By David French
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Yes, there are victims of America’s alleged college “rape
crisis.” There are the women who are actually raped — who experience among the
worst of crimes and live with the psychological and sometimes physical
consequences for the rest of their lives. But there are also other victims,
people whose lives are ruined by false accusations, with reputations destroyed
in the quest to prove a larger narrative — that America’s college campuses are
uniquely dangerous places for American women.
Three recently filed lawsuits show the other side of the
“rape crisis,” how the media glosses over ambiguity to advance an agenda,
creating heroes out of potential liars and villains out of the possibly
innocent. I say “potential” and “possible” because in the real world, ambiguity
is common and clarity is rare. But its difficult to create a crisis out of
confusion, so agenda-driven “journalists” manufacture clarity, no matter the
cost.
The three most prominent campus rape stories of the past
year — Columbia University’s “mattress” protest, the Rolling Stone hoax, and
former Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston’s alleged assault —
are now the subject of three unusual lawsuits. Each lawsuit directly challenges
rape narratives that the plaintiffs claim were deeply harmful to their
reputations, finances, and emotional well-being.
The first, brought by Columbia University student Paul
Nungesser, accuses Columbia University of essentially collaborating in a
campaign of retaliation and harassment against him when Emma Sulkowicz launched
her now-famous “mattress” campaign to draw attention the university’s alleged
failure to convict Nungesser of sexual assault. The lawsuit makes for shocking
and sobering reading — shocking because the mainstream media’s account of
Sulkowicz’s alleged ordeal glossed over an ocean of ambiguity and doubt about
her own account of the alleged assault. Nungesser may or may not have assaulted
Sulkowicz (a campus court cleared him of any wrongdoing and police declined to
pursue charges), but to describe her as a “victim” or “survivor” was to presume
Nungesser’s guilt, a presumption that flies in the face of substantial
evidence. Nungesser’s suit alleges that Columbia violated its own policies to
collaborate in his public shaming — essentially disregarding its own
adjudication to destroy Nungesser and preserve the “rape crisis” narrative.
The suit is sobering as well, laying bare — through
copious social-media messages — the personal lives of students unmoored to any
coherent code of sexual morality, where alcohol plays an outsized role and
sexual connections are casually created but have meaningful and long-lasting
consequences. Such an environment offers the perfect formula for hurt,
confusion, and rage.
Jameis Winston’s highly unusual counterclaim — filed
after former Florida State student Erica Kinsman sued Winston — also introduces
complexity to a media storyline dominated by critiques of police and university
processes. But the dominant media narrative — star athlete gets away with rape
after a flawed investigation — is far too simplistic. Winston outlines shifting
stories, notes the multiple, independent investigators who found in his favor,
and provides a financial motive for Kinsman’s accusations — a demand for $7
million in compensation.
The final lawsuit, recently filed by University of
Virginia dean Nicole Eramo against Rolling Stone after the magazine cast her as
a principal villain in Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s now-discredited blockbuster tale
of rape and cover-up at UVA, is in some ways the most poignant. Dean Eramos
isn’t an accused rapist, she’s a person who has dedicated her professional life
to working within a highly imperfect university system to help victims. Yet
Rolling Stone and Erdely accused her of discouraging police reports,
discouraging “Jackie” (the alleged victim) from sharing her story, and
withholding statistics because she didn’t want UVA to be seen as a “rape school.”
These claims, if true, would mean that Eramo didn’t just abuse her office, she
turned its very purpose on its head — using it to harm victims and protect the
university at all costs.
Eramo’s lawsuit clearly and methodically lays out the
case against Rolling Stone, exposing how Erdely had a reputation for fabrication
even before writing the story of “Jackie,” how she hunted for just the “right”
victim and then refused to check the facts when the facts were just too good to
check. The suit exposes how Rolling Stone went so far as to doctor photographs
to make Eramo look like a callous villain willing to give the “thumbs up” sign
even to weeping victims of sexual assault. The suit also lays out how Rolling
Stone doubled down on its flawed reporting by continuing to promote the story
even in the face of known, substantial doubts.
These cases have barely begun, but their claims bolster
an alternative, competing narrative about sexual assault on campus — that it’s
simply not true that universities or the police turn a blind eye to alleged
rape. When the facts and evidence are clear, rapists are prosecuted. The
“crisis” is the same crisis faced by prosecutors since time immemorial: Rape
cases are among the most difficult to prove, and no amount of ideology-fueled
wishful thinking can clear memories fogged by alcohol or reconcile the
different perceptions of people navigating all the complexities of the most
intimate of human interactions.
Nowhere has the sexual revolution triumphed more
completely than on America’s college campuses. Yet instead of creating a sexual
utopia, colleges are awash in hurt, anger, and confusion. No amount of
ideological crusading can change the facts of human nature or change the facts
of actual cases involving real human beings. (Indeed, college-age women are
safer on campus than off.) But ideological crusades do create collateral damage
— and now the targets of the crusade are fighting back. Can the crusade survive
the court system? Only time will tell.
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