I’m struck with the use of language in a April 2015 article in the University of Puget Sound newspaper “Trails”:

I kept thinking it was my fault, it was my fault. I should’ve said no, like what was I doing? But I started to realize I did tell him no. I just didn’t use the word no. I didn’t say anything. Because he never asked, he demanded. You can’t say no in a position like that; you just can’t. No doesn’t exist in that moment. You can think it in your head, scream it in your head but the words will never come out. In that moment, you have no power to say no. He has all of the power.

The double-speak is incomprehensible: “I did tell him no. I just didn’t use the word no.”

“Because he never asked, he demanded.” Compare these statements to the cultural norm that male confidence is attractive.  I believe it will be quite a mental shift for women to find men sexy who are not confident in the bedroom or classroom.

Personally, I don’t know what happened that night at University of Puget Sound,  and I have no knowledge except for this article from the student newspaper. But if these are the arguments used to convict “him”,  how could he have known that she wasn’t participating?  Her argument isn’t that she was unmoving or non-participatory, her argument is that she said “no” in her mind.

How could he have known that?

In this brilliant piece in the September 2015 issue of the Atlantic: The Coddling of the American Mind, it states:

Burns defines emotional reasoning as assuming “that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: ‘I feel it, therefore it must be true.’ ” Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define it as letting “your feelings guide your interpretation of reality.” But, of course, subjective feelings are not always trustworthy guides; unrestrained, they can cause people to lash out at others who have done nothing wrong.

This hits the nail on the head. In case after case of sexual misconduct accusations, the accuser has confused objective reality with internal emotional reality. It happened in John Doe vs. Occidental, Doe Vs. Regents of UC San Diego, and in practically every other case that has become public. A girl feels that something was wrong, especially after the fact. But all her sexual actions on the night in question may have been either participatory or at best ambivalent. The male student didn’t know each and every thought that was in her head, and she didn’t  communicate every single thought. Her emotional reality, even though it conflicts with rational reality, becomes the basis for branding him a rapist.

Sure mis-communication happens in the bedroom, but is this really an assault? A rape?

And with all these gray area cases (now being referenced by the terrible thought-control term of ‘gray rape’), the male is condemned, for life, with no possibility of appeal, no parole and no possibility of redemption. And too often, no hope. Too often we are hearing a similar story: she says,

“…I did tell him no.
I just didn’t use the word no.”

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Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

I am the proud parent of college-aged students, one of whom was falsely accused of sexual assault in 2012. Proven innocent of these accusations, suspicion and discrimination follow my student on campus three years later.

Despite the odds, truth prevailed and a legal process resulted in case dismissal. Sadly, the experience was nothing compared to the ordeal my student would face at the University starting in April 2013, which continues today.

For seven months, my student underwent separate school investigations-the first, ordered despite legal findings, and resulted in a not responsible determination. Regardless, a second investigation was held; the same determination was reached. All the while, University rules kept changing, evidence allowed for use in one investigation was disallowed in the next, and policies were rewritten in an attempt to manipulate the process to discredit my student.

My student filed harassment and false accusation complaints against the accuser and others. The University declined to investigate. Additional complaints filed with administrators, the university president, and Office of Legal Affairs of months long harassment and stalking by the false accuser declined to be investigated, and my student was in no way protected.

Destroyed by dis proven false accusations, my student was adjudicated by a system based on gender discrimination without the benefit of fairness and due process. My student is still restricted by a no contact order based on these false accusations. As a result of this treatment, my student suffers from PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety, which affects both the opportunity to an education free from hostility, and physical and emotional health.

This story represents stories of countless students falsely accused of sexual assault. Federal and campus policies on sexual harassment undermine the basic tenets and core rights due all US citizens. Policy directives ignore this, and leave our students to fend for themselves against adult professionals whose only interests are federal funding and political correctness. Our students are manipulated, harassed, and disregarded by their school communities, and the government has turned its back. Presumed guilty of accusations that damage like no others, these students are cast aside to face unjust punishments, and uncertain futures.

The time has come to dig deep, and work to get federal directives and school policies on the same page with a common goal of finding truth, rather than using the current knee jerk standard of guilt before proven innocent.  Students should not be made to suffer unjustly at the hands of grossly misinformed government officials doling out federal dollars, and school administrators motivated by the bottom line. It is time to replace bias and discrimination with due process and fairness. It is time to get this right.

Sincerely,  Parent of a Falsely Accused Student

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