to protect students’ privacy, the public is kept mostly in the dark about what happens in a sexual assault hearing. Officials at Hobart and William Smith told the Times they have “no tolerance for sexual assault.” They also declined to answer specific questions, citing privacy laws.
Fraternities back in spotlight as UVA rape report spurs outrage
http://www.providencejournal.com/news/education/20141128-fraternities-back-in-spotlight-at-uva-rape-report-spurs-outrage.ece
Excerpt:
Donation Threat
…After a Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter was disciplined at Salisbury University in Maryland for hazing in 2012, a founder of its chapter and prominent graduate withdrew a $2 million donation, Bloomberg News reported last December. In March, SAE, one of the largest and best-known fraternities, banned pledging, the months-long induction period during which recruits have been subject to forced drinking, paddling and other abuse.
Phi Kappa Psi, the same fraternity at the center of the UVA news, is also under fire at Brown University in Providence. Last month, two students said they suspected they were served an alcoholic punch mixed with a “date rape” drug at a fraternity party. One of the women said she had been sexually assaulted. The fraternity chapter, which the university didn’t name, has been suspended, according to a statement.
Brown Incident
The Brown chapter said in a letter to the Brown Daily Herald student newspaper that it had been suspended “for hosting an unregistered event with alcohol present” and that “we were all shocked by the circumstances of the allegations.”
“We are confident that in no way did any member of Phi Kappa Psi engage in or perpetrate such atrocious and criminal behavior,” according to the letter.
Even after the Rolling Stone article, Nicholas Syrett, an associate professor at the University of Northern Colorado, said he isn’t optimistic there will be a change in fraternity culture.
Elaine M:
“Who are the “innocents” of which you speak?”
**************
The innocents are all the people unjustly painted as “guilty” because of the alleged actions of a few. They would included all the fraternal organizations ( fraternities and just as inexplicably, sororities) at UVA many of whose members were not even in school in 2012; the administration officials who were painted as callous and indifferent when even the purported victim herself says they weren’t; and the myriad of good, hard-studying kids tainted by a scandal they neither participated in nor welcomed. And lastly the alleged victim herself who seems to be a ping-pong ball in the back-and-forth between the reflexive blamers and defenders who have exactly the same objective evidence which, of course, is next to none. We don’t know if it’s true and if it’s not true somebody has plenty of ‘splaining to do; if it is true seven guys have some punishment to suffer.
I have no problem with public acknowledgment of alleged wrongdoing but not pre-investigation and made by the victim and a journalist who is evaluated by the number of clicks received. That’s what happened here. The alleged victim had every opportunity to follow proper channels to give the cops a fighting chance for a successful, confidential investigation. She didn’t, and knowing full well what a delay like that would mean to the success of the investigative endeavor smacks of motivations for things other than justice.
mespo,
It appears this type of behavior is nothing new at that UVA frat:
By Liz Securro
A History of Violence: Not Huguely, But the University of Virginia
Posted: 05/27/2010 2:53 pm EDT Updated: 05/25/2011 4:35 pm EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-seccuro/a-history-of-violence-not_b_592208.html
Excerpt:
A Black Eye on the Legacy of Honor
The recent killing of University of Virginia lacrosse player and student Yeardley Love, allegedly at the hands of her ex-boyfriend and fellow lacrosse player and student, George Huguely V, is a tragic chapter for my alma mater. Issues of dating violence, murder, sexual assault and stalking have long haunted the University of Virginia.
In 1984, when I was a freshman, I was drugged and gang-raped by a pack of three members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at UVA. I did not know any of them. I remembered one of the rapes graphically — the violence, the pain. The next day, when I awoke wrapped in a bloody sheet, thrown on a sofa, I went through the man’s mail. I needed to know his name in order to report him. I sat across from the then Dean of Students, Robert Canevari, and told him what had happened to me. With the blood still leaking from me and my face bruised, he asked me, “Are you sure you didn’t have sex with this man and you don’t want to admit that you aren’t a ‘good girl’?”
There was no investigation, no paper trail and no prosecution, although I went to the hospital, Student Health, the Dean of Students, and the University Police and made dozens of reports. I was told by the Dean of Students that the Charlottesville Police had no jurisdiction over Phi Kappa Psi and was ordered not to call them. The deans said that they had spoken with the young man in question and told me “he said it was consensual.” He, the rapist, withdrew from the University and was thus “no longer a danger” to me. I was told, in so many words and actions, to go away. I did not, but my life was diminished. I felt that I did not matter.
Rape and murder are also not considered violations of the University’s Honor Code, established 15 years after Thomas Jefferson founded the school in 1825. The Honor Code’s single sanction of expulsion is reserved for “lying, cheating and stealing.” I would posit that rape or murder most certainly falls under stealing — of a life, of one’s dignity, of the promise of a life well-lived. Most of the time, issues of violence between students are adjudicated by student-run boards and not via law enforcement.
Twenty years later, that rapist wrote to me as part of his 12-Step recovery program. He got my home address by calling the University Alumni Office, which gave it to him with no questions asked. He had been following me via mailing address for nine years, he wrote. He was sorry he raped me. I contacted the Charlottesville Police, who told me that they indeed did have jurisdiction over where my crime had happened and that there was no statute of limitations in the Commonwealth of Virginia on felony rape. My rapist, who was represented by the same two attorneys now defending George Huguely, was charged, arrested and sentenced. He served less than six months for aggravated sexual assault. The others present at the time have evaded law enforcement.
Rape at UVA: Readers Say Jackie Wasn’t Alone
Rolling Stone’s investigation into sexual assault on the University of Virginia campus elicits intense personal stories
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/rape-at-uva-readers-say-jackie-wasnt-alone-20141121
Excerpt:
Sadly
I was also raped at UVA in a frat house in 2013. I reported it through the Sexual Misconduct Board at the University and had it tried in 2014. My evidence included texts calling for help, police testimony consistent with mine, and numerous witnesses. But the University still found him innocent. I found Nicole Eramo very unfeeling as well — sociopathic, almost. She later told me she didn’t believe the studies that showed rapists, in particular, were repeat offenders of this heinous crime. It was a very negative experience to go through — to be raped and then told that your offender was innocent. I even left clothing as I ran out of the frat house that the University gathered as evidence and it was never returned to me. Not that the clothing was important. It wasn’t. The police discouraged me from pursuing it criminally, saying that I didn’t have enough evidence to win. They also told me that I should be cautious about pursuing this formally, since court proceedings and news articles related to my case could spread publicly on the Internet. For privacy reasons (I didn’t want future employers to Google me and see that I brought forward rape charges), I decided to pursue justice through the University. But the outcome of this process was painful and disappointing. I will never stop wondering why UVA so often expels students for academic lying, cheating, and stealing but has never once expelled a student for rape.
Guest D
My best friend is a survivor of sexual assault at UVA and she has told me numerous times that Dean Eramo was a constant source of support through the entire process. The article is accurate in bringing to light the fact that changes need to be made, however little progress will be made by firing people who are trying to help student…
OPINION
BERNSTEIN: Starting at the top
Addressing the issue of sexual assault at the University requires a focus at the administrative level
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2014/11/bernstein-starting-at-the-top
Elaine M:
A fraternity is not the same thing over time. The membership turns over about every four years. The fraternity member responsible for raping ms. Seccuro is no more representative of that same fraternity in 2012 than I am representative of the people who lived on my block in 1984 — ten years before I moved in. It’s loose language and false equivalents that lead to fuzzy reasoning with sentiments like “it appears this behavior is nothing new at that frat.” “That frat” is meaningless unless you are talking about the same or substantially the same members. You might as well blame me for causing the civil war since I do, of course, live in Virginia.
Mespo,
The entire membership of a fraternity doesn’t “turn over” every year. I’d guess about a quarter of the members leave as new pledges join. That would mean there is always overlap. New members learn the culture of the group from the older members. Evidently, the culture hasn’t changed much if the same kinds of sexual assaults are happening at that frat house today as happened back in the 1980s. I don’t think my reasoning is “fuzzy.” Why so incensed about this article? Do you think Jackie is lying–as well as the other women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted at that frat house?
Mespo, I blame the citizens of South Carolina for the Civil War–not you!
BTW, did you read the opinion piece written by Dani Bernstein for The Cavalier Daily?
Elaine M:
I haven’t read that piece but I will now. I think the reason for my ire is the incessant drumbeat of “fraternity bad-coed good.” I’ve lived long enough to know that proposition can be true, false or somewhere in between. Reflexive acceptance of either position seems the height of arrogance and not in keeping with any notion of fairness. Let the investigation conclude before we install the fix for the problem — if there is one.
Jeezus. How can Mespo read all these accounts across the nation and not be shaken?
The word “shocking” is the part I don’t get. We live in a world where there is brutal, violent, free porn all over the Internet. Gang rape shouldn’t shock anyone these days. Have you seen those “double penetration” (“DP”) scenes??? They look pretty similar to what I imagine gang rape looks like, and they’re being used to brainwash an entire generation of young men. Society is doomed unless we get porn off the Internet.
It wasn’t like this when I was a kid. There was porn (unfortunately), but it was much harder to get. You had to go into backrooms and feel ashamed. Now, everyone is proud of their porn habit. Debauchery and the systematic degradation of women has become shameless.
UVA Under Investigation for Handling of Sexual Misconduct Case
Posted: Jun 11, 2014 4:56 PM EDT
Updated: Jun 26, 2014 1:34 PM EDT
http://www.nbc29.com/story/25753826/uva-under-investigation-for-handling-of-sexual-misconduct-case
Excerpt:
The University of Virginia is under federal investigation for allegedly mishandling a sexual misconduct case. The victim says she was drugged and raped by another student. Now that victim’s attorney, James Marsh, is sitting down with NBC29.
Marsh says UVA Medical Center staff lost or destroyed critical evidence needed for his client’s sexual misconduct hearing, evidence that may have kicked the accused perpetrator out of UVA for good.
“There’s a sense of betrayal not only by their victimization by fellow students but there’s a sense of institutional betrayal,” he stated.
The federal complaint says University of Virginia Medical Center staff lost photographs taken by the sexual assault nurse examiner and there were inconsistencies in the descriptions of the victim’s injuries.
Marsh says not having that critical evidence left his client without justice and a rapist on grounds. Now, two and half years after the incident, he says the victim is still waiting to find out if UVA violated Title IX – a law that requires gender equity for men and women in every education program that receives federal funding.
According to the complaint, third-year UVA student “Jane Doe” was raped during the early morning hours of December 2, 2011, in the suspect’s apartment.
Marsh stated, “It was a fairly calculated and brutal attack on this woman.”
Doe’s life at UVA changed that night after meeting a fellow student at a debate society meeting. In an authenticated online post originally published in UVA’s student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, Doe writes: “He offered me a beer. The next thing I could remember was waking up in a sun-light room, naked, in pain, next to him.”
Allegations of a botched UVA rape investigation at center of a challenge to the Campus SaVE Act
http://www.c-ville.com/allegations-of-a-botched-uva-rape-investigation-at-center-of-a-challenge-to-the-campus-save-act/#.VH3pRJG9KK1
Excerpt:
According to Doe’s complaint, a fellow student slipped into the seat next to her at a debate club meeting at Jefferson Hall on December 1, 2011, touched her thigh and her breast against her will, and handed her a beer.
She drank it and became “substantially incapacitated,” the complaint says, and remembers only parts of what happened next: He took her to his apartment, “raped her, pulled her hair in an effort to penetrate her mouth, and ejaculated on her chest and hair,” it reads, claiming she awoke later naked and in pain, with her bra hanging off her body.
She sought treatment and went to police within a week, but according to the complaint, key information gathered by UVA forensic nurse Kathryn Laughon was never presented to the University’s Sexual Misconduct Board when Doe’s case went before them months later. Missing were descriptions of symptoms of drugging and photos of the interior of her vagina described in one of Laughon’s earlier reports, the complaint says. Marsh said it was his understanding that the ultimate lack of forensic evidence also scuttled any hopes of prosecution in the case.
The complaint goes on to say the male student confirmed much of what Doe remembered to the board, including digitally penetrating her, despite acknowledging her having said no to any sexual contact.
There are more allegations in the complaint: That the accused got to review and control which parts of his taped police testimony were shown to the Sexual Misconduct Board while Doe didn’t; that he was allowed to question her “directly and aggressively,” in violation of UVA policy; that his differing statements indicated he lied about giving her beer and taking off her clothes.
He was eventually cleared of all but one count, it says—touching her at the debate club meeting. That was despite the board finding in its final decision that the accuser was “very compelling and believable” and the accused “disrespectful” and “offensive,” according to the complaint.
Harvey:
“Jeezus. How can Mespo read all these accounts across the nation and not be shaken?”
*************
Because I lived through the Duke lacrosse scandal (and other sexually charged hype sessions), litigated lots of cases with prurient features to them and know that very public events are sometimes promoted by interests divergent from those of justice and motivated by that old serpent — the greenback. Why for example does an organization seeking millions in federal dollars to study sexual assault on campus always seem to find it and seemingly exaggerate its prevalence? My opinion: It’s that same snake.
Oh and Elaine thanks for the exoneration on that unpleasantness from 1861 to 1865. Those Carolinians are a rowdy bunch. 😀
Mespo,
I don’t think Jackie was motivated by “the greenback” when she told Erdely her “lurid” story. And I don’t assume that all frat boys are rapists after reading Erdely’s article.
Here’s an article from The New Republic which points out a weakness in the RS article – the author never attempted to contact the seven attackers for their account.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120450/sabrina-rubin-erdelys-uva-gang-rape-reporting-raises-questions?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=TNR%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%20Template%20-%20Dec%202
Elaine M:
Good, neither do I. I don’t exonerate every frat boy either. Like you, I don’t know for sure what motivated “Jackie” since we don’t know who Jackie is. She may be a pawn, a profiteer or the prey of sexual predators. We can’t say on this evidence. I don’t think it is callous to ask who is Jackie, what are her motivations for sort of coming out now, and why didn’t she come out sooner to help rid the community of the presumed vermin — if vermin they are. Like you, I wouldn’t accept a “she asked for it” story without questions, nor would I accept a “they did it to me” story without more questions being answered.
We agree in the main, it seems, but differ on perspective. Nothing new there, it’s just reasonable folks with different life experiences discussing the issue.
I noticed that too, Harvey, along with the biting attitude toward UVA officials. it has some of the earmarks of a “hit piece,” but it certainly had some indicia of truth, too. We’ll just have to see.
Harvey,
I read that Erdely did attempt to contact them–but was unable to get in touch with them. I’ll see if I can find that article again.
Elaine M:
I don’t think that’s true because she promised “Jackie” she would not contact them. Here an excerpt from journalist Richard Bradley’s excellent piece about confirmation bias:
“Remember: One must be most critical about stories that play into existing biases. And this story nourishes a lot of them: biases against fraternities, against men, against the South; biases about the naivete of young women, especially Southern women; pre-existing beliefs about the prevalence—indeed, the existence—of rape culture; extant suspicions about the hostility of university bureaucracies to sexual assault complaints that can produce unflattering publicity.
And, of course, this is a very charged time when it comes to the issue of sexual assault on campuses. Emotion has outswept reason. Jackie, for example, alleges that one out of three women who go to UVA has been raped. This is silly.”
http://www.richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/
Elaine M:
From the Washington Post via Judith Shulevitz:
“She won’t say, for example, whether she knows the names of Jackie’s alleged attackers or whether in her reporting she approached ‘Drew,’ the alleged ringleader, for comment. She is bound to silence about those details, she said, by an agreement with Jackie, who ‘is very fearful of these men, in particular Drew.’”
Mespo
I respect your experiences and the Duke hoax taught us some lessons, but still, your complete rejection of this post and sexual assault of college women seems so odd. At the risk being inappropriate but bothered by a suggestion that someone planted upstream – do you have close ties to the fraternity system? My question is not meant as a ‘gotcha’, but I’ve read your stuff and find your unshakable position so surprising.
Mespo – I was writing while you had posted a comment that did seem to indicate a small bit of altering your position. I’m still curious about fraternity ties, but sorry I had not read your most recent comments before posting mine.
Harvey:
Like a lot of folks I was in a social fraternity in college and member of a lot of professional ones. My point is not to defend fraternities but to simply ask for reason in times of great emotion. This story does not ring true to me or anyone I know who either attended UVA or who has kids there now. I’m not particularly a UVA lover but I do recognize its importance in academic circles especially here in Virginia. I think it’s getting an unfair rap with woefully little cause and I think an unnamed young person may be a pawn in a tug-of-war between some big societal forces.
Like the Duke Scandal about the scandal, I’ve seen young people manipulated into horrendous situations by profiteers and demagogues, with Tawana Brawley being the most blatant example. Take lurid sex-based charges, a profit motive, a venerable institution and anonymous reporting and you have a recipe for abuse. That is all I am saying.
Author of Rolling Stone article on alleged U-Va. rape didn’t talk to accused perpetrators
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/author-of-rolling-stone-story-on-alleged-u-va-rape-didnt-talk-to-accused-perpetrators/2014/12/01/e4c19408-7999-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html
Excerpt:
Sean Woods, who edited the Rolling Stone story, said in an interview that Erdely did not talk to the alleged assailants. “We did not talk to them. We could not reach them,” he said in an interview.
However, he said, “we verified their existence,” in part by talking to Jackie’s friends. “I’m satisfied that these guys exist and are real. We knew who they were.”
Mespo
Thanks for your reply.
‘Is the UVA Rape Story a Gigantic Hoax?’ Asks Idiot
http://jezebel.com/is-the-uva-rape-story-a-gigantic-hoax-asks-idiot-1665233387
Excerpt:
Ever since journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely published her searing Rolling Stone story about “Jackie,” a woman who was allegedly the victim of a gang rape at a frat party at the University of Virginia, there’s been an ongoing and much-needed public conversation about the way rape and sexual assault claims are dealt with on college campuses. But Robby Soave at the libertarian magazine Reason thinks we’re talking about the wrong questions entirely. Shouldn’t we be asking, he wonders, if Jackie just, like, made the whole story up?
Soave writes that Erdely’s story is “not credible,” according to “journalists who contemplate such matters.” Which journalists, exactly? One, to be precise, a guy by the name of Richard Bradley, who writes on his blog that he doesn’t believe the story: “I don’t believe that it happened—certainly not in the way that it is recounted.”
Bradley writes that “something about this story doesn’t feel right.” He’s skeptical because we never learn Jackie’s real name (although he doesn’t acknowledge that no credible media outlet would ever use an alleged rape victim’s real name without her permission). He’s skeptical because Erdely doesn’t quote the friends of Jackie’s who evidently discouraged her from seeking medical attention or calling the police after the rape. And he’s skeptical because the description of her injuries doesn’t sound bad enough to him, and no one at the frat party reacted the way he thinks they would have:
“Jackie makes her way downstairs, her red dress apparently sufficiently intact to wear; the party is still raging. Though she is blood-stained—three hours with shards of glass “digging into her back,” and gang-raped, including with a beer bottle— and must surely look deeply traumatized, no one notices her. She makes her way out a side entrance she hadn’t seen before. She calls her friends, who tell her that she doesn’t want to be known as the girl who cried rape and worry that if they take her to the hospital they won’t get invited to subsequent frat parties.”
But mostly, Bradley is skeptical because he’s “seen fakes before.” That’s because he’s the former editor of George magazine, where he edited Stephen Glass, the most notorious journalistic fraudster in modern history. Glass fabricated dozens of stories, and Bradley is one of the editors who he fooled. And so his inability to spot a hoax two decades ago, he says, makes him qualified to pronounce that Erdley’s story is a lie: “The experience was painful but educational; it forced me to examine how easily I had been duped.”
Many people found it hard to believe that Catholic priests would sexually abuse children–but they did.
Elaine M:
“Many people found it hard to believe that Catholic priests would sexually abuse children–but they did.”
****************
As a student in Catholic schools I didn’t.
Elaine M:
Jezebel is not exactly an authoritative source — more a screed. Bradley is such a source on the issue of journalism but even if he isn’t, wouldn’t prudence dictate that you at least ask for a contrary response or even corroborate an anonymous source with more than another anonymous source or sources?
mespo,
You didn’t find it hard to believe that Catholic priests would rape children–but find it difficult to believe that some frat boys would rape young women?
“And so his inability to spot a hoax two decades ago, he says, makes him qualified to pronounce that Erdley’s story is a lie: “The experience was painful but educational; it forced me to examine how easily I had been duped.”
*****************
BTW he did no such thing, Bradley agrees with me it’s an unlikely story, as told.. No such self-reflection from the piece in Jezebel. It’s damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead. Might want to consider if it’s a ship of fools.
Elaine M:
I find it hard to believe that these frat boys raped this woman at UVA in the manner she and her author describe. Let’s keep it to the particulars of the case. Otherwise we devolve into generalized tangents that offer nothing on the issue at hand.
mespo,
The issue at hand is women being raped on college campuses…and how colleges handle the problem of sexual assault at their schools. I have never been gang raped at a frat so I have no idea what it might be like…how I might feel…if I’d remember all the particulars of my sexual assault clearly. I do assume that I’d be traumatized…that I might not know what to do…that I might not want anyone to know what had happened to me.
Why Don’t Cops Believe Rape Victims?
Brain science helps explain the problem—and solve it.
By Rebecca Ruiz
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/why_cops_don_t_believe_rape_victims_and_how_brain_science_can_solve_the.html
Excerpt:
When Tom Tremblay started working for the police department of Burlington, Vt., 30 years ago, he discovered that many of his fellow cops rarely believed a rape victim. This was true time after time, in dozens of cases. Tremblay could see why they were doubtful once he started interviewing the victims himself. The victims, most of them women, often had trouble recalling an attack or couldn’t give a chronological account of it. Some expressed no emotion. Others smiled or laughed as they described being assaulted. “Unlike any other crime I responded to in my career, there was always this thought that a rape report was a false report,” says Tremblay, who was an investigator in Burlington’s sex crimes unit. “I was always bothered by the fact there was this shroud of doubt.”
Tremblay felt sex assault victims were telling the truth, and data supports his instincts: Only an estimated 2 to 8 percent of rape accusations are false, according to a survey of the literature published by the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women. Tremblay also knew the victims felt as if they were being treated like suspects, and it affected the choices they made. Surveyed about why they didn’t want to pursue a report, most victims said they worried that no one would believe them.
This is rape culture in action. It puts the burden of proving innocence on the victim, and from Steubenville, Ohio, to Notre Dame and beyond, we’ve seen it poison cases and destroy lives. But science is telling us that our suspicions of victims, the ones that seem like common sense, are flat-out baseless. A number of recent studies on neurobiology and trauma show that the ways in which the brain processes harrowing events accounts for victim behavior that often confounds cops, prosecutors, and juries.
These findings have led to a fundamental shift in the way experts who grasp the new science view the investigation of rape cases—and led them to a better method for interviewing victims. The problem is that the country’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies haven’t been converted. Or at least, most aren’t yet receiving the training to improve their own interview procedures. The exception, it turns out, is the military. Despite its many failings in sexual assault cases, it has actually been at the vanguard of translating the new research into practical tools for investigating rape.
In the past decade, neurobiology has evolved to explain why victims respond in ways that make it seem like they could be lying, even when they’re not. Using imaging technology, scientists can identify which parts of the brain are activated when a person contemplates a traumatic memory such as sexual assault. The brain’s prefrontal cortex—which is key to decision-making and memory—often becomes temporarily impaired. The amygdala, known to encode emotional experiences, begins to dominate, triggering the release of stress hormones and helping to record particular fragments of sensory information. Victims can also experience tonic immobility—a sensation of being frozen in place—or a dissociative state. These types of withdrawal result from extreme fear yet often make it appear as if the victim did not resist the assault.
This is why, experts say, sexual assault victims often can’t give a linear account of an attack and instead focus on visceral sensory details like the smell of cologne or the sound of voices in the hallway. “That’s simply because their brain has encoded it in this fragmented way,” says David Lisak, a clinical psychologist and forensic consultant who trains civilian and military law enforcement to understand victim and offender behavior.
Following up on that Slate article that said that rape victims tend to focus on “sensory details”–some of the things Jackie remembers about her gang rape taken from the Rolling Stone article:
“She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the men’s heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana.”
Elaine M:
If the issue is just common law rape on college campuses ( as opposed to the claims of the RS article), we have little disagreement: it’s bad, punishable, and rare.
Elaine,
I agree with the science behind the Ruiz article in Slate. It is still experimental, but great strides have been made in imaging since I saw my first CT scan in the 1970s. However, in a world where politicians are reluctant to fund basic rape kits in hospital emergency departments, the notion that a multi-thousand dollar scan will be done is simply whistling past the graveyard. Not gonna happen, unless the victim is independently wealthy and willing to pay for such tests herself. Even then, getting courts to accept the science is a long way off.
Chuck,
My acquaint seems to think that administrative personnel from Univ. of Mich., rape cover up is down there at UofVa
Why These Rape Survivors Want The World To Know Their Real Names
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/12/02/3597914/rape-survivors-real-names/
Excerpt:
The latest young woman to inspire a national conversation about issues of sexual assault is named Jackie.
That’s the woman at the center of a recent Rolling Stone article that has sparked a huge controversy about the way that the University of Virginia handles rape cases. In that piece, Jackie recounts being gang-raped at a frat party and struggling to get the UVA administration to crack down on the fraternity in question. And, while many of the names in the article were changed, Jackie’s wasn’t.
The reporter who wrote the article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, confirmed to multiple outlets that Jackie is her source’s real name. According to Erdely, Jackie had simply never been asked to share her story with a reporter before, and now “really feels good about having spoken out.”
“This was a very difficult for her to speak out, because she was really criticized for it by her peers and very much discouraged for it,” Erdely said in an interview with PBS. “So, the fact that she had this incredible bravery I think really says something about how strongly she feels about getting her story out and the stories of others out.”
Sexual violence prevention advocates agree that people like Jackie can have a positive impact on other people who have experienced assault and abuse. Their voices can help challenge the stigma associated with rape, and ultimately embolden other survivors to feel comfortable coming forward.
The stories told by survivors who go public can provide solace to other survivors.
“The stories told by survivors who go public can provide solace to other survivors. With each new story, there are countless others who can relate to these experiences and feel less alone or less ashamed,” Marybeth Seitz-Brown, the communications coordinator at Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), told ThinkProgress via email. “More survivors going public also helps to debunk myths about rape and how it happens, and it shows the public just how many people this issue affects.”
Magazine’s Account of Gang Rape on Virginia Campus Comes Under Scrutiny
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/us/magazines-account-of-gang-rape-on-virginia-campus-comes-under-scrutiny.html?_r=0
Excerpt:
Marc Cooper, an associate professor in journalism at the University of Southern California, said that the magazine had not misled anyone or abrogated a responsibility in not contacting those accused, because they were not named. If the article had been written as a first-person account, he said, there would be no questions.
“I don’t think there’s nearly as much at stake as people think,” Mr. Cooper said.
Helen Benedict, a Columbia University journalism professor who has reported on sexual assault in the military, also defended the story.
“If a reporter were doing a story about a university accused of failing to address the mugging or robbery of a student, that reporter would not be expected to interview the alleged mugger or robber,” she said. “The piece might have been stronger with more than one source, but exposés of wrongdoing often start with one whistleblower.”
This shell game of unnamed victims accusing unnamed perpetrators is foolishness. If there are serious allegations of wrongdoing the public has the right to know who are the alleged perps and who is making the charges. It’s tough sure but we’ve always said this country is about protecting the rights of the innocent — both victims of crime and those wrongfully accused. No one gets a pass when accusations involve felonies. Say it publicly, put your name on it, and give the other person so accused a right to confront you and respond to the charges. That’s the system.
mespo,
The perpetrators of the gang rape weren’t named in the article. If they are innocent, then no harm has been done to them.
Elaine M:
The harm is to the rest of us if these gang rapists are on the street free to prey on others. It’s also on them if they are innocent since many know who they are and their reputation among the peers is shot.
Rolling Stone’s UVA Rape Story Has Problems, But Don’t Let Them Obscure the Appalling Truth
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120465/uva-gang-rape-story-what-make-rolling-stones-mistakes
Excerpt:
Over the past few days, several publications have reported journalistic lapses in Rolling Stone’s blockbuster story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. The reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, never contacted the men that her subject, a student she calls “Jackie,” alleges raped her. Erdely also did not acknowledge in the body of the piece that she did not contact them.
These are serious charges: Journalists are supposed to seek multiple perspectives on the stories they report to try to present the fullest and fairest assessment of events; this is especially true when one source is alleging that a criminal act took place. It’s ironic and telling, though, that Erdely’s doubters have blown up their suspicions well beyond the available evidence, calling her story a “hoax” and comparing it to the fabricated pieces published by Stephen Glass in The New Republic and other magazines. It’s a massive leap in logic to move from a reasonable journalistic critique of Erdely’s reporting and disclosure practices to writing, as former George journalist Richard Bradley does in his blog post, “I’m not convinced that this gang rape actually happened.” It is symptomatic of exactly the patterns of incredulity and easy dismissal of rape accusations that keep many assaulted women and men from ever bringing their stories to authorities or to the public.
Leaving room for commentators to invalidate the rape allegations is part of what’s so bad about the possibility that Erdely was partial in her reporting. Journalistic errors undermine the story of gang rape and institutional lassitude that Erdely set out to tell—a story about a culture of sexual violence and the universities anxious to not make that culture visible from the outside.
The dismantling of Erdely’s story—both by anti-feminist agonistes and by those genuinely dismayed by possible journalistic error—would mean that Jackie’s story of being beaten and raped by seven fraternity brothers will be dismissed, and that the reading public will be permitted to slip back into the comforting conviction that stories like Jackie’s aren’t real, that rapes like that don’t happen, that our system works, and that, of course, bitches lie.
What we will all be allowed to happily forget is that there are plenty of real stories of rape: of violent rape, frat house rape, gang rape, date rape; that most rape accusers do not lie and that in fact it’s quite likely, statistically, that Jackie herself did not lie. But the most serious thing that we’ll be allowed to forget is the very point of Erdely’s story, whatever its strengths or flaws may be determined to be: The system does not work.
Actually, in both the case of the UVA rape and in the case of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri the major takeaway of recent weeks should be that our systems do not work…
Every single word of Erdely’s story, and of Jackie’s story, may still be true. In fact, the University of Virginia’s willingness—upon press exposure—to temporarily shut down their fraternities suggests that they don’t seem to think that this story rings false, which speaks damningly to the likelihood that this horrific event occurred in some form, and that even if it did not, others like it occur regularly, at UVA and on other college campuses…
But do not forget, as we go about what is sure to be the unpleasant business of turning our suspicions on Erdely—and in turn, on Jackie—that the swift shift of focus is central to what’s so jacked about systemic inequalities (and our impulse to pretend they don’t exist) to begin with.
Turning away allows us to take the onus off not just alleged rapists and universities that offer them cover, but off the broken civic and criminal structures that serve different kinds of Americans different scales of opportunity and justice. Increasingly, I think that those structures will never be made better as long as we continue to comfortably cast our eyes in other directions.
Rebecca Traister’s article reprinted above is the silliest thing I’ve read. After excoriating an entire university and its male student body as a “rape culture” based on the specific claims of premeditated conspiracy to gang rape made by an anonymous victim, we are told to just “never mind” as Emily Latella might say if some of the facts in the article aren’t exactly true. As though taking at whack at the truth is somehow laudable even if you are completely wrong of if you’ve made up some of it as at least one UVA official has said. This is muddled-headed thinking raised to its zenith. It’s sad and its wrong to indict all on flimsy or disproven evidence and then when called on the transgression to plead good intentions even as you are destroying someone’s or some institution’s hard-earned reputation.
Mespo,
UVA was already under investigation. Evidently, there has been a problem at that institution–as there has been at many other colleges in this country–with how it has dealt with incidents of sexual assault on its campus…and some of the victims. Jackie is not the only woman who has alleged that she was sexually assaulted or raped at that fraternity. But let us not focus on the problem. Let’s suggest that the story is a hoax. Let’s think Jackie made it all up. Let’s imply that Jackie may be looking to make some money. Let’s go after the author of the article. Let’s not investigate a wealthy fraternity–some of whose members may have committed sexual crimes. I’m sure there are lots of rich and powerful people connected with that school…that fraternity. Let’s avert our eyes because Jackie didn’t go to police. Let’s not attempt to understand why some victims of violent sexual assaults who are traumatized don’t want to make their stories public. Let’s just forget it.
For Years, Students Have Accused Virginia Universities Of Botching Sexual Assault Cases
7/1/14
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/01/virginia-universities-sexual-assault_n_5545486.html
Excerpt:
James Madison University is continuing to face pressure over how it disciplines students for sexual assault, with a growing number of alumni and students demanding reforms.
JMU is just the latest school in Virginia to face federal and public scrutiny over its handling of sexual violence, and alumni are noting they raised nearly identical concerns 20 years ago. But state lawmakers have remained largely silent, even as three public institutions are under federal investigation.
Four universities in Virginia are currently being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for possible Title IX violations specifically related to sexual violence — JMU, the University of Virginia, the College of William & Mary and the University of Richmond. Two other schools in the state, the Virginia Military Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University, faced Title IX reviews that concluded this spring.
JMU’s case is based on a complaint from a student who has since withdrawn from the university. The school found three men guilty of sexual assaulting her, and guilty of harassment for spreading video of the incident around campus. The school punished them with “expulsion after graduation.”
“A finding of responsible, but with expulsion after graduation, is not a just decision in this case,” Tammy Castle, an associate professor of justice studies at JMU, told The Huffington Post.
“Students have been suspended for drinking offenses, and expelled for plagiarism, and this sends the message to the university community that sexual assault is not as serious as these other behaviors,” Castle added. “It also discourages victims from speaking out against sexual assault, and supports a rape culture.”
Yale Fails To Expel Students Guilty Of Sexual Assault
Posted: 08/01/2013 9:11 pm EDT Updated: 01/23/2014 6:58 pm EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/yale-sexual-assault-punishment_n_3690100.html
Elaine M.
“The perpetrators of the gang rape weren’t named in the article. If they are innocent, then no harm has been done to them.”
That’s not really true. According to Erdely’s article, one of the rapists said “we all had to do it”, implying that everyone in the frat house participated in gang rape as some sort of initiation ritual. So this is an accusation against the entire fraternity and everyone in it. Moreover, there are enough details in the story that anyone could find the names of the alleged perpetrators if they wished to. For instance, we’re told that one alleged perpetrator was in Jackie’s anthropology class. How many members of her one anthropology class were also members of Phi Kappa Psi? Most likely only one.
Plus, according to one of the articles that you linked to, the frat house where the alleged crime occurred has been vandalized, death threats have been made against the frat members, and they’ve been forced to move out of the house. Moreover, campus-wide policies regarding fraternity activity have been implemented in response to this. So a great deal of harm has been done, whatever the outcome of the case.
Alexbpop,
Excerpt from Erdely’s article:
As the last man sank onto her, Jackie was startled to recognize him: He attended her tiny anthropology discussion group. He looked like he was going to cry or puke as he told the crowd he couldn’t get it up. “Pussy!” the other men jeered. “What, she’s not hot enough for you?” Then they egged him on: “Don’t you want to be a brother?” “We all had to do it, so you do, too.” Someone handed her classmate a beer bottle. Jackie stared at the young man, silently begging him not to go through with it. And as he shoved the bottle into her, Jackie fell into a stupor, mentally untethering from the brutal tableau, her mind leaving behind the bleeding body under assault on the floor.
———-
I think you misread that paragraph. The frat boy said, “We all had to do it, so you do, too.” He was talking about the other young men in the room with him and Jackie–not all members of the fraternity.
Elaine m:
I think I have a better idea. Why don’t we just critically evaluate the evidence at hand instead of reflexively accepting the version of events that fits our biases.
Elaine,
Could have been a pledge hazing and not a reference to all those in the room unless they were all pledges. “We all had to do it” is pretty strange terminology unless it is a demand by the fraternity in order to prove loyalty.
mespo,
I haven’t heard the UVA president or any school administrator deny the allegations made in Erdely’s article or claim that those types of things haven’t happened in frat houses on the campus. Have you? In fact, Sullivan promised changes would be made. That leads me to believe there is much truth in Erdely’s piece.
Elaine m:
It leads me to believe that Theresa Sullivan is as much a prisoner of the moment as any sign toting dunderhead demanding an end to fraternities. She’s already proven herself no friend of due process and a proponent of group punishment — a concept deemed so culturally un-American it is usually associated with Nazis. This president at Mr. Jefferson’s University now wants nightly police patrols at fraternity functions to seek out alcohol violations and restricting social activities by demanding more afternoon/evening classes on Friday. It’s political correctness run amok under the banner of a crime that only MAY have occurred. Is the person who’s judgment you are touting?
Meghan Daum from the LA Times with as good a take on the topic and its advocates as I’ve read:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-daum-uva-rolling-stone-rape-20141204-column.html
Harvey,
That’s a thought.
———-
Mespo,
There’s no denying that there are serious problems at UVA.
An excerpt from the article:
The University of Virginia is one of the 86 schools now under federal investigation, but it has more reason to worry than most of its peers. Because, unlike most schools under scrutiny, where complaints are at issue, UVA is one of only 12 schools under a sweeping investigation known as “compliance review”: a proactive probe launched by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights itself, triggered by concerns about deep-rooted issues. “They are targeted efforts to go after very serious concerns,” says Office of Civil Rights assistant secretary Catherine Lhamon. “We don’t open compliance reviews unless we have something that we think merits it.”
Alexbpop,
I’ve thought about my earlier response to you–and after reading Harvey’s comment, maybe I misread the part in the article about “we all had to do it.”
Elaine M:
“There’s no denying that there are serious problems at UVA.”
*****************
Sure there is. We have an investigation — not a finding of malfeasance despite DOE’s counsel’s off-the-cuff wish. A compliance review according to official DOE spokesperson Dorie Nolt is “the opening of an investigation by OCR, whether based on a complaint or a compliance review, [it] does not indicate that the school is violating or has violated any federal law or that OCR has reached a conclusion as to whether a violation of any federal law exists.”
You’re jumping to conclusions and that unfortunately shows your prejudices.
What UVA Gang Rape Truthers Are Missing About The Reality Of Campus Sexual Assaults
BY TARA CULP-RESSLER POSTED ON DECEMBER 4, 2014 AT 4:24 PM
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/12/04/3599753/skeptics-uva-gang-rape/
———-
Mespo,
Over the past few years, I’ve read a lot of stories about actual campus rapes–as well as some studies on the subject. Jackie’s story didn’t appear to be a hoax…or unrealistic. And recently, I read UVA rape stories about women who have gone public. You can assume that I jumped to conclusions. That’s your prerogative.
Mespo: This president at Mr. Jefferson’s University now wants nightly police patrols at fraternity functions to seek out alcohol violations and restricting social activities by demanding more afternoon/evening classes on Friday. I
Oh that’s shocking… After all there are no issues with underage drinking and/or alcohol abuse at universities and what is he thinking, more afternoon classes on Friday. The horors of the Nazi regime immediately popped into my mind when I heard this.
On the other hand, it does sound like good policy, regardless of problems or perception of problems Those poor suffering students…
Nazism, really?… I know Nazi’s and they appear not that concerned that much about class attendance and reasonable police control of illegal activities. But perhaps I misunderstand your analogy and you were thinking of the student organizations being like the Hitler Jugend, with restricted access to membership, the denigration of others who are perceived to be inferior and that kind of stuff? Still not very convincing.
NBC:
You may want a constable on every corner, but I don’t. I’m amazed it doesn’t concern you that these young adults are being treated as suspects when there is no proven crime, no proven victim, and no proven problem for which they are responsible. You can surely remove all crime with a cop in every frat house just like you can stop most motor vehicle accidents by outlawing left-hand turns, but the question is at what cost? Freedom or absolute security? I’ll take the former.
Elaine M:
The conclusion you jumped to was that just because a compliance review was initiated ipso facto “there are serious problems at UVA.” One does not suggest the other as the spokesperson pointed out.
Mespo,
I also read about other UVA rape cases. I considered everything that I had read about the subject of rape cases at UVA and other colleges
” You can surely remove all crime with a cop in every frat house just like you can stop most motor vehicle accidents by outlawing left-hand turns, but the question is at what cost?”
Well, one cost would be NASCAR is goner.
mespo
As far as I know, group punishment of fraternities and sororities has always been part of their governance.
This has been going on for years – even when I was an undergrad. House drinking – terrible grade points would get the house put on probation. And surely we’ve all read stories over the past thirty years when houses are thrown off campus.
Elaine M:
None of what you’ve read has resulted in a criminal case. Are the Charlottesville cops insensitive or incompetent too?
Gene:
I will not tolerate even one lap missed from a NASCAR race!!
Harvey:
Like every organization recognized by the administration, the school can monitor them for compliance with school policies. The school cannot single them out for selective or group punishment however.
Mespo,
So…if nothing of what I have read about has resulted in a criminal case…then there is not a problem/none of the rape allegations is true? What about Liz Seccuro?
Univ of Mich case football kicker rape, was buried by administration. One if which is now at UofVA
Story received some air time on ESPN.
I’LL provide the link tomorrow
Gene,
LOL…..then Jeff Dunham’s bit with Sweet Daddy D, would go bye bye too.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/a-note-to-our-readers-20141205
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rolling-stone-no-longer-trusts-uva-rape-victims-story
Swarthmoremom,
Rolling Stone posted a letter to its readers on its website. I posted a link to it in my comment at 1:43 pm.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter:
” We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn’t confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence.”
*****
Not sure what to make of it at this point. I wonder if the editors decided to post the letter because they fear being sued by the fraternity in question.
Rolling Stone, Journalistic Integrity, And The Fight Against Campus Rape
BY TARA CULP-RESSLER POSTED ON DECEMBER 5, 2014 AT 2:37 PM
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/12/05/3600261/uva-gang-rape-disputed-details/
Excerpt:
Some of Jackie’s close friends who spoke with the Washington Post also said that some specific details of her account have changed over time. They say they believe “something traumatic happened to her,” but they have “not been able to verify key points of the story in recent days.” For instance, Jackie disclosed the name of one of her accused attackers for the first time this week, but that man has never been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.
The emerging details prompted the Rolling Stone, which has recently come under considerable fire from other media outlets, to issue a statement suggesting that Jackie wasn’t as reliable of a source as the magazine initially thought.
RS wouldn’t know journalistic integrity if they were cannibals who gobbled up Thomas Paine
Laser,
The magazine has published some excellent articles over the years. I don’t think anyone covered Wall Street shenanigans better than Matt Taibbi.
I take no satisfaction from today’s retraction in Rolling Stone. It’s just sad: sad so many people got dragged through the mud; sad a young lady is so disturbed as to perpetuate this hoax, sad that a school overreacted and group punished by fiat; sad a national publication was so easily and completely duped; sad that an entire community of kids was threatened out of their home; and sad that the people and institutions we rely on for sanity in times of crisis failed us so miserably. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the most mature people in this mess were the so-called frat rats?
A letter from a friend: Jackie’s story is not a hoax
By Emily Clark
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/m/blog/on-sexual-assault-letters-from-the-community/2014/12/a-letter-from-a-friend-jackies-story-is-not-a-hoax
Excerpt:
Fellow Wahoos,
My name is Emily, and I was Jackie’s suitemate first year. I am writing to you in regards to Rolling Stone’s recent statement of “misplaced trust” in Jackie. I feel this statement is backwards, as it seems it was Jackie who misplaced her trust in Rolling Stone.
I fully support Jackie, and I believe wholeheartedly that she went through a traumatizing sexual assault. I remember my first semester here, and I remember Jackie’s. Jackie came to UVA bright, happy and bubbly. She was kind, funny, outgoing, friendly, and a pleasant person to be around. That all notably changed by December 2012, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Our suite bonded that first semester and talked many times about the new troubles we were facing in college. Jackie never mentioned anything about her assault to us until much later. But I, as well as others, noticed Jackie becoming more and more withdrawn and depressed…
In December 2012, Jackie broke down. All of a sudden she was going home and none of us knew why. It was right before finals, and I couldn’t believe she was leaving. She was distraught, and only said she needed to go home. Her teachers had given her allowance to take her finals over break. At that point, we knew something big had happened. I didn’t know until this year with the publication of Rolling Stone’s article how bad that time was for her.
Sometime that year I remember her letting it slip to me that she had had a terrible experience at a party. I remember her telling me that multiple men had assaulted her at this party. She didn’t say anything more. It seemed that was all she’d allow herself to say. I wish I had done something sooner. I wish I had known how to help. But I applaud Jackie for telling her story, now two years later. It was a story that needed to be told.
However, the articles released in the past few days have been troubling to me, and the responses to them even more so. While I cannot say what happened that night, and I cannot prove the validity of every tiny aspect of her story to you, I can tell you that this story is not a hoax, a lie or a scheme. Something terrible happened to Jackie at the hands of several men who have yet to receive any repercussions.
Conservative Writer Publishes Unconfirmed Identity Of Alleged UVA Victim
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/charles-c-johnson-publishes-unconfirmed-name-uva-rape-victim
Excerpt:
Johnson published the unconfirmed name and photo on his fledgling news site GotNews.com along with another item that combs through what he says are Jackie’s social media accounts. Another anonymous account published further details about the alleged victim, including an address and phone number. That tweet was later deleted. TPM is not linking to the post or republishing Jackie’s unconfirmed identity.
Not sure why publishing the name of an alleged prevaricator merits any introspection. The disclosure of address and phone number is unwarranted, however. What is interesting is the claim that she’s made false rape charges before in high school and is obsessed with it now. If so, the speculation on her possible sociopathy might not be so hard to understand.
Elaine,
When it comes to RS, I know something others don,t; and have a serious bone to pick with them AND Taibbi.
That being daid, I don,t go full bore, because they (did) do stuff that served Occupy WS efforts well.
We need Taibbi to get his c,hit together; and RS to be more pure.
Time will tell…
Eliane;
Thanks for the great link; and super KUDOs to Jackies friend who has the nobleness to speak out.
We’ve been trying, For Years, to get attention to the Michigan football kicker rape case and hi the wagons circle to overpower the victim.
Everything makes sense, with the corroborative letter. Including the fact that victims of such abuse, make mistakes.
Love to see a GJ inquiry on this one.
Mespo,
And, if the “claim” isn’t true?
This is turning into a “sh*tstorm.”
*****
Twitter Harassment? Charles C. Johnson Boasts Of Doxing ‘Jackie,’ Alleged UVA Rape Victim
http://m.ibtimes.com/twitter-harassment-charles-c-johnson-boasts-doxing-jackie-alleged-uva-rape-victim-1743596
Excerpt:
Less than a week after it introduced new tools to combat online harassment, Twitter Inc. is once again being criticized for inaction as one of its users spreads unconfirmed information about the victim of an alleged gang rape. Charles C. Johnson, a conservative blogger, claims to have revealed personal details about “Jackie,” the University of Virginia student at the center of Rolling Stone magazine’s bombshell November article “A Rape on Campus,” which spiraled out of control last week in the wake of a number of reported discrepancies in the victim’s story.
Johnson, who is calling the alleged rape a “hoax,” first posted the victim’s full name to his website GotNews.com. He then took to Twitter to threaten Jackie with spilling more details if she didn’t “tell the truth” about the alleged attack. He also spread a hashtag of her full name…
Hours later more details were posted to GotNews, including screen shots of what Johnson called Jackie’s “rape-obsessed” Pinterest page. In the face of tremendous backlash from other Twitter users, Johnson gleefully threatened to post even more information, while using the attention as an opportunity to ask visitors to donate to his website.
Wickedly reprehensible and should be unlawful to threaten victims extortingly
Emily’s testimonial serves to prove one thing: Jackie is depressed. If offers no support for her contentions of gang rape nor does it bolster her credibility otherwise besides a some sort of personal endorsement. What we do know is that Jackie has now named the name of her alleged lead perpetrator and that person is not a member of Phi Psi and claims to not know Jackie. Given Jackie’s recent spate of missteps that’s hardly a surprise. We’ll see how it plays out but Virginia does have remedies for folks falsely accused by a person who intends that the false statement be published — whether its published or not.
§ 18.2-209. False publications.
Any person who knowingly and willfully states, delivers or transmits by any means whatever to any publisher, or employee of a publisher, of any newspaper, magazine, or other publication or to any owner, or employee of an owner, of any radio station, television station, news service or cable service, any false and untrue statement, knowing the same to be false or untrue, concerning any person or corporation, with intent that the same shall be published, broadcast or otherwise disseminated, shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.
(Code 1950, § 18.1-407; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1978, c. 359.
Report: Rolling Stone Planning A Do-Over Of Its Disputed UVA Story
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-rolling-stone-to-redo-uva-rape-story
A Bully and a Troll
Blogger Charles C. Johnson wants ‘scalps,’ not stories.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/susan-milligan/2014/12/09/charles-c-johnsons-cruel-trolling-of-uva-rape-survivor-jackie
Excerpt:
Let’s be clear, people: When it comes to the scourge of unpunished college sexual assault, the real victim here is Charles C. Johnson.
If you’ve never heard of him, it’s not for want of his own efforts. The 26-year-old blogger has done the Internet equivalent of running naked through the streets, posting irresponsible and inaccurate tweets to bully and intimidate others. Most recently, Johnson (whose dubious career includes contributing to the debunked Dally Caller story alleging Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey paid for sex in the Dominican Republic) provided what he said was the real name of “Jackie,” the woman who recounted her rape in an inadequately reported – but not entirely discredited – piece in Rolling Stone magazine.
Now, Johnson is rattled. He responded with worry, the Washington Post reports, when he realized his home town of Fresno, California, was still up on his Twitter profile. Johnson told the Post, “People are threatening to kill me. … People want to do me harm,” adding, “They will try to take down my site and are threatening my family members.”
That must be awful for him. Yet he didn’t seem to have any compunctions about making threats himself, warning the alleged rape victim in a tweet, “I’m giving Jackie until later tonight to tell the truth and then I’m going to start revealing everything about her past.”
That tweet is so loaded, so offensive on so many levels, it can’t be summed up in 140 characters. Identifying a rape victim – especially when he can’t prove he’s got the right ID – is appalling and contributes heavily to the reluctance on the part of sexual assault victims to come forward and demand prosecution of their attackers. And what “past”? What would it matter, anyway? No one’s “past” makes it OK for them to be sexually assaulted.
Rolling Stone has rightly taken heat for failing to contact the alleged attackers in the rape story, but that hardly means Jackie was not assaulted at the University of Virginia. In fact, witness testimony indicates there was some kind of sexual assault, although not as it was described in the piece. But is Johnson really the best person to throw stones here? Here’s a tweet he issued on Aug. 18, regarding the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri: “News tip from law enforcement source: #MichaelBrown Brown was charged with 2nd degree murder as a juvenile. Confirming now… #Ferguson.”
When it comes to issues of rape, empirical evidence, overwhelmingly exists, of how the first line of defense by the powers that be (including defendant(s)) – is to
assault the victim – AGAIN!
I’m going to remain open minded about this; because RS is back peddling.
Be that as it may, from being an abused child, working with other victims of assault and the workings with military persons around Oceanside, CA – plus the Michigan rape case by the football kicker…..
My first instinct is to still believe an assault transpired; and it has corroboration.
All witnesses tend to get their facts confused;
especially witnesses who are also the victims.
Jackie’s case is starting to look like the Black Knight’s case in the famous Monty Python skit. Her friends claims she invented the upper classman date she claims lured her to the gang-rape. When contacted by the WaPo he was determined to be a boy from her high school class she didn’t know, has never been enrolled at UVA and who hasn’t been to Charlottesville in 6 years.
To impeach Jackie is to also.impeach the letter of the other.
Need to be patient here; because rspe vivtims massive, suffer too much to rush to judgment against
After potentially being wrong for rushing to judgment in the 1st place.
Mark,
Did you see this column?
Seems that bearing false witness helps promote political and personal agendas. Good thing Anthony Shahid didn’t help Dorian Johnson do that Abigail Williams shuffle.
The great campus rape hoax
Americans have been living through an enormously sensationalized college rape hoax, but as the evidence accumulates it’s becoming clear that the entire thing was just a bunch of media hype and political opportunism.
No, I’m not talking about the Rolling Stone’s lurid and now-exploded fraternity gang-rape story. Whatever the truth behind that story, it’s now clear that basically nothing that Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely told us happened, actually happened. But the hoax is much bigger than one overwrought and perhaps entirely fictional tale of campus goings-on.
For months we’ve been told that there’s a burgeoning “epidemic” of rape on college campuses, that the system for dealing with campus rape is “broken” and that we need new federal legislation (of course!) to deal with this disaster. Before the Rolling Stone story imploded, Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., were citing the Virginia gang rape as evidence of the problem, but now that the story has been exposed as bogus, they’re telling us that, regardless of that isolated incident, there’s still a huge campus rape problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/12/14/campus-rape-uva-crisis-rolling-stone-politics-column/20397277/
You say tomato Bob
And I say Gotcha!
Univ. Of Michigan football kicker rape cover up….
Fact … not Fiction
“For months we’ve been told that there’s a burgeoning “epidemic” of rape on college campuses, that the system for dealing with campus rape is “broken” and that we need new federal legislation (of course!) to deal with this disaster.”
Bob,
Same as it ever was. How many died because we were told Iraq was responsible for 9/11? How much of our Constitution has been lost because we were told after 9/11 “this changes everything”? In human history there have always been people that would exploit situations for their own gain. It is probably a basic human trait for some. The mistake is made when people confuse the false messenger, with the problem being discussed. That James Farmer, who created CORE, was a fraud, didn’t diminish the message of the civil rights movement. When it comes to the rape of women this country historically has turned a blind eye, that in this instance it was a hoax by someone seeking attention, doesn’t make the issue of campus rape any less repugnant.
The problem is, no one knows how many campus rapes take place. What we know for a fact is that rape takes place with clockwork regularity. Another fact we know is there are false allegations of rape. Furthermore, we have no idea how many of those claims are false, since some prosecutors get convictions based on lies.
Rape among students (and sometimes staff) typically takes two forms. Forcible stranger rapes, and date rape. The latter may be either forcible, or by trickery, using drugs and/or alcohol. There is statutory rape, but that occupies a legal definition, rather than involuntary component.
One reason we don’t know is that some (many?) colleges and universities are in willful violation of the Cleary Act [20 U.S.C. § 1092(f)].
Some of the highest profile cases involved Eastern Michigan University, Penn State, and Virginia Tech.
Two of the most recent campuses to get caught in in the practice of victim blaming are Pensacola Christian College and Patrick Henry College. Because they do not get Federal Title IV funding, they don’t come under Cleary Act scrutiny. If they did, the grant contract agreement would require them to sign off on the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations at 34 C.F.R. 668.46. It seems to me that even if it is not required by law, it just makes common sense for any school to be in compliance.
Because some troubled souls make false claims for whatever reason, is no excuse to minimize the problem. It is real. What those false claims do, is create credibility problems for those who are victims. That adds insult to injury.
Here is how rape victim Samantha Field went public about being stalked and later raped. School administrators and counselors blamed her for being stalked, rather than her stalker.
http://www.xojane.com/issues/samantha-field-pensacola-christian-college-rape-stalking
Mike & Chuck,
Bearing false witness against someone, in the same malicious spirit as Abigail Williams in “The Crucible,” is NEVER justified.
Tis true Bob a loo;
But making her acts (if they do born out to be all false – evidences not in YET);
doesn’t justify your implication that there’s more erroneous and less actual.
That’s a slight upon “actual” victims; which (one would think) you’d not even dare to go so low.
Tis true Bob a loo;
But making her acts (if they do born out to be all false – evidences not in YET);
doesn’t justify your implication that there’s more erroneous and less actual.
That’s a slight upon “actual” victims; which (one would think) you’d not even dare to go so low.
Bob,
“Bearing false witness against someone, in the same malicious spirit as Abigail Williams in “The Crucible,” is NEVER justified.’
How about — bearing false witness against someone is never justified?
Yet our government, from the top down — given our foreign policy — all the way to police on the streets do just this. Admittedly, this is just my perception and possibly does not reflect reality.
Who knows, really, if any single instance of government policy or a LEOs overstepping their mandate is justified? The ratcheting of hysteria in both arenas appear to track each other though.
Patterns of actions over time speak to a documentable reality, and the current cultural trend seems to be, “do unto others, before they do unto you.”
I have hope that this current malaise of indifferent aggression will defeat itself by its very nature, though I don’t hold my breath in expectation.
Bob & Mike S:
The Bureau of Justice Statistics says rape of female college students happens at the rate of 6.1 per 1000 students or .61%. For non-student females, it’s 7.1 per 1000 (.71%). Sad figures but hardly a tidal wave of abuse and in direct opposition to the silly phone survey finding of 1 in 5 students sexually assaulted despite 75% of the participants saying that they did not consider the actions cited as sexual assault. If you can’t beat them with facts, dazzle them with bullshit seems to be the words for the banner on this one. Like Rahm Emmanuel said, “never waste a good crisis.”
mespo,
The problem with those, and many other statistics, is that we don’t really know. How many have been covered up? No one knows. How many were never reported? Based on my clinical observations over the years, the answer to that is, “most are never reported.” How many of the claims were false? No one knows that either. Some (like the RS article) have been debunked, while others have gone to prison.
There was a “study” done by Pew that was created at Princeton. Showed that a huge majority of guns purchased was for self defense. I read the original study. It did not correct for face validity, construct validity, or any of the other kinds of validity. Nor was there a control group. Reliability of the statistics? Got to be joking. The result is junk science. So how many guns were purchased solely for self defense? We have numbers, but not a clue as to the truth.
“. . . but not a clue as to the truth.”
Amen.
Why It’s So Hard to Write About Rape
Is it possible to be sensitive to victims while still being a discerning journalist?
By Salamishah Tillet
http://www.thenation.com/article/192673/why-its-so-hard-write-about-rape#
That’s likely true Chuck but the point to be made is that campus sexual assault is trending downward not upward. Thus this massive crusade in search of a problem of similar scale is doomed to disappoint.
Reporting Rape, and Wishing She Hadn’t
How One College Handled a Sexual Assault Complaint
7/12/14
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/us/how-one-college-handled-a-sexual-assault-complaint.html?_r=0
Study may change fight against campus sexual assaults
12/13/14
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2014/12/13/sex-assaults-rape-unreported-college/20382161/
Excerpt:
A new study is providing fresh confirmation that most college-age women don’t report sexual assaults, but advocates in Tennessee say the information behind the findings is leading to new initiatives aimed at fighting violence on campus.
The Department of Justice report, which examined sexual assaults of women between 18 and 24, found that college students reported rapes and sexual assaults to police less often than their peers who were not enrolled in school. Eighty percent of sexual assaults of female college students went unreported between 1995 and 2013, according to the report, compared to 67 percent for those women who were not enrolled.
College students were more likely to not report the assault because they did not think it was important enough, according to the study. Women also said they did not report because they believed it was a personal matter, they were afraid of reprisal or because they did not think the police could help them. For many advocates, those findings reinforce the dire need for a culture shift on campuses across the country.
Sarah O’Brien, a Vanderbilt University divinity school student, was one of six female students who filed a complaint in 2013 with the federal government regarding the university’s response to sexual assault. She said she was troubled by the Department of Justice’s report, but not surprised.
Parties and hooking up on college campuses can numb victims to the significance of sexual assault or create the impression that they were somehow responsible, she said. She added that victims sometimes fear that their friends and classmates will turn on them if they speak out.
“The whole campus might take (the suspect’s) side and not the victim. And that would be really terrifying,” she said.
Accounts of victim blaming have emerged across the country as a heightened level of scrutiny has fallen on responses to sexual assaults on campus. Two recent high-profile examples come from Tennessee.
Tennessee football players A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams were named as suspects in the rape of a UT student this fall, according to police. Williams was also named as the suspect in a second sexual assault on another woman. Other students took to Twitter and social media site Yik Yak with messages in defense of the players and skeptical of the alleged victims’ accounts.
Earlier this year, some Vanderbilt students posted in a Web forum threatening and criticizing a woman who had reported a sexual assault. A counter-movement to rally behind the woman garnered national headlines.
Moving beyond victim blaming will require “making it more of a student issue and an everyone issue and not just a woman’s issue,” O’Brien said. That includes broadening the discussion so it exceeds the boundaries of college campuses.
Hey,, sort of off.. on
Has anyone seen the developments about Ferguson witness 40.
Purported professional false accuser
Bob and Mespo,
I’d like to know where in my comment that you both addressed, that I sid anything about college rape, or rape in general being on the rise. I think you both missed my point, though coming from me this should have been obvious:
“Same as it ever was. How many died because we were told Iraq was responsible for 9/11? How much of our Constitution has been lost because we were told after 9/11 “this changes everything”? In human history there have always been people that would exploit situations for their own gain. It is probably a basic human trait for some. The mistake is made when people confuse the false messenger, with the problem being discussed. That James Farmer, who created CORE, was a fraud, didn’t diminish the message of the civil rights movement.”
However, since neither of you got my point let me spell it out again. Almost all stories like this fall into the “sky is falling” category and are thus exploited by self-interested people towards their own benefit. I don’t particularly believe that campus rape is a new problem that is now spiraling out of control. That’s merely the propaganda message that is put out by partisans who want to play on the sympathies of the public. You know sort of like police union leaders constantly harping over how dangerous a job being in law enforcement is for the officers. While policing isn’t even in the top 10 of the most dangerous jobs, that doesn’t mean that the family and friends of a policeman killed on duty don’t suffer terrible anguish and pain. Well the fact is that in America for most of its history and even today, the rape of a woman isn’t taken seriously in many places including Congress. The horror, pain and lasting damage of rape is a tragedy. Perhaps now you can understand what I was really writing instead of having a rather knee jerk reaction of what you thought I was thinking.
“That James Farmer, who created CORE, was a fraud, didn’t diminish the message of the civil rights movement. When it comes to the rape of women this country historically has turned a blind eye, that in this instance it was a hoax by someone seeking attention, doesn’t make the issue of campus rape any less repugnant.”
Mike,
“Well the fact is that in America for most of its history and even today, the rape of a woman isn’t taken seriously in many places including Congress.”
*****
It appears that some colleges and universities have either not taken the problem seriously or have tried to keep stories of campus rapes quiet so as not to damage their reputations.
Correct Eliane,
Univ. Michigan football kicker rape case, all Admins, campus police and others worked arduously to bury the story.
Mike S:
I got your point. I was providing the context that this is a crime on the decline and that many activists will sacrifice most any truth in service to their ideology. I also take issue with your comment that in America “today the rape of a women isn’t taken seriously ….” I know of no state in the US where rape isn’t included as a major felony with major penalties up to life inprisonment. That’s taking it pretty seriously. Like most crimes it’s underreported and difficult to prove given its intimate setting and participation but I know of no law enforcement that ignores a provable case.
“I know of no state in the US where rape isn’t included as a major felon with major penalties up to life inprisonment. That’s taking it pretty seriously. Like most crimes it’s underreported and difficult to prove given its intimate setting and participation but I know of no law enforcement that ignores a provable case.”
Mespo,
There is a difference between law on the books and how individual law enforcement entities deal with victim’s of rape. The historic fact is that the woman, or man, is initially disbelieved and discounted. The presumption by many men is “that she asked for it”. Whether as a critique of her appearance, or some other factor. I can remember in the Cosby thread Randyjet dismissing the allegations as just a typical “casting couch” situation, which implies that the women cooperated for some benefit. There is a problem with this because of the unequal balance of power in the first place. In my life I’m am far from being prudish or moralistic. In my single days in the “swinging 60’s and 70’s I had a rather rampant sexuality, but always with the proviso that my partner was equally enthusiastic. No means no! Any man in the throes of his raging hormones and throbbing penis, should have enough decency, self-control and self respect to desist. Those who cannot in my opinion have psychological issues that need treatment.
No doubt part of the reason for rape is that for most of human history women have been relegated to a second class position. The Torah portrays women as temptress for male lust. This was made even worse by certain early members of the Roman Catholic Church, who clearly hated women and imposed their sick versions of human sexuality at the Council of Nicaea and the later councils that established the Catholic Canon. Then cam Mohammed who basically incorporated the tribal taboos on women’s freedom into Islam. Even later as the Protestant movement came into play, there too certain psycho-sexually disturbed men further refined maltreatment of women and sexual repression. And so on and so forth.
Sexuality is such that young men and women whose hormones rage in their teens are told to take cold showers and ignore the natural order of things. However, socially when it comes to young men the message is also given that they can’t control their urges. They can and I know it. I had a raging libido in my teens and in my adulthood (ah the blessings of old age), but I was always able to impose self control, tempered with respect for my partner’s wishes. Because of our sexually repressive culture, many young men lack understanding of their sexual nature and feel they must find relief where they can. Since the female is portrayed as a figure of temptation and lust, the slightest misread cue can bring on an assault among men with psycho-sexual pathology. The Law Enforcement sub-culture is colored by macho overtones and thus responds to female complaints via their own pre-judgments. The evidence of this is overwhelming. Where I agree with you and Bob is that many women’s advocates will overstate the nature of the problem, in order to bring attention to it. As you now see, my point is that such overstatement represents a quite human tendency. The fact of that overstatement in no way diminishes the part of the problem.
As the father of daughters, now grown into adulthood, once my wife and I had given them the needed information about sexuality in their pre-teen years, without the stupid religious context of sinfulness, we was really not interested in whether or not they engaged in sexual relationships, because we considered such experimentation normal. Knowing they had all the information they needed about birth control, STD’s etc. and knowing they had a strong foundation of self respect, to this day I know little of their sexuality and both are in their 30’s. This also doesn’t mean that my girls were able to run wild as teens. They had strictly enforced curfews and limits. My wife and I were not seen as permissive parents, but we also remembered our own early years quite well and so could empathize with our daughter’s growing up.
Contrast this with the religious context of sexuality in this country as a whole. With idiot fathers going through ceremonies where their pre-teen daughters put on chastity rings and promise it until marriage. The statistics show that this is where the bulk of unwanted pregnancies and STD’s arise. Simply because these seekers of purity are too dumbly inhibited by their own sexual hangups and don’t provide their children with all the information, or context. They are the same people that call for Abstinence education in schools, as opposed to sex education. They leave their children both male and female without the knowledge of how to deal with their own sexuality.
I apologize for ranting on like this, but this is something about our society mores that infuriates me simply because I see it as absurd and harmful.
Interesting article in the Daily Caller. In it, 8 phony rape cases are examined. In almost all of them, the defense to blatantly false allegations of rape by so-called activists was promoting the “larger truth” about sexual assault. Most of the liars paid small fines or got off with no punishment at all but their victims wore the unwarranted shame for a long time. Intriguing how the “larger truth” was supported by a scaffold of lies and exaggerations.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/14/here-are-eight-campus-rape-hoaxes-eerily-like-the-uva-rape-story/
Covering Campus Sexual Assault
http://dartcenter.org/content/covering-campus-sexual-assault#.VJAy15G9KK0
Excerpt:
BS: You describe campus sexual assault as “shrouded in secrecy.”
KL: First of all, there is a culture of secrecy simply because so many student victims feel ashamed. That’s reinforced by peer pressure on a college campus. That is the difference between college women and women in the general population. Rape is an underreported crime overall, but 20 percent of rape victims in the general population do come forward. At the college level, on the other hand, it’s less than five percent. There’s a lot of fear, especially if two students might know each other, of how their social circles might handle it.
Then there is the official secrecy, which envelops the disciplinary process. It is quite common for people to have no idea that a hearing is taking place — except for the hearing board members and administrators. There is no announcement, even in a campus newspaper. Some schools take it further, with policies that really keep student victims out of the process. I was really surprised at the number of student victims who had any idea of what happened to their complaint. They knew they had filed the complaint, and the outcome, but had no idea what happened in between: They just are not part of the process.
One typical case we write about is Alphia Morin — this student was treated in the proceeding as a witness to her own alleged assault. So she is not an equal party. She is not allowed to sit and hear what her alleged assailant has to say about her in the incident. Then she was told she had to sign a confidentiality agreement if she wanted to find out the outcome.
Those kinds of confidentiality agreements violate the Clery Act (The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act). There is a section called the Victims’ Bill of Rights, with a stipulation that says every student victim must be informed of the hearing outcome.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/phyllis-schlafly-attention-campus-rape-part-war-men-proof-its-really-dangerous-guy-go-colleg “In an interview today with WorldNetDaily, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly weighed in on efforts to combat sexual assaults on college campuses, which she contended are part of a feminist “war on men.”
Schlafly pointed to questions surrounding the accuracy of a Rolling Stone report on rape allegations at the University of Virginia as evidence that increased attention to fighting sexual assault on campuses is misplaced and reiterated her claim that college is a “dangerous” place for men: “It’s really dangerous for a guy to go to college these days. He’s better off if he doesn’t talk to any women when he gets there. The feminists are perfectly glad to make false accusations and then claim all men are capable of some dastardly deed like rape.”
“There isn’t any rape culture,” Schlafly said. “There is a war on men, and [feminists] are very open about it.” ”
– See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/phyllis-schlafly-attention-campus-rape-part-war-men-proof-its-really-dangerous-guy-go-colleg#sthash.cFtoZL2e.dpuf
One would think the goal would be to work toward eliminating rape and prosecuting rapes that do occur. After the RS article, minimization and denial of rape seems to be the mindset………
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/rape-apologists-in-an-attempt-to-silence-victims-hurt-an-innocent-man/ “Rape apologists generally claim their motive is not to excuse rape but to protect the innocent who are falsely accused. But what happens when they are forced to choose between protecting an innocent man and trying to shame and silence a woman out of telling her story? You will not be surprised, dear readers, to learn that even if it means making life hell for some random guy who didn’t do anything wrong, rape apologists will choose to shame and silence rape victims, every single time.
That’s what is happening in the case of Lena Dunham, who has outraged conservatives by writing a memoir in which she says that she was sexually assaulted. Since the right is increasingly wed to the claim that rape isn’t a real thing that really happens— except maybe once in a blue moon and only by strangers climbing through windows (and sometimes not even then)—a bunch of idiots have been trying to prove Dunham is lying about it…….”
Hey,…. Cosby,s wife says people are making up stuff against good men like her good husband.
All you falsies out there should be ashamed. Of yourselves.
Her book will be titled
Good men dont need to rape
Mark,
Thanks for posting that “big picture” article above. I’m well aware of that particular pattern of justifying falsehoods. It seems to be all the rage as of late.
“Several lawmakers took to the House floor Monday evening to make the “Hands up, don’t shoot,” gesture to protest the police shooting of the unarmed Ferguson teen, Michael Brown.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/lawmakers-ferguson-hands-up-113254.html
Note how Holmes-Norton justifies the statement made on the floor of congress, regarding the actions of one Officer Wilson, making it nothing less than reckless disregard for the truth.
Hannity: Did you read the evidence in the case?
Holmes-Norton: I did not and that is not a concern,
Hannity: The truth is not your concern?
Holmes-Norton: For me, out of this tragedy, now Eric Garner has come a much larger concern and a much larger picture.
Hannity: The reason that Michael Brown was stopped was because police had a report of a robbery and Michael Brown fit the description and he turned out to be the guy; that was in the evidence you say you won’t take the time to read. Why?
Holmes-Norton: My view is that wherever you stand on, whether it’s racism, whether who struck John, we are losing the big picture. The big picture and the reason I think young people are in the streets is because of the stops, the stops on the street for people who happen to be black, often, that it has become routine. This is a opportunity for a conversation between police departments and their own communities. And that is what I am hoping come out of this, not more who struck John and the evidence.
https://flowersforsocrates.com/2014/12/05/can-liberals-follow-clintons-lead-and-empathize-with-their-enemies/
Bob,
The cliche that “you can’t see the forest for the trees” sums up where you seem to be on both issues. You would see it on a case by case basis, which from the standpoint of a lawyer is fine. However, in seeing it that way you don’t acknowledge the larger question which is the fact that our criminal justice system is corrupt and racist. https://flowersforsocrates.com/2014/12/12/americas-broken-criminal-justice-system/
and:
https://flowersforsocrates.com/2014/12/12/police-and-prosecutors-are-sometimes-a-bad-alliance/
“There isn’t any rape culture,” Schlafly said. “There is a war on men …”
Hey, is this the 2016 WAR replacement cry? I liked “War on Christmas” better. It was general in scope and could be applied to anyone.
Declaring war on men is redundancy in the battle of the sexes.
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/15/7371737/rape-culture-definition “Rape culture is a culture in which sexual violence is treated as the norm and victims are blamed for their own assaults. It’s not just about sexual violence itself, but about cultural norms and institutions that protect rapists, promote impunity, shame victims, and demand that women make unreasonable sacrifices to avoid sexual assault.
Rape culture pressures women to sacrifice their freedoms and opportunities in order to stay safe, because it puts the burden of safety on women’s shoulders, and blames them when they don’t succeed. As a result, certain opportunities are left unavailable to women, and still others are restricted by expensive safety precautions, such as not traveling for professional networking unless you can afford your own hotel room. That amounts, essentially, to a tax that is levied exclusively on women. Over time, the cost of that tax adds up to opportunities lost and progress not achieved. When women give up social and economic opportunities in order to stay safe, that affects their progress overall, which in turn affects society’s progress overall.
And although rape culture has its roots in long-standing patriarchal power structures that were designed to benefit men, today’s rape culture burdens men too — for instance, by ignoring the fact that men can be victims of rape and sexual assault, and women can be perpetrators of it. That means that male victims are also left without legal protection and social support.
The goal of talking about rape culture is about much more than just reducing the frequency with which sexual assault occurs or the impunity that allows it to flourish, because the problems at the root of rape culture are much bigger than that.
How the concept of rape culture is becoming mainstream
The term “rape culture” was originally coined in the 1970s. The term appeared in Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women, published by the New York Radical Feminists Collective in 1974, and was explored in depth in the 1975 documentary Rape Culture.
In more recent years, however, the idea of rape culture has received much more attention, including from mainstream outlets:
A Google Trends graph of the popularity of the term “rape culture” over time
This is due in large part to the rise of feminist and female-focused online media and activism. Sites such as Feministing, Shakesville, Colorlines, Racialicious, and Feministe published essays identifying and analyzing different aspects of rape culture.
Their success amplified the voices of feminist writers covering the subject and eventually attracted the attention of mainstream publications as well. At the same time, awareness campaigns run by groups like Know Your IX and Hollaback have compounded that effect, bringing the issue to greater prominence.
Rape culture blames victims, which allows impunity for the perpetrators
Slutwalk photo
Protesters at a Chicago Slutwalk demonstration in 2013 (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
First, rape culture treats rape as a problem to be solved through improving the behavior of potential rape victims (who are presumed, in this logic, to be women), rather than improving the behavior of potential rapists (who are presumed to be men).
This pattern takes many forms. The classic example is when an observer (or a rapist) blames the rape victim for attracting the rapist’s attention by wearing revealing clothing. In 2011, for instance, a Toronto police officer sparked the global “Slutwalk” protest movement when he told female students that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”
Another form of this argument is the “personal responsibility” lecture often given to young female college students, advising them to avoid drinking or attending fraternity parties lest they become one of the one-in-five young women who is sexually assaulted by the time she graduates. Although that advice is couched in terms of “personal responsibility” and “staying safe,” it’s still putting the onus of preventing rape on the potential victims.
military sexual assaults 2012 (OR)
Data Source: UCCR, SAPR
The second hallmark of rape culture is an unwillingness and/or inability to punish the perpetrators of rape and sexual assault. Police officers, prosecutors, and juries often cling to the stereotypical image of “real” rape. In “real” rape, the crime consists of a forcible attack, perpetrated by a male stranger on a female victim who has not been drinking or behaving in a sexually provocative manner, and is immediately reported to law enforcement and supported by ample physical evidence. Crimes that do not fit that stereotypical pattern are often ignored by law enforcement or dropped by prosecutors who believe — often correctly — that they will be rejected by juries.
The impunity isn’t limited to the legal system. Schools, universities, and the military routinely fail to address sexual assaults within their institutions. All of these institutional failures are magnified by social pressure on victims to stay silent and by patterns of blaming or ostracizing victims who do come forward.
In the U.S. military, for instance, only a small fraction of sexual assaults are investigated or punished. According to a report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, the Department of Defense estimated 26,000 service members were raped or sexually assaulted in 2012 alone, and that slightly more than half of those victims were men. However, fears of reprisal and stigma meant that only 2,558 victims even pursued justice by filing an unrestricted report, and only 302 of those cases proceeded to trial.
There was a good reason for that: the service members who did report being assaulted often faced retaliation from their superiors, who had control over whether their cases could proceed. For example, PBS reported the story of one soldier who was raped by a superior in Iraq and reported the assault, but was told that she would be charged with adultery if she pursued her complaint. She endured further threats and retaliation before being “medically retired” in 2012.
Blaming victims doesn’t just fail to prevent rapes — it constrains women’s lives and limits their opportunities
The result of all this, unsurprisingly, is an environment in which rape is common, victims are silenced, and rapists are not punished. But there is a less obvious, more pernicious consequence as well: rape culture polices women’s lives, constraining their freedom and limiting their opportunities.
When the burden of avoiding sexual assault is placed on women, that essentially grants sexual predators the power to set the boundaries on women’s lives. Those who don’t are held responsible for their own fate.
Sometimes sexual threats and violence are overtly used to police women’s behavior, such as when rape threats are used as a tool to silence female writers and activists. The online threats leveled against women like feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and blogger and programmer Kathy Sierra are good examples of this. An even more brutal form of this behavior is “corrective rape,” in which lesbians and gay men are raped in an attempt to force them to become straight.
But often it’s more subtle. Much of the advice given to women about how to avoid sexual assault is really just a laundry list of things, people, places, and situations to avoid. Alcohol. Men’s homes. Solo travel. One-on-one meetings with potential professional mentors who are male. Over time, those limitations add up, making rape culture a tax on women’s lives and opportunities.
Rape culture means that rape is incredibly common. But rape culture also prevents us from knowing exactly how common.
FBI crest
(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
Rape culture allows rape to flourish. But it also makes it hard to measure — which itself makes rape more common still.
Stigma, victim-blaming, and the (often correct) assumption that reporting a rape to law enforcement won’t result in prosecution make many victims reluctant to come forward, which contributes to underreporting. Stereotypes about what constitutes “real” rape affect the definitions used in data gathering: if the crime is defined too narrowly, then some rapes won’t show up in the statistics.
For example, for years the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data did not even count rapes in which the victim was incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or in which the victim was male.
The difficulty of accurately measuring rape and sexual assault is not just the result of rape culture, however. It also contributes to it. The lack of complete, reliable data masks the degree to which rape and sexual assault are widespread. That means that energy and resources that could be better spent coming up with solutions to rape culture are instead spent litigating whether it’s a problem at all.
Rape culture is a direct continuation of a time when gender discrimination was written right into the law
Lord Hale
Lord Matthew Hale really has a lot to answer for (Scientific Identity)
Rape culture didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the direct continuation of centuries of patriarchal power and the institutions that developed to support it.
When the US was founded, the powers that be — which is to say, men — constructed a system in which women’s rights were legally and socially subordinate to men’s. While justifications for this system were often couched in morality and tradition and the need to “protect” women, in implementation they were all about male power over women.
While we think of those institutions as long-gone, if you listen to way that rape is discussed you will hear the exact same patterns — right up to the admission that this is actually about power, often expressed as a fear of giving women the ability to put men in jail on their word alone.
History is full of instances of men wringing their hands about how scary it was to give women that kind of power. “Rape…is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho never so innocent,” warned British jurist Lord Hale in 1680. His concern took root and flourished in the US justice system. In one famous 18th-century rape trial, the defense attorney warned the jury that the rape charge “placed the life of a citizen in the hands of a woman.” (The “citizen” in question, Harry Bedlow, was acquitted.) In 1842, another judge warned that, in rape cases, “there is much greater danger that injustice will be done to the defendant, than there is in prosecutions of any other character.”
Those ideas are not just ancient history. Until 1975, California courts were required to give the following jury instruction in rape cases: “A charge such as that made against the defendant in this case is one which is easily made and, once made, difficult to defend against, even if the person accused is innocent. Therefore, the law requires that you examine the testimony of the female person named in the information with caution.” (Lord Hale, call your agent.)
And just as those fears haven’t changed much over the centuries, neither has the solution: to limit men’s vulnerability to rape accusations by limiting women’s ability to bring rape charges. This used to be done more openly than it is now, but the parallels to modern responses to rape accusations are striking.
In early US legal decisions, courts treated rape as a crime against a woman’s sexual purity, rather than as solely against her consent: a complaining victim had to prove that she had “good character” in order to pursue charges against her assailant. Second, the woman had to prove that she physically resisted the attack; in the words of one New York court in 1838, “she must resist until exhausted or overpowered, for a jury to find that it was against her will.” Many states also required that the woman cry out for help and report the assault immediately in order for it to be a prosecutable offense.
And even when those elements were met, women’s testimony was weighed against the standing and respectability of the alleged rapist. That meant a rapist was much less likely to be punished if he had higher social standing than his victim — or if he was white and she was not.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Although those elements aren’t legal requirements for rape cases anymore, they are still at the core of social attitudes towards rape today.
A woman who comes forward with an accusation of rape can be expected to have her history and character subjected to scrutiny. (Why was she drinking? Why was she even at that party? Why did she take a birth control pill?) If she did not physically resist the assault, she will be accused of consenting to it, or at the very least “confusing” her attacker. If she did not report the assault right away, that will be seen as a sign that she is lying. And her social status will be weighed against that of her rapist. The higher-status her attacker is, the less likely it will be that she is perceived as credible.
What can society do about rape culture?
Gillibrand military rape press conf
Sarah Plummer, a former U.S. Marine and survivor of sexual assault, speaks alongside Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand at a news conference supporting passage of the Military Justice Improvement Act (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
There isn’t any single program or law that can magically fix rape culture. However, advocacy campaigns run by groups like Know Your IX and Hollaback have brought attention to the problems fueling rape culture and have helped women to organize in opposition to it. Because rape culture derives some of its power from unconscious biases and hidden assumptions, simply drawing attention to it is a step towards changing it.
Institutional changes will matter too. The pressure put on the military, for example, by activists and politicians such as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has led it to pay more attention to the problem of sexual assault, and there is some evidence that assaults are decreasing. The White House has established a task force to address the problem of sexual assaults on campus, although it is too soon to know what effect it will have.”
LOL. blouise..
Redundancy
Can we send Bob a memo?
Color of Law, on the books, but almost never prosecuted, though often violated.
Breach of Fiduciary too
Federal Corruption same
Scheme to Fix, made a priority by Janet Reno Reform Act of 1994.. has.. NEVER .been prosecuted
Know why… cause its basically a crime mostly.only lawyers do..
1000 on the bottom of the ocean
Good start!
laser
All I see in Bob’s “play it again Sam” clip is a white guy thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to verbally abuse a highly educated, powerful black woman. Typical FOX newsporn with Hannity smiling at his audience knowing he has delivered the goods. Kind of hard to intellectualize newsporn but fans of FOX NEWS always try harder.
When you forget the 17, sometimes I eonder if there’s more than one of you,s
You have to remember to never speak in terms beyond the comprehension.
It,s not lying under oath; because the legal jargon states it’s single aberrant lapse in requisite behavior .
He’s not beating up on a highly educated non Caucasian woman capable of dodging Hannity verbal trappings
It’s a politician who assaults the integrity of process..you know
Like lawyers do
But their BAR card bars everyone else from artful dodging.
It’s. NOT rape
It’s attempted propagation of an unwilling recipient of sperm depositing
laser,
Nope, only one of me. It’s this damn auto correct and wordpress that applies a numerical value to my name.
“He’s not beating up on a highly educated non Caucasian woman capable of dodging Hannity verbal trappings” – laser
Good attempt at intellectualizing but don’t tell his fans that. Hannity is a white he-man and she’s everything that’s wrong with the white he-man world. She was damn well going to talk about what he wanted her to talk about because white he-men rule. The fact that she refused was all the justification he needed. When a woman of any color says no to a white he-man, she really means yes. That’s why it’s called newsporn.
“All I see in Bob’s “play it again Sam” clip is a white guy thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to verbally abuse a highly educated, powerful black woman.”
Blouise,
Thank you for reminding me.
Black educated women are not capable of bearing false witness.
Whew. Glad you cleared that up.
blouise17 says:
I liked “War on Christmas” better.
=========================================
I want a war on easter. Come on, pick a damn day and stick with it. What does the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox have to do with anything?
Pete,
Here’s a post I wrote for RILback a few years ago. We got more than 400 comments on that thread.
Sean Hannity, Bill Donohue, & The War on Easter: The Turley Blog Edition
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/23/sean-hannity-bill-donohue-the-war-on-easter-the-turley-blog-edition/
All you Christian warriors out there best make ready for battle! Sean Hannity and the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue are now claiming that there is a war on Easter. “Oh no!” you say. “Who would do such a thing?” Why, Lady Gaga, comedian Ricky Gervais, and a few other dastardly demons—that’s who.
I even heard it through the grapevine that the CEO of Easter Bunnies, Inc., is hopping mad. I was told that he’s organized his bunny brigade and worked in co-operation with the president of Hatchling Chicks Corporation to devise a plan to go after anti-Easterites like Lady Gaga and Gervais.
Get your trebuchets ready! I’ll bring eggs. We’re planning to meet in Mister MacGregor’s garden tomorrow at the first light of dawn. We’ll shell the hard-boiled enemies of Easter ova and ova again until they surrender. They won’t know what hit them.
Are you ready to join me and my fellow warriors?
One reason that Fox gets away with being non-stop racist is only 1% of their audience is black.
MSNBC’s audience is 24% black, and CNN is 16% black.
Since only 1% of Fox news audience is black, the number is small enough that if they insult them, it won’t make a dent in their Neilson numbers.
Mediaite has the story.
Bob,
“Black educated women are not capable of bearing false witness.”
To what? White he-man buffoonery?
“Intriguing how the “larger truth” [is] supported by a scaffold of lies and exaggerations.”
— Mark Esposito.
pete,
How about a War on war? That’ll boggle their little minds.
Bearing false witness:
“Did you read the evidence in the case?”
“I did not and that is not a concern”
“The truth is not your concern?”
I want a civil war. People say please and thank you, pardon me, excuse me, I beg your pardon, so sorry, by your leave, etc. Why cant we have civility in war and sex?
My grandmother always said “you get more flies with honey than with vinegar” but my uncle, her son, used to say “seduction is for sissies, a he man likes his rape.” Talk about a dichotomy, I wonder if my uncle tried honey, got vinegar and then said “fuck em all”?
Hillsdale College seems like a pretty safe place:
Click to access campus-security-report.pdf
Bob, Esq:
The truth is so yesterday, who gives a fig about truth? It is so much easier to use your emotions to discern the truth.
So am I to conclude from their remarks and lack of response to other posters that neither Bob, nor Mespo think that dealing with rape in this country? It would seem so from their lack of rebuttal to what some like Elaine and SwM have offered. This seems similar to Bob’s refusal to even acknowledge that there is any cause for Black People in this country to fear the police. Life is so much easier when one doesn’t have to trouble their mind with more complex issues.
Bob,
Newsporn … now smile for the audience.
Don’t recall that mespo agreed with Bob about the grand jury and Michael Brown’s shooting unless I missed something. We all know what Bob’s guru Sean Hannity says about race but what are his words of wisdom concerning rape? Doubt that he agrees with Eleanor Holmes Norton about that either.
Pete,, if I quote you I may have to go thru 2 weeks if Sadder banter
Oy..—
——_——–
Hey Bob, I’ll take it to be much.more axiomatic that the truth and ye are akin to Dead Sea.. than to juxtapose that blouise was inferring no non..Caucasian woman ever lied
As if Hannity,s maxim is verity over Bu shit
neither Bob, nor Mespo think that dealing with rape [as a major issue] in this country?
Sorry.
neither Bob, nor Mespo think that dealing with rape [as a major issue] in this country [is important].
My typing is lousy today and doesn’t keep up with my thoughts. 🙂
Bloiuse .. LOL..
smile for the camera
( betcha ge looked up to see where)
————
If fire fighters fight fire
And crime fighters fight crime
Tgen freedom fighters enhanced techniques fight
Lije lawyers fight
Just sayin…..
I think we should skin dye Bob and super glue a fuck the KKK sign to his dhirt n hands and drop him off at a rally outside Tulip Mississippi
And… while we’re at it, have NBC..
never mind. …..
Mike,
Some women have made false rape accusations against men…therefore all rape accusations should be discounted?????
I still believe something bad happened to Jackie. I think some rape survivors suffer with a form of PTSD. I can imagine how traumatized I would be if I were sexually assaulted. Don’t know if I’d want to go to the police.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/16/i-was-gang-raped-at-a-uva-frat-30-years-ago-and-no-one-did-anything.html “On the following Monday, it was arranged by my Resident Adviser that I would meet with the dean of students, Robert Canevari. Still fearful and smarting from the pain, I arrived on time and was led to chair in his office.
In great detail, I told him what had happened to me. I was covered in visible bruises as I sat before him. He dismissed me and told me I had “had sex with a young man and didn’t want my parents to know I wasn’t a good girl.” He suggested I needed mental help, and offered to help me transfer to another college.
What?
Dean Canevari would not call the Charlottesville Police for me, because, he said, Phi Kappa Psi fell under “University jurisdiction,” so I was allowed to report the attack internally. Canevari passed me off to Dean Sybil Todd, who accompanied me to the University Police Department. I gave statements to then-Captain Michael Sheffield on several different occasions.
Nothing ever came of the “investigation.” I called Sheffield’s office regularly, and I was routinely told someone would get back to me. There was snow on the ground when I made my last trip to see Sheffield. The Christmas holiday was quickly approaching.
No one ever called me back.”
SWM,
Sean Hannity is not my guru. My point was testing out Clinton’s theory of “empathizing with the enemy” and Hannity fit the bill so far as the readers of this blog are concerned.
But thank you, and everyone else, for willfully missing the point yet again.
Same thing in Michigan
You college girls go around so bubbly n bouncy. With sweet smells, scantily vlad.. looking for it.
Am I to be responsible for accepting the open invitations? Can I not bcome insane.. temporarily..due to hormones, thermones and youthful exuberance?
Wasn,t it exciting for you ?
Did you learn your lesson?
Do not my comrades in arms congratulate me, on being a conqueror?
If you,re no longer a virgin;
hiw can you claim.purity.
Aren’t we all manner born?
“The truth is so yesterday, who gives a fig about truth? It is so much easier to use your emotions to discern the truth.”
That’s just it Bron.
The left can be just as vile as the right when it comes to re-defining truth when it suits their purpose.
Hey counselor!
Is it wise to go around, so profusely state that the judges and jury
Are too inept to comprehend the plain brilliance if your arguments?
But You keep sayin….
By the way, the moment you start your position out that “the left.. or libs”
your contention of equitably went straight down the toilet your to high n mighty to sit upon; but lird over.
My issues about verity are based upon the whole truth as it is inflexible. Where, it would seem that you believe the Bible was wrutten in verses.
Hence, if Judas hung himself as a truth and Jesus said, in other verse.. that you can go and do likewise
Putting A + Q together is a legal reality.
Does theory trump reality..
It’s. Your Throne Solomon
Or is that. [sic] Gomorrah
Bob,
First, one would have to be convinced that Hillary truly empathasizes with her enemies.
BTW, I don’t think of Sean Hannity as my enemy.
“My point was testing out Clinton’s theory of “empathizing with the enemy” and Hannity fit the bill so far as the readers of this blog are concerned.” Bob S I think your test could possibly have had a more favorable result if you had chosen a better example. Sean Hannity’s outright bullying of an elderly black female highly educated civil rights leader was definitely a poor choice as he was only doing what he does on any given night. Maybe we could have had empathy with Hannity if he were condemning torture. Doubt you can find a clip of that.
SWM,
I had no idea that the rule “Thou shalt not bear false witness” contained an exception for “elderly black female highly educated civil rights leaders.”
Get a clip of Hannity bullying Cheney, Bob. I think he might get some empathy except I am quite certain he has the ultimate respect for the former vp.
Want to torture Hannity. . Put a truth collar on him… the silence would drive him insane
Bob:
Of course. Both the far left and the far right care little for truth, it gets in the way of their agendas.
The whole thing is sad. Why is truth the casualty? The only thing that doesnt hurt you in the long run is the truth. You cant evade it forever, and the long term cost of evasion is always much higher than a little pain in the moment.
Profound
Bob Stone, That is your opinion about the interaction.
Hey…she artfully dodged Hannity,s verbal bullying mine field.
Just cause your witness 40 has gone down in flames, doesn,t give you the right to crucify artful dodgers.
If it did, we’d be spared ypur vindictive, disingenuous. .RIL wannabe banter.
Sue tge gal…
Or Get Over it already..
Sheeessshhh!
A war on war. I’ve been trying.
Bob Stone says:
December 16, 2014 at 3:08 pm
Bearing false witness:
“Did you read the evidence in the case?”
“I did not and that is not a concern”
“The truth is not your concern?”
And you missed the whole point that he was making: the issue is bigger than Wilson killing an unarmed teen.
Sorry to disagree Bron but the truth hurts in both the long and short run. It stands like a mute witness against the BS some try to spew in service to their ideology and which always seems to involve their own financial interests. As such, the truth is an unyielding mirror to the sophist, the hypocrit, the liar and the manipulator. That’s why it is despised and why its unflinching visage is always so reviled and feared. Think Sabrina Rubin Erdely believes the truth will liberate her in the future? I don’t.
“That is your opinion about the interaction.”
“And you missed the whole point that he was making: the issue is bigger than Wilson killing an unarmed teen.”
Please note the eloquence of the following observation:
“Intriguing how the “larger truth” [is] supported by a scaffold of lies and exaggerations.”
— Mark Esposito.
Alleging the existence of a “bigger picture” or “larger truth” does not mitigate the actor’s culpability for bearing false witness.
Even if Abigail Williams had a vision for a better Salem in mind when she falsely accused people of witchcraft, she’s still culpable for bearing false witness.
Mike S:
Actually, I do think that dealing with violence against anyone is a major issue. I just object to dealing with it in an intellectually dishonest way by exaggerating its frequency or hyping it with lurid, fanciful stories that hurt other people who are innocent. I think we can solve a problem as problem-solvers without becoming frothy-mouth advocates willing to bend the real facts to our will in order to manipulate other less informed to folks to “see it our way.” That’s propaganda as our friend a Gene might say. That’s why I always advocate public trials by juries in all controversial cases like Michael Brown’s. Have two prepared advocates and an impartial judge going at it before a jury and you have as good as we can humanly muster to arrive at the truth.
“I just object to dealing with it in an intellectually dishonest way by exaggerating its frequency or hyping it with lurid, fanciful stories that hurt other people who are innocent.”
Mespo,
I agree. So what is it that I have actually written that gives you the impression that I didn’t, or that I believed that the idea of lying in service to a “greater cause” is either right, or just? Notice I am precisely saying “what I’ve actually written”, not what Bob in his reading bias expects I would write.
can’t find the Michael Brown pages. This is the woman who submitted her “journal”.
http://gawker.com/darren-wilsons-key-witness-was-bipolar-racist-liar-1671681384
In a damning new report by the Smoking Gun, a crucial witness in the grand jury deciding whether to indict former Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson is revealed as having fabricated her eyewitness account of the altercation between Wilson and unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9. “Witness 40,” identified as 45-year-old Sandra McElroy, has a documented history of racist remarks, criminal behavior, and mental illness.
“”Witness 40,” identified as 45-year-old Sandra McElroy, has a documented history of racist remarks, criminal behavior, and mental illness.”
BettyKath,
Or from Bob’s perspective, someone with unimpeachable credibility.
Shit.
Mespo links Daily Caller.
WMR and now Daily Caller.
Next thing blouise will be appearing on Desperate Housewives.
Gene – getting ready for some cage fighting?
“That’s why I always advocate public trials by juries in all controversial cases like Michael Brown’s.”
Mark,
That’s all fine and well. However, an indictment in itself is a devastating hit to a person’s life, liberty, and reputation.
“In the secrecy of the investigations by grand juries, the weak and helpless — proscribed, perhaps, because of their race, or pursued by an unreasoning [p555] public clamor — have found, and will continue to find, security against official oppression, the cruelty of mobs, the machinations of falsehood, and the malevolence of private persons who would use the machinery of the law to bring ruin upon their personal enemies.” Justice Harlan, Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884))
There is no due process in treating a man as a means to an end simply because it would be the most expedient way to dispense with the “cruelty of mobs.”
An indictment is warranted and may still transpire.
No SOL on murder
And the plot thickens
I like a good cage fight.
Bettykath,
Witness 40 is about as crucial and credible as Witness 41. (see FBI transcript and Vol 16 of GJ Transcript).
Oh yeah. Me too. All 150 lbs. of arthritic diabetic old me.
The one crucial witness is the same one that intentionally lied about the altercation at the car.
Psycho Bob speaks again
With uncanny mens rea insigts
Those who hold to the premise that tax paid public servants must go through extensive scrutiny for their extraordinary actions
Are radicals and mobs
Those who cherish the right to abuse duscretion and look down upon those tax payers are called the Right
And cant see how wrong the misnomers actually are
Is Desperate Housewives a television show or a porn flick?
Should I be insulted?
And what in the hell is a cage fight?
I think I need to start shopping at Wal-Mart so I can catch up on all the latest smart talk.
Yeah, I’ll do that as soon as I start watching FOX NEWS.
Bettykath,
There’s an article about Witness 40 at Smoking Gun:
Investigation”Witness 40″: Exposing A Fraud In Ferguson
TSG probe unmasks grand jury witness who spun fabricated tale
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/unmasking-Ferguson-witness-40-496236
Excerpt:
DECEMBER 15–The grand jury witness who testified that she saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging at him “like a football player, head down,” is a troubled, bipolar Missouri woman with a criminal past who has a history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a “complete fabrication,” The Smoking Gun has learned.
In interviews with police, FBI agents, and federal and state prosecutors–as well as during two separate appearances before the grand jury that ultimately declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson–the purported eyewitness delivered a preposterous and perjurious account of the fatal encounter in Ferguson.
Referred to only as “Witness 40” in grand jury material, the woman concocted a story that is now baked into the narrative of the Ferguson grand jury, a panel before which she had no business appearing.
While the “hands-up” account of Dorian Johnson is often cited by those who demanded Wilson’s indictment, “Witness 40”’s testimony about seeing Brown batter Wilson and then rush the cop like a defensive end has repeatedly been pointed to by Wilson supporters as directly corroborative of the officer’s version of the August 9 confrontation. The “Witness 40” testimony, as Fox News sees it, is proof that the 18-year-old Brown’s killing was justified, and that the Ferguson grand jury got it right.
However, unlike Johnson, “Witness 40”–a 45-year-old St. Louis resident named Sandra McElroy–was nowhere near Canfield Drive on the Saturday afternoon Brown was shot to death.
blouise, I find that there are some things not worth knowing about. I put Desperate Housewives and cage fights in that category.
Elaine, Yes, part of “all the evidence” that the gj had to consider.
bettykath,
Yes, I figured I wasn’t missing much. 😉
Hey,,,
You two coukd act miffed at each other
And see whose side Bob picks
UVa officials were aware of sexual assault allegations two months before Rolling Stone controversy
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva/uva-officials-were-aware-of-sexual-assault-allegations-two-months/article_38273862-84c8-11e4-96d8-a32f18fad49b.html
Excerpt:
University of Virginia officials knew in mid-September about allegations of a sexual attack at a school fraternity yet by their own account did not request a police investigation until after a Rolling Stone story launched a firestorm more than two months later.
An associate dean met Sept. 17 with Phi Kappa Psi representatives to inform them of the allegations, and school President Teresa A. Sullivan alluded to them less than three weeks later in an early October meeting with the local chapter, according to a participant in the initial talk who declined to be identified.
Mark Lipka, director of standards with the national Phi Kappa Psi fraternity based in Indianapolis, said Monday he took part in the Sept. 17 meeting with Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo, but he would not elaborate. The source familiar with that talk said Eramo told them the allegations were about a sexual attack involving multiple people at the local Phi Kappa Psi house.
In a release issued Nov. 19, shortly after Rolling Stone posted online a 9,000-word story detailing allegations of a gang rape at the fraternity, Sullivan said school officials were unaware beforehand of “many details” in the story. Following its release, Sullivan asked Charlottesville police to investigate, according to statements both from her office and UVa Rector George Keith Martin.
Sullivan would not answer questions Monday about why she did not request an investigation earlier and whether she informed the school’s Board of Visitors about the claims before they were published. Neither Martin nor other board members responded to requests for comment.
Gene,
How about hand grenades at ten paces?
What the camera missed seconds before: “Tovarich . . . hold my vodka.”
or “Ya’ll check’is out”
depending which Georgia you’re from.
About that Rolling Stone Article
Posted on December 15, 2014 by Wendy Murphy in Campus Sexual Assault, Title IX, University of Virginia UVA |
http://title9.us/about-that-rolling-stone-article/
Excerpt:
The federal lawsuit I filed involves disturbing allegations about a UVA forensic nurse who took numerous photographs of my client’s genital injuries after she reported being sexually assaulted. The nurse initially prepared a medical record describing the injuries, but then submitted a report to the hearing board stating that there were no sexual assault injuries. The board ruled in favor of the alleged perpetrator, despite finding the victim “compelling” and “credible,” and noted in support of its decision that there were “no injuries.” The nurse’s inconsistent reports are on file with the court and with federal investigative agencies.
When my client and her family learned the nurse had testified that there were no injuries, they asked UVA for copies of the photographs which were taken during the SANE exam. University officials responded, without explanation, that there were “no photographs.”
UVA has been in trouble with federal agencies many times over the years for subjecting violence against women to substandard policies on campus, and the last perpetrator was expelled from UVA sixty years ago.
This recycling of rapists on campus was recently defended by UVA Dean Nicole Eramo, who coldly explained that perpetrators who confess are rewarded with the ability to remain students at UVA. She also said that offenders who don’t confess receive the same “gift,” though she nowhere explained why the alleged perpetrator in the missing photographs case won his case despite the hearing board’s determination that the victim, not the perpetrator, was “compelling” and “credible.”
Isn’t Wendy Murphy the same lawyer who disgraced herself during the case of the Duke Lacrosse players when she was caught telling an endless stream of blatant lies? For instance, she claimed that the defendants had taken the Fifth Amendment in court and refused to testify, while in reality all of them testified.
Surely we can call agree that having Murphy as a vocal, public advocate and prosecutor in these types of cases will only hurt the cause.
Rapists should be expelled. Their presence on campus is a threat to the well-being of his victim and a threat to others who are potential victims.
Babble is as babble does
Rape is okay, just because
Schools protect their purity by right
Women just shouldn,t go out at night
The truth really doesnt matter
Cause we all get to do much chatter
The girl,s still alive after small slights
There,ll be more minor assaults on other nights
Vant you all understand its a mans world
Where he man can do what may to any girl
Its how its always been n will be
Cause there’s ni such thing as equality
alexbpop:
Yep, Wendy’s truthiness challenged. Here’s the particulars of her off-the-cuff style of advocacy:
http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/wendy-murphy-file.html
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/12/17/3604546/ifc-proposals/
Excerpt:
As ThinkProgress previously reported, the links between alcohol consumption and sexual assault are often nebulous. While some predators do utilize alcohol to prey on victims, many plan premeditated attacks that isolate prospective victims’ and test their boundaries without the presence of a drink.
“People don’t get raped because they have been drinking, because they are passed out or because they are drunk,” an expert explained in a USA Today story last year about the connections between sexual assault and alcohol. “People get raped because there is a perpetrator there — someone who wants to take advantage of them.”
Lisak arrived at a similar conclusion when assessing the nature of sexual crimes. In his paper, “Understanding the Predatory Nature of Sexual Violence,” he outlines common characteristics of “undetected rapists” — non-stranger rapists who are rarely prosecuted for rape and sexual assault. “When compared to men who do not rape, these undetected rapists are measurably more angry at women, more motivated by the need to dominate and control women, more impulsive and disinhibited in their behavior, more hyper-masculine in their beliefs and attitudes, less empathic and more antisocial,” he wrote. While Lisak acknowledged that some rapists use alcohol deliberately to render their victims more vulnerable to attacks, he concluded that the vast majority of on-campus rapes are committed by serial, violent predators — not “decent young men” thrown into dizzying confusion by blurred lines, party culture, mixed signals, and a few extra shots.
Additionally, sexual assault and rape has become a problem at many “Bible Colleges” with strict “morality codes,” many of which prohibit drinking, partying, unmarried handholding, socializing in garages, and hanging out in public in groups of more than ten without chaperones. Last week, the Christian nonprofit ministry GRACE released a report on sexual abuse allegations at Bob Jones University, a Christian university in South Carolina. The report found that more than half of abuse survivors said that the school’s response to their disclosures had been “somewhat to very hurtful,” and nearly 50 percent said that University discouraged them from filing police reports. In this context, strict regulations on alcohol and partying did not eliminate sexual assault, as popular opinion may have suggested.
In the same vein, reducing the amount of liquor available at UVA frat parties after 8 p.m. and providing water and food at parties does not address the root causes of rape, the IFC official said. When asked what the University could do to address campus sexual assault, he confessed: “I don’t know. I think it’s a cultural issue.”
The fact is that the public face of many men regarding women is far different than the private discussions they have with each other in all male venues, like locker rooms. I’ve been privy to or overheard many of these discussions and their view of women is overwhelmingly condescending and many times hostile. Now I can understand that women in private perhaps let down their hair with the same disparaging comments about males, but there is an important difference. Only one of the sexes is really capable of rape due to the mechanics of the act and I don’t just mean physical strength. Since historically males have occupied positions of power their sympathies have traditionally been with their own sex on a subliminal level.
From my own experience I can’t conceive of the amount of aggression and anger it would take to force a woman to have sex with me. I know though, that far too many men would consider it an act of manhood and power. Among the most beautiful things we humans have is our sexuality and many constantly abuse it, and themselves, with false notions of what constitutes sex. Rape is a heinous crime that demands punishment, but the underlying issue is how so many humans have misused one of the joys of existence.
I’ve lost several purported friends, due to their (closed door) opines getting in my craw.
Bullies, emotional, physical, financial, diabolical – HATE THEM ALL!
I was actually going to write something about how false accusers hurt actual rape victims. So I go and look up whatever happened to that woman Al Franken was helping out when he first became a senator.
Jamie Leigh Jones
Well, then I read a piece by an author who “wrote a number of stories sympathetic to Jones for [her] employer, Mother Jones magazine.”
Excerpt: “Even so, Jones’s wasn’t a story anyone really wanted to hear. If she had fabricated her story, and lied about it for years, even before Congress, the ramifications were extensive. It was bad for rape victims, bad for the beleaguered civil justice system, and even bad for Hot Coffee, which was proving an unexpected and smashing success in defending the legal system from charges that it’s plagued with baseless claims. My editor at Mother Jones cringed when I told him I wanted to write about it, saying, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_2013/features/the_war_of_rape047355.php?page=all
WTF is wrong with people?
AP Photo
When Helping Rape Victims Hurts a College’s Reputation
Better support services can encourage more students to speak out—and that increases the number of reported assaults on campus.
Caroline Kitchener
DECEMBER 17, 2014
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/when-helping-rape-victims-hurts-a-universitys-reputation/383820/
It is the mens rea – counselor.
Such as your always looking to justify the dark side!
“WTF is wrong with people?”
Perhaps it’s the fact that you are so determined to show your devotion to “truth”, that you are blind to reality.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
R.W. Emerson
Perhaps you should read the article Mike.
Perhaps you should get some help with reading comprehension Bob, since you clearly are unable to understand that once again I’m more interested in the overall problem rather than the incident. I’ve already admitted that many people use a hot button issue for self promotion, or because they have psychological pathology. The point is really about how rape is treated in this country and as you can see from the response of the women here, that is their concern as well. Perhaps though you deem women unqualified to discuss such weighty philosophical matters?
Mike S & Bob:
Of note in the fine article that Bob cited, was that the jury in the civil case found that the defense contractor did ignore and mishandle charges of sexual assault even as the panel completely dismissed the particulars of this fairly obvious false allegation of gang rape. In a sense, both of you are right but it’s a mistake to dismiss either of your points as I seem to think each of you are doing to the other.
“In a sense, both of you are right but it’s a mistake to dismiss either of your points as I seem to think each of you are doing to the other.”
Mespo,
I didn’t dispute Bob’s point in this incident. My comment conceded it:
“Same as it ever was. How many died because we were told Iraq was responsible for 9/11? How much of our Constitution has been lost because we were told after 9/11 “this changes everything”? In human history there have always been people that would exploit situations for their own gain. It is probably a basic human trait for some. The mistake is made when people confuse the false messenger, with the problem being discussed. That James Farmer, who created CORE, was a fraud, didn’t diminish the message of the civil rights movement.”
“However, since neither of you got my point let me spell it out again. Almost all stories like this fall into the “sky is falling” category and are thus exploited by self-interested people towards their own benefit. I don’t particularly believe that campus rape is a new problem that is now spiraling out of control. That’s merely the propaganda message that is put out by partisans who want to play on the sympathies of the public. You know sort of like police union leaders constantly harping over how dangerous a job being in law enforcement is for the officers. While policing isn’t even in the top 10 of the most dangerous jobs, that doesn’t mean that the family and friends of a policeman killed on duty don’t suffer terrible anguish and pain. Well the fact is that in America for most of its history and even today, the rape of a woman isn’t taken seriously in many places including Congress. The horror, pain and lasting damage of rape is a tragedy. Perhaps now you can understand what I was really writing instead of having a rather knee jerk reaction of what you thought I was thinking.”
I don’t like people being persecuted by false allegations any more than you or Bob do. Nor is there an instance on this thread where I commented on the UVA case at all. Now if one wanted to say I’ve been off topic because of that, perhaps so, but to imply I’ve taken a position I clearly haven’t is just wrong..
Mike S.: “I didn’t dispute Bob’s point in this incident.”
“I don’t like people being persecuted by false allegations any more than you or Bob do.”
That’s the first time he’s said that and had he not already scoffed at the idea of actually reading Dorian Johnson’s testimony to the Grand Jury I might believe him.
My point, here and on the Brown Shooting threads, has been that “the bigger picture” cannot be used either against the accused or as justification for prosecuting the accused in the first place.
Because here’s what happens:
It doesn’t matter if Jamie Leigh Jones falsely accused people of rape; what matters is it brought attention to “the bigger picture”…
It doesn’t matter if Dorian Johnson lied about the altercation at the car, i.e. the foundation of Wilson’s self-defense claim, because Wilson’s prosecution brings attention to “the bigger picture”…
The criminal justice system is designed to punish people for their actions. It does not permit the prosecution of people in furtherance of an ideal.
Furthermore, bearing false witness tends to be defended by making more false accusations:
Show that Jamie Leigh Jones was lying; you’re pro rape or a misogynist.
Show that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Brown; you’re an insensitive racist, fascist, etc., etc.
“That’s the first time he’s said that”
No Bob I’ve said it before over and over again, but you were too obtuse to get the meaning so I spelled it out as simplistically as possible. Now as for you you have never answered my question about whether there is a problem in America with police shooting Black people. Nor have you directly responded to all of the evidence that counters your own, put up by Elaine, SwM and many others. And since you bring up what has and has not been said do you think that historically there has been a problem with women getting raped and the authorities turning away their charges? .
Dismiss,, dis… take a wist..
I thnk this realm represents our nations views … proportionally.
Bob sees it solely from a lawyers viee; which is bound to the systems fee works.
Mike and others have a greater sense of equitable justice; because the are not made of Stone. 🙂
In other words, there’s more gelt to.get being a jacobite defender, than one who has empathy for demon eyed ppl like Mke Brown
just sayin….
Mike S:
I agree that you were making a more general statement about the topic that was quite appropriate. I just think you were both talking past each other.
On a related note, what do you make of the Air Force study that 41% of rape allegations they studied were false or seriously exaggerated?
http://www.falserape.net/falserapeafa.htm
Mespo,
I read the report and I don’t think much of it. First of all the use of the lie detector so prominently in the study makes it unscientific. Lie detectors have no scientific proof that they work. That is why their evidence is not allowed in trials. Secondly, the superficial description of the “study” tells us nothing of the conditions they were held under, nor of the biases of the researcher. Remember it is in the Air Forces interest to downplay the rape charges from all angles and this has been highlighted as one of the problems of military rape in the first instance. We have seen from Elaine’s blog on torture that it seems easy to get Psychologists to design and participate in a torture program. As for the study’s author Dr. Charles McDowell he does have some advocates:http://www.fathersmanifesto.net/mcdowell.htm and also here: http://www.falserape.net/falserapeafa.htm but I would hardly credit them as being unbiased observers.
Humanity has spent at least the last 5,000 years of civilization portraying women as “Jezebel’s” luring poor innocent males to their downfall. Are there false rape claims? Yes absolutely. Are there people willing to advance their own agenda by making the problem into an epidemic? Certainly. However, Mespo let’s get real. We’re both guys, long in the tooth, though I’m older. /you know very well the attitudes towards females expressed in the “locker rooms” of our youth. You know the experience of raging testosterone and the need for release. And surely you must remember the dictum “when she says no, it means yes”. This was common coin of my youth and young manhood among my male friends. Coercing a female into sex was for many just part of the game. Now put it into a setting where the young men are on their own for the first time, without the restraints of the family/community where they were raised and surrounded by a male peer group maintaining all the macho attitudes of males in heat. This stuff happens and the tendency for ages is that it is HER fault, she led me on.
My stating this does not come from an attitude that females are ALWAYS blameless, hardly. I know of one instance that I’m fairly certain of a girl offering to have sex with a boy she was attracted to and afterwards when he was less aroused and refused to pledge undying love, went to the police and had him arrested and convicted because she was underage. Then again I was friends in college with a brilliant pre-med student who during a discussion one night told me why he wanted to become a gynecologist, which was to look at vagina’s all day. At the time he was 19 and had a 13 year old girlfriend who he was later forced to marry. We lost touch after school and the next I heard of him was in the Long Island Newspaper Newsday to the effect that he had been charged by three of his female patients with sexual abuse. The next day five more accused him and by the end of the week he was under investigation for more than twenty incidents, among them forcible rape. Two days later he checked himself into a hotel and blew his brains out. Leaving his childhood bride and five children behind. This same guy was the son of a police sergeant in a high crime Black area of Brooklyn. My friend also told me at one point (it was the end of our friendship) that he wanted to get a summer job through his father for the Jones Beach police force. When I asked him why he replied” So I can have a gun and shoot some Niggers”.
I get both sides of this and I’m not a draconian “off with their heads” without proof kind of a guy. The issue at base is of male attitudes towards females that for many demand that for many is that females should be in an inferior position to males. This has been reinforced by religious belief and by social mores. Does this hit a nerve with me? Absolutely. I’m a father of daughters who both are out in the world and have careers. Thankfully, my wife and I haven’t brought them up to be shrinking violets and bot are quite capable of taking care of themselves and having the judgment to steer clear of predatory males.
It also hits a nerve from this perspective. The treatment of people of color, women and LGBT’s has been and still is prejudiced from a societal perspective. In my world that is a provable fact. Those that casually dismiss protests about this as reverse prejudice, are blind in my view and are either in denial, or harbor their own prejudice. Sorry to be so judgmentl but I get that way when some people tell me that I’m merely part of a “liberal Amen Chorus”.
The Myth of Crying Rape
http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/12/18/myth-crying-rape
Excerpt:
For survivors of rape and sexual assault, tearing apart statistics that are notoriously difficult to quantify given poor reporting rates only serves as a tool to further silence them — to tell them their trauma doesn’t quite earn the badge of “crisis” that could serve to correct a rape culture that oozes into every corner of young women’s lives. Rape culture is living in a society in which your story is dissected rather than heard; it’s being told your inherent, God-given value begins to disintegrate once your story gets uncomfortable and its trajectory skewed. Admitting that culture exists — and that many of your friends, coworkers, and loved ones are part of the crisis— doesn’t diminish anyone else’s story. It simply expands it.
The most recent set of statistics released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics paints a bleak picture — females ages 18-24 note the highest rate of sexual assault and rape. While naysayers are tripping over themselves to point out that the rate is actually higher for nonstudent females than those enrolled in college, our eyes jump to the most glaring figure: Only 20 percent of students report the crime to police.
That statistic only confirms what is already anecdotally clear if you’re paying attention. I, Sandi, was a rape crisis advocate near the Baylor University campus when I was a student in the early 2000s. I was on the other end of the crisis hotline and counseled survivors on their options. Within this age bracket, a full 80 percent of assaults are perpetrated by an acquaintance, which often complicated the victims’ decision to report. If they did choose to report, I went to the hospital and walked them through the process of forensic examination, explaining the morning after pill, giving their testimony for the police report, filing for victims compensation, and then preparing them to wait. The reality is, these survivors are often re-victimized by a system that interrogates rather than advocates and then fails to deliver justice in a vast majority of cases. Survivors are also confronted by a culture that still thinks women by and large lie about being raped — furthered by stories like Rolling Stone’s and the Duke lacrosse case that serve as confirmation of a belief not rooted in any sort of truth. (In fact, somewhere between 2 percent and 8 percent of reports turn out to be false.)
Colleges often reluctant to expel for sexual violence — with U-Va. a prime example
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/colleges-often-reluctant-to-expel-for-sexual-violence–with-u-va-a-prime-example/2014/12/15/307c5648-7b4e-11e4-b821-503cc7efed9e_story.html
Excerpt:
As growing numbers of students report sexual violence, those who seek justice through internal channels at colleges are learning that even when allegations are upheld, school officials are often reluctant to impose their harshest punishment on the attackers: expulsion.
Federal data on college discipline obtained by The Washington Post suggest that students found responsible for sexual assault are as likely to be ordered to have counseling or given a reprimand as they are to be kicked out. They are much more likely to be suspended and then allowed to finish their studies.
The University of Virginia has expelled no students for sexual misconduct in the past decade, a record that has intensified scrutiny of the public flagship university now at the center of debate on campus sexual assault. Why, skeptics ask, has U-Va. dismissed dozens of students for academic cheating in recent years but none for sexual assault?
“I am concerned about the way we approach this and whether we are approaching it correctly,” U-Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan said in an interview with The Post. She acknowledged that the school is reviewing “the way in which we adjudicate these issues.”
That review and other efforts to improve campus safety, as well as an ongoing federal probe of U-Va.’s record on sexual violence, underscore that sexual assault is likely to remain a high-profile issue at the university even after the unraveling of a Rolling Stone magazine article on an alleged fraternity gang rape there.
In contrast with U-Va., the University of Maryland, Georgetown University and George Mason University told The Post they have issued a small number of expulsions for sexual misconduct in the past two years.
National debate about campus sexual assault — flaring this year at all levels of higher education, from the Ivy League to community colleges — has opened a window onto the largely hidden world of student discipline.
Broken Code: AFA superintendent calls for investigation of athletic transgressions
By Tom Roeder Updated: November 19, 2014
http://gazette.com/broken-code-afa-superintendent-calls-for-investigation-of-athletic-transgressions/article/1534978
Excerpt:
U.S. Air Force Academy cadet athletes flouted the sacred honor code by committing sexual assaults, taking drugs, cheating and engaging in other misconduct at wild parties while the service academy focused on winning bowl games and attracting money from alumni and private sources in recent years, a Gazette investigation has found.
The findings are egregious enough that academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson told The Gazette that she has called for an Inspector General’s investigation of the athletic department.
“These efforts will help in eliminating subcultures … whose climates do not align with our institutional core values,” she said in a statement released Thursday exclusively to The Gazette. Johnson said the academy has taken steps to correct the problems within the athletic department. “Despite all of our efforts, I expect we’ll still have issues with a few young people who will make poor choices,” she wrote.
Documents newly released to The Gazette reveal how serious those “poor choices” of the past have been. They detail parties dating to 2010 where cadets, including a core group of top football players, smoked synthetic marijuana, drank themselves sick and may have used date-rape drugs to incapacitate women for sexual assault…
Allegations of a wild party
In the early days of December 2011, agents of the Office of Special Investigations at the school were told about a party where cadet athletes used spice, a synthetic marijuana, and allegedly engaged in gang rape.
From: Jan. 28, 2011: Cadets under probe for using synthetic pot
It was the most stunning set of allegations after nearly two years of investigations into off-campus parties, drug use and athletes’ conduct.
The blowout was held in the woods west of Colorado Springs on Dec. 2, 2011, a week after the football team ended its regular season with a 45-21 thumping of Colorado State.
“The girls’ drink, or Captain Morgan with the blue lid, was only for girls to drink,” OSI confidential informant cadet Eric Thomas told investigators in a written statement obtained by The Gazette. The blue-capped bottle, he explained, was laced with “roofies,” a street term for flunitrazepam, a powerful sedative known as a date-rape drug.
Thomas told investigators that “four or five females did not recall what occurred the following day after the party.”
One of the things about my case v Pitten,s is that I need not embellish or do conjecture; because theyve done so much wrong (beyond compare).
A sexual abused person (and I,m one of those too).. has a much more different dilemma. People inherently turn a deaf ear to you telling your own, sad, tale of woes.
But you indignation vexes n begs for fixing.
Hence, many victims feel that (since everyone is saying what you suffered isnt all that bad) – you must somehow paint a picture that others will now say “I get it now” or “I see what you mean and feel your pain”.
Victims need comforting and apathy assaults them, in their mind, a second time.
You go over it SO much in your mind, you can actually blur things and lie to yourself.
But the fact remains, you were violated.
And most people simply don’t care..
Bob:
In that same vein, “That Dreyfus guy might be innocent but the bigger issue is all those other Jews selling secrets to the Germans.”
Didn’t work then; won’t work now.
“In that same vein, “That Dreyfus guy might be innocent but the bigger issue is all those other Jews selling secrets to the Germans.”
Mespo,
Seriously? You think the Dreyfus case is equivalent? Perhaps you should read a little more about it and the sociological context of the time, I have.
Show how arguing that.the one who backed up the SUV…for that ALONE … then shooting 12 bullets at unarmed man
Doesnt deserve a trial?
You always frggn neatly skip
Cause and effects.
Such as the police treating the two WHITE utility workers as drug dealers.
Where one put his hands up to the cop right after
Bogud is as bogus does
And no trial is bogus Stone Cold!
Mike S:
I think the point is the same if not the saturation level of the prejudice. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” comes in all sizes.
Mike s:
Actually, the Dreyfus Affair is one of my favorite historical topics juxtaposing the corrupt French officer corps imbued with the prejudice of the time and the rabid anti-semitic press of Paris led by La Libre Parole against the honest brokers of justice led by Georges Picquart, himself no friend of the Jews, and Émile Zola . The role of the Catholic Church was never fully explored but it is safe to say its involvement led to the decline of its influence among French intellectuals.
Mespo,
Started reading about the incident in my early teens and Zola was a hero of mine. Dreyfus would have been an interesting man to have had a chat with to understand how he must of felt suffering through this ordeal and knowing his innocence.
Mike S:
By all accounts Alfred Dreyfus was a quiet, introspective, capable officer thrust into a limelight he would have avoided had he the choice. And he was an unabashed patriot repeating, “I am innocent, Long live France! I am innocent,” even as he was reviled by the authorities.
Governor Siegelman, James Traficant, Senator Stevens and Rick Convertino
Patriots paying penalties
And mod,s can’t see the history that be
This “Elaine M” is some kind of freak. Even after the facts have come out, and it’s clear as day that Jackie and Sabrina made up every single bit of their vicious hit piece, she’s defending their lies to the hilt. What a psycho.
Hey Mika,
You’re a month late to the conversation. Kindly stick your freak/psycho opinion back up where it belongs, and buzz off. Maybe find a freak/psycho blog that gives a rodent’s rectum what you think.
Thanks for sharing.
Dead thread troll. How quaint. Message for Mika:
Falcon Code two two one.
And what Bob K said.
THANKS MIKA.
CHUCK AND BOB are old style 60’s Reject Tranny Demoncrats
so they are experts on Rectums. And they are typical Demoncratic
Trash if you went back into their history you would find the evil that they
have done to women just like Bubba Clinton and Filthy Filner (what a nice
Jew).
And Elaine M approached me in college and said you are handsome and
have blue eyes and I answered you are a Dirty Jew Rat and are the perfect
anecdote to any Man’s Boner. She and her dirty Jewish Clan of Pigs then
drugged me and raped me. I have never been the same. I swear this is the Truth!
I am in talks with Roller Stoners to sell them my story!
I WANT THAT BEECH ARRESTED AND BEHEADED BY HER SAUDI PALS.
BYE BUY .LOSERS……..