The Other McCain

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Dishonor: University Settles Lawsuit in Notorious ‘Regret Equals Rape’ Case

Posted on | February 12, 2016 | 71 Comments

Terms of the settlement in John Doe v. Washington and Lee University are confidential, as is customary, but given the self-congratulatory tone of the university’s statement — which the plaintiff’s attorneys must have approved — my hunch is this: The university agreed to expunge this charge from John Doe’s record, pay his attorney’s fees, and give him a relatively small sum (say, $10,000) in exchange for avoiding a trial that could have exposed the university to devastating negative publicity. Among the more than 100 lawsuits filed against universities by male students who say they were falsely accused of sexual misconduct and denied due process in the campus kangaroo court system, the Washington and Lee case was one that most blatantly demonstrated the kind of anti-male prejudice now rampant in higher education:

Doe’s lawsuit asserted that the odds were stacked against him during a hearing before the Student Faculty Hearing Board — a process that he argued was slanted to favor female accusers over male defendants.
For one thing, he claimed, a university administrator who handled the investigation in November 2014 recently had given a talk on campus about “regret equals rape,” or the argument that what first passes for a consensual sexual experience later can be called a rape by a woman who has second thoughts.
Doe’s alleged victim heard those comments, the lawsuit alleged, and was influenced by them in her decision to bring charges seven months after their sexual encounter.
And in alleging a rush to judgment by the disciplinary board, Doe pointed out that the decision to expel him was made one day after the publication of a Rolling Stone story — since discredited — about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house. The article prompted a national outcry against what it portrayed as UVa’s culture of indifference to rape victims.
“The negative impact of the Rolling Stone article on UVa influenced W&L’s decision to find the plaintiff responsible for sexual assault so as to avoid a similar fate,” the lawsuit alleged. . . .

(To interrupt: This highlights a problem that feminists refuse to recognize. Whenever concerns are raised about false accusations, feminists will instantly cite statistics to the effect that only a tiny percentage of rape accusations are false. However, those statistics refer to criminal prosecutions, rather than the kind of campus disciplinary procedures involved in these cases. Furthermore, feminists have recently taken to shrieking “rape culture” constantly, inciting a climate of hysteria where false accusations become more likely, and in which students accused of sexual assault have none of the due-process rights accorded to common criminals in a court of law. It is almost certain that among the 100-plus lawsuits filed by students who say they were falsely accused are charges that never would have been made, had it not been for the recent feminist fear-mongering crusade.)

Doe has maintained that he and the student had sex that not only was consensual, but was initiated by her after they met at a party and wound up back in his room. His lawsuit states that she never complained about the sexual encounter, or a second one a month later, until after he began dating another woman later in the school year.

Bingo! Here is the answer to the question of motive. This is something else that feminists expect us to ignore in cases like this. Feminists become outraged by any suggestion that a woman would ever lie about sexual assault. Even in the UVA rape hoax, where Jackie Coakley obviously fabricated the whole thing, including the non-existent “Haven Monahan,” feminists like Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte and Jaclyn Friedman won’t denounce the false accuser as a liar, and even refuse to use Coakley’s full name. Holding the false accuser accountable isn’t part of the feminist agenda, because to tell the whole truth about such matters might give a clue to why women sometimes do lie about rape.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

If you read John Doe’s complaint against Washington and Lee, you can surmise that the accuser was interested in a serious romantic relationship with John Doe, but he seemed to treat their two hookups as merely casual sex. When he later got serious with another girl, we may further surmise, his accuser regretted her previous liaisons with John Doe — she felt used, a “pump-and-dump” — and it was this sense of  regret, and a desire for revenge against the boy who had treated her badly, that inspired her to accuse him of sexual assault.

Let me intrude here a thought that has crossed my mind in studying this general phenomenon. Despite the prevalence of shameless promiscuity among college girls nowadays, they are still very concerned about status and reputation. And the girl who feels she had been used and discarded may become self-conscious about the reputational damage she has suffered because — news flash — girls talk. Girls gossip and whisper and form cliques, and the girl who feels she has been snubbed by a friend or excluded from the “in crowd” will often become paranoid at her perceived loss of status. Did she hook up with the wrong guy? Did she go too far, too fast? Did he tell his buddies about their hookup? Has the gossip gotten around to her friends? Are the other girls talking about her behind her back?

This kind of concern — the shadow of shame — is a psychological undertow that is seldom mentioned in regard to the apparently cheerful hedonism of sexual “empowerment” that feminist celebrate. Robert Tracinski made a very astute observation about this:

Dubious claims about “rape culture” are an attempt to create an all-purpose scapegoat for the emotional dark side of promiscuity.
College campuses have long since been taken over by a culture in which casual sex with acquaintances is considered normal and where slightly outré sexual experimentation is strongly encouraged, all of it spurred on by alcohol, which figures prominently in most of these cases. But it’s clear that some young women are not psychologically prepared for this. They have casual relationships and hookups, but then feel regret and emotional trauma when the experience ends up being emotionally unsatisfying or disturbing. Then they are encouraged, by the feminists and “rape culture” activists, to reinterpret the experience as all the fault of an evil man who must have coerced them.

Furthermore, I believe, modern communications — smartphones, email, texting, dating apps, and especially social media like Facebook — have exacerbated many of the problems surrounding casual sex. On the one hand, good-looking young people can advertise themselves online via OKCupid, Tinder, etc., and easily find potential partners. This is what “selfie culture” is really about. The girl posing provocatively in selfies she posts online is seeking attention, and while she may only be fishing for compliments to boost her ego, I can guarantee the single girl will check the profiles of anyone who responds to her selfies by actively flirting with her. The phenomenon of “long-distance relationships” that begin with online flirtation is one aspect of how the Internet has affected romantic activity, especially among the young.

On the other hand, social media can make it difficult for sexual hedonists to play the runaround game without anyone catching on. Back in the day before cell phones, it was easy to explain way a missed phone call, but now it is assumed that everyone is constantly accessible by phone, and young people consider it rude not to reply to a text message. Meanwhile, people list their relationship statuses on their Facebook profiles and a girl who goes on a date with a guy is likely to post Instagram photos of their evening together. How could a guy possibly hope to get away with cheating on his girlfriend under these conditions?

And am I the only one who sees how all this factors into the phony “campus rape epidemic” scare? In an age when young people’s romantic lives are commonly so visible online, with sites like Facebook effectively creating a continuously updated permanent record, the stakes are very high for the college girl concerned about her reputation. This in turn has consequences for the college guys who are seeking casual short-term companionship — the quick hookup after a party, or a non-monogamous “friends with benefits” arrangement. When you hear stories about guys and girls “stalking” their exes via Facebook or sending them harassing emails or text messages, you realize how a single episode of carelessness can have enormous ramifications in the New Media Age.

OK, now factor in the Law of Large Numbers. If you have many millions of college kids out there engaging in episodes of carelessness on a regular basis, you will inevitably have a certain number of genuine sexual assaults. However, you will also have an even larger number of unhappy college girls with hurt feelings and remorse. Among those broken-hearted and lonely girls — and there must be many thousands of them on campuses all across the country — there will be a certain number who decide to turn disappointment into revenge.

We may not agree on what the overall picture is, in terms of percentages and statistics, and in many cases it is quite nearly impossible to tell whether an accusation of sexual assault is true or false, but John Doe v. Washington and Lee shows how feminists who foment a climate of sexual fear help create the conditions in which men are falsely accused and denied their due-process rights.

Are you ready for the real kick in the head? Washington and Lee, whose history stretches back to its founding before the American Revolution, was for more than 200 years an all-male school, and did not admit its first female undergraduate student until 1985. Scarcely 30 years after that, half the university’s enrollment is female, and any male student who enrolls there knows he will be immediately expelled if his ex-girlfriend decides “regret equals rape.” This is why parents pay for their sons to attend Washington and Lee (annual tuition $46,417), a school where “equality” means that male students have no rights at all.

At a school whose namesakes were honorable men, there is now not a shred of honor or decency left. The modern worship of “equality” has destroyed everything honorable about Washington and Lee, where corrupt administrators supervise dishonest faculty in the miseducation of their perverted students. Parents thinking of sending their children there should check out the Washington and Lee University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Resource Center. Maybe your child will want to enroll in the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) program at Washington and Lee University.

Is this hideous parody of “higher education” worth $46,417 a year?




 

Category: Education, Sex Trouble

Comments

71 Responses to “Dishonor: University Settles Lawsuit in Notorious ‘Regret Equals Rape’ Case”

  1. Fail Burton
    February 13th, 2016 @ 5:56 pm

    I don’t think this is veering off topic. It’s part and parcel of the same thing: an irrational suspicion of everything white straight males do, with the result of reducing their footprint in culture or produces “rape culture” itself. If this was about Jews the anti-Semitic aspect of it would be obvious. But because these people have these bizarre fantasies straight white males are out to get them while keeping power for straight white males together with their “punching up” theory of law and fair play, they’re never wrong and straight white males are never right. There is no doubt this is a comprehensive hate movement.

  2. Adobe_Walls
    February 13th, 2016 @ 5:56 pm

    Sad day for the Republic indeed.

  3. Fail Burton
    February 13th, 2016 @ 5:56 pm

    Don’t discount pure ennui. People seem bored out of their minds.

  4. Quartermaster
    February 13th, 2016 @ 5:58 pm

    Indeed. I’m sure Obama will try to appoint someone as soon as possible. I expect the GOPe to knuckle under and give him his way and the country will be finished even sooner than otherwise. The court is already lawless, and that would make it worse.

  5. Fail Burton
    February 13th, 2016 @ 5:59 pm

    When I was in Italy in 2002 they had these amusing Home Shopping Network-type shows where a couple of women in long black see-thru negliges were selling refrigerators.

  6. Fail Burton
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:03 pm

    Again, I wouldn’t discount sheer boredom and simple bad decision-making about how one spends one’s time. Two things I have always forbid myself: porn and video games. They are too falsely interactive and time-consuming. Any thought of those two things was a sign for me to use that doorknob and get out into the world. There are real people and adventures out there. If you’re that bored, scrimp and save and spend a few weeks motorcycling around Bali and Lombok. There are no excuses for immersion in this virtual nonsense.

  7. Quartermaster
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:04 pm

    Had I seen that I would have sat dumbfounded asking “why?” Italy has long been a strange country.

    I spent a year home ported in Naples Italy aboard the Courtney. It was a place of strange extremes. I did by a nice Nestler Sliderule there though. I started Engineering School with it.

  8. Adobe_Walls
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:14 pm

    However there’s nothing in the constitution that says there has to be 9 justices or that vacancies have to be filled expeditiously.

  9. Finrod Felagund
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:34 pm

    If any sitting GOP Senator votes to confirm whatever bozo Obama chooses, they should be hung from a lamppost.

  10. Adobe_Walls
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:39 pm

    Should probably get started now just to make a point.

  11. Quartermaster
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:39 pm

    I agree. And the seat should not be filled under Obama.

    One commenter over at Hot Air has said that McConnell has said that the next POTUS should fill the vacancy. Frankly, I’ll believe it when I see it.

  12. Quartermaster
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:40 pm

    There are several I could name that should already be lamp post decorations.

  13. RS
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:47 pm

    Back when they still called ’em “destroyer escorts” instead of frigates?

  14. NeoWayland
    February 13th, 2016 @ 6:50 pm

    When we heard the news, my friend asked “Do you think Obama will nominate someone Monday or do you think he will wait until Wednesday?”

  15. Adobe_Walls
    February 13th, 2016 @ 7:14 pm

    Maybe he’ll hold off hoping the Witch gets elected and nominates him, though I suspect he already had that base covered.

  16. Quartermaster
    February 13th, 2016 @ 11:07 pm

    Yep, DE-1021. We decommed her in December 1973. We just missed the Yom Kippur war. We were 6 hours out of Rota headed towards the Azores when the news of the attack came and were told to maintain present course but stand by for orders. The orders came through to continue to NORVA for decommissioning. We weren’t needed. The Navy sold the hull the following July IIRC.

  17. Quartermaster
    February 13th, 2016 @ 11:08 pm

    If the Senate stays in GOP hands, I doubt even mavericky McCain could vote for the scum bag.

  18. Ilion
    February 14th, 2016 @ 2:01 am

    “It’s this: Girls/women think that no matter how much of a known slut the guy is, they will be the one to change him. She actually thinks that she is the special, high-quality girl that he has clearly been searching for all this time.”

    Or, to put this more bluntly — and perhaps thereby help the reader understand it in his gut — “Girls/[immature so-called] women think that no matter how much of a known slut the guy is, [she, and she alone, has the Magickal Pussy that will tame] him.”
    .
    Think of it as the distaff version of the Taming of the Shrew … but more irrational and more contrary to reality.

  19. Daniel Freeman
    February 14th, 2016 @ 3:58 am

    I don’t know. Anything that McConnell, Cruz and Trump can agree on just might happen.

  20. Daniel Freeman
    February 14th, 2016 @ 4:00 am

    No, he wants to be Emperor of the U.N.; watch for independent funding and subverting our sovereignty.

    ETA: That, or he wants to be Emperor of Giving Short Speeches for Lots of Money to Pay for Golfing All Over the World. It’s hard to tell.

  21. From Around the Blogroll – The First Street Journal.
    February 14th, 2016 @ 7:35 am

    […] Robert Stacey Stacy McCain on The Other McCain: Dishonor: University Settles Lawsuit in Notorious ‘Regret Equals Rape’ Case […]