We’ve discussed extensively the problems and scandals surrounding the campus sexual assault investigation process. Procedures that favor the accuser, and offer no protection to the accused, have led to lost academic careers, ruined reputations, and high-profile lawsuits brought by the accused against the institutions that allegedly threw them under the bus.
One such lawsuit has risen out of sexual assault allegations brought against “John Doe” by another female student at Amherst College. John Doe was expelled after Amherst’s kangaroo court decided with 50.01% certainty that he may have raped “AS.”
After the expulsion, John Doe’s attorney dug deeper into the case, and discovered a series of text messages that eviscerated AS’s testimony:
In fact, as Doe’s attorneys later would discover, AS had texted two people after the hookup—a friend, and a possible paramour. Even before hooking up with Doe, AS had texted the other male student, telling him, “I mean I happen to have my room to myself this weekend, if you wanted to come over and entertain me.” After she finished with Doe, AS resumed flirtatious texting with the male student, who came to her room and spent the night with her. He found her “friendly, flirtatious, and spirited,” and not “anxious, stressed, depressed, or otherwise in distress.”…Just after Doe left her room, AS also had (as she told the disciplinary panel) texted a friend. But (contrary to what she told the disciplinary panel) she didn’t invite the friend over to her room. Instead, she informed the friend, “Ohmygod I jus did something so fuckig stupid.” Coarse language from her in subsequent texts implied an awareness that she had initiated sexual contact with the student she later accused of rape. AS was upset in these messages—but not from being raped.Rather, she worried (not unreasonably) about the fallout of a sexual liaison with the boyfriend of her roommate, who “would literally never speak to me again” if she found out. AS continued texting her friend after the male student arrived; she described her attitude toward her guest: “Like, hot girl in a slutty dress. Make. Your. Move. YEAH.” At 5am, she sent another text to the friend indicating that some sort of sexual liaison had occurred with her male visitor.
In spite of this new information, Amherst College is refusing to reopen John Doe’s expulsion.
Yes, really.
Megan Kelly spoke with professor and author K.C. Johnson, who broke open the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax and was the first to report on Amherst’s joke of a hearing process:
During the interview, Kelly said what we’re all thinking:
“The injustice of the process that happened at Amherst…is where things get really awful. …”You’re done. Once you are accused, you’re done. You can’t have a lawyer in there representing you, and the rules say, don’t allow the accused to cross-examine the accuser because it could be intimidating and threatening for her. Well, she might be a liar! She might deserve a little intimidation if she’s lying.”
Johnson, in his initial breakdown of what Amherst is doing to students accused of sexual assault, explained the procedure in detail:
Once the complaint is filed, an investigator, who lacks subpoena power, interviews the accuser and the accused student; beyond that, the college promises only that the investigator will make a “good faith effort” to speak to relevant witnesses, and will “try” to obtain relevant physical or medical evidence. If the investigator’s “good faith” effort doesn’t track down relevant witnesses, the policy presumes that the accused student won’t be able to call those witnesses before the hearing.“Attorneys cannot participate in the Hearing Board process” at Amherst (although, the college helpfully notes, the accused student can hire an attorney—at his own expense—and have the attorney present on campus the day of the hearing, perhaps for a very expensive form of virtual, moral support). The attorney-less accused student does receive an “advisor” from the campus community, but this advisor “is not an advocate for the student.”Amherst does not permit theaccused student to directly cross-examine his accuser; he can only submit questions to the panel chair, who may ask or reject the questions as the chair chooses. Effective cross-examination under such circumstances is all but impossible—even more so since the accuser is allowed to write responses, rather than respond to questions orally. Any guilty finding is “permanently noted on the student’s record.”
This is what we have become.
Anyone who has followed the issue knows that these policies and procedures are a knee-jerk reaction to the hypersensitive activist culture surrounding issues of human sexuality. What was once a not-so-innocent college hookup is now a test case for just how far these false feminists will be allowed to go when it comes to making examples out of men.
This isn’t justice—it’s social justice…and that should make you very, very nervous.
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