Attending the disgraced philosophy professor Peter Ludlow’s dismissal hearing was like watching someone being burned at the stake in slow motion. The five Northwestern faculty members empaneled to hear the case were striving to make clear that they were neutral and not prejudging anything. The whole thing dragged on for over a month. It was the campus equivalent of a purification ritual, and purifying communities is no small-scale operation these days: In addition to the five-person faculty panel, there were three outside lawyers, at least two in-house lawyers, another lawyer hired by the university to advise the faculty panel, a rotating cast of staff and administrators, and a court reporter taking everything down on a little machine. Ludlow had his lawyer (and on one occasion, two). And there was me. One of Ludlow’s lawyers had contacted me a few weeks earlier to ask if I’d be willing to act as Ludlow’s “faculty support person” at the hearing. I was surprised by the request: Ludlow and I didn’t know each other, but he was such a pariah on campus I suspect there was no one else to tap. And even though we hadn’t met, our situations were already somewhat intertwined…So when Ludlow’s lawyer called, of course I said yes — I was being offered a front-row seat at a witch trial.

Though it was staged as an actual trial, both of Ludlow’s accusers had declined to participate, meaning there was no opportunity for his lawyer to question their stories, meaning the whole thing was, judicially speaking, an elaborate sham. But however rickety their case, I could see why the university needed Ludlow to go away. For one thing, he’d become a public-relations nightmare. When student activists staged a protest about the university’s handling of sexual-misconduct cases, they did it at the kickoff for a $3.75-billion university fund-raising campaign. . Big universities are multibillion-dollar international businesses, and Ludlow was bad for the brand.

At one point during these protracted hearings, something unexpected happened that reminded me of what can be so great about the academy, and what we stand to lose in the wave of sexual paranoia sweeping American campuses. Paranoia is a formula for intellectual rigidity, and from what I’ve seen in the past couple of years, its inroads into higher education are so effectively dumbing down the place that the traditional ideal of the university — as a refuge for complexity, a setting for the free exchange of ideas — is getting buried under an avalanche of platitudes and fear. Especially on the subject of campus sexual politics.

But there are still a few holdouts, and one of them, is a feminist philosopher named Jessica Wilson. She volunteered to testify as a character witness for Peter Ludlow. Wilson had known Ludlow for 15 years, first as his student and then in two departments as a colleague, and spoke movingly about him as a mentor and a person. She also sketched a far more convivial view of professor-student relations than the predatory scene depicted in the Title IX reports…The hearings plodded on and on and were nowhere near concluding when Ludlow told me he was thinking of pulling the plug and resigning.  He was bleeding money on lawyers who were no match for the university’s, numerically or otherwise. His lead lawyer turned out to be terrible at cross-examination and squandered every opportunity. Whatever case Ludlow might have presented wasn’t getting made.

…As you’ve probably gathered, going through a Title IX investigation — though my situation was nothing compared with what others have been through (I still have a job, at least for the moment) — and learning what I’ve learned has made me a little mad and possibly a little dangerous: transformed from a harmless ironist into an aspiring whistle-blower.

chronicle.com-By Laura Kipnis  KIPNIS Book: UnwantedAdvances Sexual Paranoia Comes-to-Campus

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The experience of a false accusation can be devastating to young men, especially if they are up against a legal or academic system that views an allegation as proof of guilt.  False allegations can result in everything from expulsion from school, to job loss and legal nightmares– and overwhelming feelings of shame and anger.  Moreover, young men and their families may face loneliness or social isolation due to the real or imagined circumstances that their social circle harbors a misguided premise that believing all women is always helpful…One of the worst parts of a false accusation is that it can upend a young man’s life at the exact point when college and work were supposed to be his focus; and losing focus in these areas at such a critical point in life can have long term consequences on the young man’s mental, social, and economic health if he is unable to regain his focus.

For Young Men: Some days, you may feel profound anger or shame; other days you may feel numb or depleted; and other days you may feel surprisingly normal.  For example, anger is often a natural emotion when we feel our boundaries have been violated or an injustice has occurred, so in the case of a false accusation, you might channel your anger into the action of doing any support work for your own legal or Title IX case if it’s still active; or volunteering for groups that advocate to support victims of false allegations regardless of whether your case is closed.  Intense physical exercise can also be helpful.

Seeing a therapist: I know it is extremely difficult to find an understanding mental health professional in this particular situation. Some victims of false allegations have told me they had to visit up to 15 different therapists to find the right person. Feel free to ask the therapist to share their stance with you on the “believe all women” position that many therapists (and many people in general) seem to embrace. Explain that you are only asking because you feel it is important for you to have a therapist whose belief system does not stipulate that all women must be believed, because this implies that men (including you) must be disbelieved.

For Parents: Parents have a very difficult balance when trying to be supportive without becoming enabling or actually prolonging a young man’s return to a path of strength and independence. While it is essential to be supportive, parents must not become co-dependent or enablers. Parents may want to go to their own therapy as well if they need help learning how to set healthy boundaries and positive expectations for their son.

drchloe.com-Dr. Chloe Carmichael, PhD

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In the war against campus sexual assault, why are we not talking about drinking? College presidents have long considered alcohol to be one of the biggest problems they face on campus. Alcohol is also involved in a great number of campus sexual assault cases. We find ourselves in a landscape where the key talking points address everything but alcohol. How we raise young boys. How accusers are treated in the media, courts, and interrogation rooms…In October 2013, when Slate contributor Emily Yoffe wrote an essay suggesting that women would lower their chances of being sexually assaulted if they drank less, the blowback was massive. A month later, Southern Methodist University student Kirby Wiley received a similar lashing when she wrote an op-ed for the college paper saying that women put themselves at risk by drinking too much.  Epidemiologist Richard Grucza has tied the rise of women drinking with the rise of women in college—across Western democracies, the more affluent and educated a female, the more likely she is to drink. And yet. High-profile assault cases keep unfolding in the media, many of them under a foggy haze of booze.

…A blackout can mean the total erasure of an entire chunk of time from a person’s memory, an occurrence known as an en bloc blackout. Or they might just forget bits and pieces, in a fragmentary blackout, or a brownout, as some call it. These are more common. Even during a blackout, a drinker’s short-term memory is generally fine. She can carry on a conversation, though, like a human goldfish, she may quickly forget things and repeat herself. It’s episodic memory where alcohol gums up the works. These are the memories of events—what happened, but also where, when, and with whom. Alcohol impairs the encoding of these contextual memories, which happens in the hippocampus. “Your brain is sending information to the hippocampus, and it falls into a void, the hippocampus doesn’t tie it together, or it skips a little bit.”

How quickly one’s blood alcohol content rises is the biggest risk factor for a blackout. That means things that make you drunker faster—drinking liquor or drinking on an empty stomach—make you more likely to black out. You’re also more likely to black out if you’re a woman.

theatlantic-Antamony of Blackout    texasmonthly-The Alcohol Blackout 

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