sexual assault/ rape
new 6/15
SEE RAPE 2 1 25
merri ok
see metoo sexual harrass
see E Jean Carroll, trump convicted, then paid for defam 2x?!
FIRE reps accused rapists, [some say rape culture is a myth?]big problem in military
---
-=-=
ABC 9 26
'Looksmaxxing' influencer known as 'Clavicular' is charged with rape in Massachusetts
---
AN 1 25
NO LNX
AN
For Trump appointees, being a predator isn’t a liability — it’s a career booster
:
Lindsay BeyersteinJanuary 24, 2025
Before leaving office, President Joe Biden announced that the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution had been ratified. A few days later, Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist and convicted felon, took Biden’s place as the president of the United States.
The contrast could not be more stark.
In a Trump administration, rape is a career-booster. And why not? For the narcissist-in-chief, slavish emulation is the sincerest form of flattery. Trump has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment by at least 26 women since the 1970s, including his ex-wife Ivana and writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump confessed to a pattern of sexual assault in the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, in which he confided that he habitually grabbed and kissed women without asking, because "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy."
Carroll won a lawsuit against Trump for raping her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s and a defamation lawsuit against him for claiming she made the whole thing up. The jury found that Trump shoved his fingers into Carroll’s vagina against her will. The judge clarified that this was rape as most people understand the term, and therefore that Carroll’s claim that Donald Trump raped her was true – even though New York’s outdated rape statute only covered rapes with penises. The law has since been updated to include all forms of non-consensual penetration.
Trump chose Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to administer the oath of office. Kavanaugh was confirmed despite compelling testimony that he attempted to rape Christine Blasey Ford. Kavanaugh’s contemptuous denials and self-pitying antics won him the admiration of Trump, who considers such performances as a testament of strength and a badge of honor.
Trump’s first pick for US Attorney General was Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress and withdrew from consideration before the House Ethics Committee could reveal substantial evidence that Gaetz violated Florida's statutory rape law.
Prospective Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth paid a settlement to a woman who said Hegseth raped her at a Republican convention in 2017. Hegseth blindsided the Trump transition team by not disclosing the California episode, but willingness to furiously deny a rape allegation counts for more than honesty in Trump’s book.
Trump stood by his nominee while his allies waged an unprecedented campaign to intimidate witnesses who might speak to Hegseth’s drinking and his stormy history with women. Republican Senators enabled the deception by refusing to meet with Hegseth’s accuser. During his confirmation hearing, Hegseth refused to say whether rape would be disqualifying for a secretary of defense.
Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. apologized by text to his former babysitter after she alleged that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, cornering her in a bedroom and groping her against her will. In public, however, Kennedy was contemptuous of the allegations and hinted there were many more where that came from. “I had a very, very rambunctious youth,” Kennedy said when asked about the allegations, “I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”
SpaceX paid $250,000 to silence a SpaceX flight attendant who accused Trump’s co-consul Elon Musk of exposing his erect penis to her on a flight, pawing her leg and promising to buy her a horse if she jerked him off. Musk has also been sued by eight former employees who claim that Musk personally fired them after they objected to the sexually-charged work environment he created at SpaceX, accusing him of running high-tech empire like the “dark ages,” barraging employees with vile sexual banter, obscene memes and degrading comments, and retaliating against anyone who complained.
There’s not enough space to delve into the allegations against senior Trump’s campaign strategist Corey Lewandowski, senior advisor Jason Miller, former personal lawyer (and former lawyer) Rudy Giuliani, prospective secretary of education Linda McMahon, or future ambassador to the Bahamas, Herschel Walker.
politico 12 24
new kavanaugh std?
PETE’S DRAGON — PETE HEGSETH’s week started on shaky ground, but it’s ending on firmer terrain.
This morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” President-elect DONALD TRUMP defended his embattled pick to lead the Pentagon. Asked by moderator Kristen Welker whether he still has confidence in Hegseth, Trump said, “Yes I do. He’s a very smart guy. I’ve known him through Fox, but I’ve known him for a very long time. And he’s basically a military guy.” Trump added that he’s “had a lot of senators call me up saying he’s fantastic.” Asked if he is concerned about Hegseth’s drinking: “I’ve spoken to people who know him very well, and they say he does not have a drinking problem.” Video from “Meet the Press”
That came on the heels of Sen. JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) posting on X Friday that she wants to give Hegseth a “fair hearing.” That may sound unremarkable, but it’s a reminder of something that is: No Republican — not even Ernst — is yet willing to publicly and explicitly oppose his nomination.
Now, a new pressure campaign aims to keep it that way.
MIKE DAVIS — the former top Senate GOP aide who is perhaps Trump’s fiercest legal defender — is something of an outside adviser on the transition. And he’s mobilizing his Article III Project to become the tip of the spear in building pressure from the base on Republican senators to confirm Hegseth.
In recent days, after a blitz of appearances on conservative media, Davis has driven tens of thousands of phone calls, emails and social posts targeting senators on not only Hegseth’s nomination, but also that of would-be FBI director KASH PATEL’s. In numbers shared first with POLITICO, as of last night, Davis marshalled 3,481 advocates for Hegseth (people who have seen his media appearances on conservative outlets and gone to Article III’s action page), driving what he says are 9,377 “connections” with senators. Meanwhile, for Patel, he generated 8,059 advocates and delivered 23,729 connections.
But that’s cornhole compared to what Davis is promising next.
The Iowan is amping up his rhetoric — and the stakes — around Trump’s cabinet picks to the point where he’s questioning whether senators operate with a moral double standard. Earlier this week, he posted to X: “Let’s get this straight: Pete Hegseth used to drink too much and couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He’d make a great senator.”
In an interview with Playbook, Davis went further, threatening to hire private investigators to sift through the backgrounds of any potential Senate GOP holdouts.
“The Article III project is very excited about this new standard that drinking and womanizing is disqualifying for public office,” Davis tells Playbook. “I’m very happy to hire investigators for senators and use that standard.”
HOW WE GOT HERE: However you feel about Davis’ tactics, it’s impossible not to see them as the outgrowth of Supreme Court Justice BRETT KAVANAUGH’s 2018 confirmation process.
In that battle, Republicans effectively “made it the rule” that the accuser must (a) come forward publicly and (b) bear the burden of proof, says Davis.
Now, Hegseth’s team is calling that same play.
On Thursday night, Hegseth’s attorney, TIM PARLATORE, practically dared his client’s accuser to share her story (he said she is not barred by an NDA after accusing Hegseth of rape in 2017, though also said if she publicly makes the accusation, he’ll sue her for defamation).
It’s a sign of a post-Kavanaugh standard. “In order to disqualify a qualified cabinet nominee, you have to come forward,” Davis tells Playbook. “The burden is on the accuser to come forward with clear and convincing evidence that they’re not fit for the current job based upon their prior misconduct. It has to be testimony and not innuendo. It has to be testimony, not anonymous sources.”
Adds Davis, ‘You make an allegation, and then Kavanaugh is guilty until he proves his innocence? I said, ‘Fuck that. We’re gonna do the American presumption of innocence.’”
Davis, interestingly, made no effort to defend Hegseth on the merits, particularly on the alleged rape that took place in 2017 — which Hegseth has denied. “We’re not solving crimes,” Davis says. “We’re not canonizing saints during this process. It’s, ‘Do they have the current character and fitness to serve?’”
Few GOP insiders are better equipped to force the argument for Hegseth. After being radicalized by the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, Davis launched the Article III Project, his brass knuckles advocacy group. And he is newly confident — predicting publicly and telling Trump in private — that Hegseth will get confirmed.
He’s not the only one thinking that way on account of the post-Kavanaugh standard and Davis’ new pressure tactics.
STEVE BANNON, speaking on his podcast “The War Room,” said that this technique is already working. “You saw with [withdrawn AG nominee MATT] GAETZ, I said, ‘Stick it out — by Christmas, he’d be drawing fire and they’d be freaking out. You wouldn’t hear Pete’s name. Kash would glide in.’ Fast-tracking works — flood the zone, overwhelm the system. It’s info warfare. … You’ve got to fight back.”
Davis is vowing to do exactly that. Trump, Davis told Playbook, “doesn’t need to fight this, because I’m going to do it for him.”
Is this just Davis’ trademark bluster? Will he actually follow through and hire private investigators to dig into GOP senators’ backgrounds? “Fuck yes I will,” he says.
Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop me a line at awren@politico.com.
harris ad? list several dozen accuse trump w/ pix? 10 24
===
11/04/2024
by
- Todd Starnes declares that "it’s very possible that people like Liz Cheney and the Democrats and the Media are under the control of a demonic spirit."
- Jon Miller complains that "people are so touchy about rape bc we live in a totally feminized society where women dictate our discourse."
- Joel Webbon proclaims that he "hate[s] Judaism, but I love Jews and wish them a very pleasant conversion to Christianity."
- Wayne Allyn Root gushes that "there will never be another superhuman hero, and superhuman fighter, and political leader and legend like President Donald J. Trump."
- Chad Connelly believes that Trump has the "opportunity to be the greatest second term president in American history."
- Finally, perhaps Tucker Carlson should read a book so that he doesn't automatically assume that everything he doesn't understand is "demonic."
10 24 rww
- Dalton Clodfelter asserts that "rape isn't real."
---
an 7 24
on Thursday, in the midst of the July 4th holiday, a former Donald Trump staffer who worked on his 2016 campaign went public with a series of texts she allegedly made with Trump attorney Jenna Ellis asking about secret lawsuit settlements for accusations of "sexual harassment and gender discrimination" within the campaign.
In replies to those texts from attorney A.J. Delgado, who posted them on-line, Ellis appears to reply, "Yes off record — Boris The campaign settled multiple lawsuits. Have your investigator contact [campaign staffer] Michael Glassner. I will of course tell you the truth."
As the Daily Beast's Josh Fiallo wrote, the "bombshell" texts were included in a filing by Delgado as part of a lawsuit she filed against Trump campaign adviser and he supervisor, Jason Miller, whom she has accused of raping her while they were having an affair.
The video player is currently playing an ad.
According to the report, "As part of that lawsuit, Delgado, a lawyer who’s representing herself, filed a motion Thursday that included a text thread she claims to be between her and Jenna Ellis, another ex-Trump staffer who is a co-defendant in his election subversion case in Georgia."
Ellis pleaded guilty in the Georgia case.
The report adds that the Boris in question appears to be Boris Epshteyn, who has been at Trump's side during his courtroom appearances.
The report states, "The Daily Beast has not independently verified the authenticity of the texts, and neither Ellis, Delgado or a Trump representative responded to questions messaged and emailed on Thursday night. It’s the second time the texts were submitted as evidence by Delgado, after the Trump campaign’s lawyers asked her to re-submit them without names redacted and an offer to mark them as “confidential” appeared to be ignored."
Fiallo added, "The texts did not specify what sort of lawsuits “Boris” may have faced, but Epshteyn was accused of repeatedly groping two sisters at an Arizona bar in 2021 until a bouncer and cops intervened to remove him. "
You can read more here.
---
==
rape
https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/scientology-supreme-court-internal-arbitration/
---
---
16 yo 2x her age, never met
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/louisiana-mother-daughter-custody-rapist/
---
---
https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/shades-roy-moore-steve-bannon-helps-candidacy-eric-greitens-after-reports-abusive
---
---
11 21 no lnx
AA] Pastor tells congregation 'the best person to rape is your wife'
David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement November 23, 2021
A Seventh-day Adventist pastor told his Bronx, New York congregation that wives belong to their husbands, as property, and they must "submit" themselves to their husbands, even if that means being raped by them.
"Wives, you must submit to your husbands," Pastor Burnett Robinson said, as shown in the video below.
"I would say to you gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife," he added in his November 13 sermon, as Religion News Service reports.
"In this matter of submission, I want you to know upfront ladies, that once you get married, you are no longer your own. You are your husband's. You understand what I'm saying? I emphasize that because I saw in court the other day on TV where a lady sued her husband for rape. And I would say to you gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife. But then it has become legalized."
RNS notes that "Robinson was apparently preaching from a passage from the New Testament's Letter to the Ephesians, in which the Apostle Paul says, 'Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.'"
A Change.org petition with over 1100 signatures is calling for Robinson's resignation.
The Grand Concourse Seventh-day Adventist church has apologized and placed the pastor on leave, according to its website. Robinson has led that church as senior pastor since 2013.
This author will not post the video directly, but it can be seen here.
FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES
Far-right pastor says there are more gays than ever thanks to a ... ›
Unvaccinated conservative pastor who successfully sued Colorado ... ›
'I'm already crazy!': QAnon pastor goes on delusional rant about sex ... ›
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
FBI: 75-year-old sex offender working as Birmingham pastor caught ... ›
---
mma
Foundation For Individual Rights In Education
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a legal and advocacy organization that claims to “defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities.” FIRE primarily handles “case” submissions from students who believe their free speech rights were violated, connecting some to attorneys, including through its national program designed to file targeted, high-profile cases against public universities. FIRE has partnered with anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom for some of these cases. It has also frequently weighed in on sexual misconduct cases, arguing that the definition of sexual harassment should not include “large amounts of constitutionally protected expression, such as any unwanted ‘sexual comments, gestures, jokes, or looks,’” and defended campus organizations that use hateful rhetoric or seek to exclude potential group members based on sexual orientation. Recently, FIRE took up the cause of defending student groups that did not want to pay extra security costs for hosting serial harasser Milo Yiannopoulos on his campus speaking tour, during which he engaged in targeted public harassment of individual students. FIRE receives substantial funding from a handful of conservative private donors, including $3.5 million from anonymous conservative donors through Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust, $1.3 million each from the right-wing Bradley Foundation and Sarah Scaife Foundation, and about $1 million between the Charles Koch Foundation and F.M. Kirby Foundation.
Click here to return to the top.
==
---
forthcoming book excerpted by Esquire reveals "another 43 allegations of alleged inappropriate behavior" by President Donald Trump, "including 26 instances of unwanted sexual contact." These women join 24 others who have already publicly said the president sexually assaulted them or made unwanted advances to them.
While several online publications have covered this news, thus far several American newspapers are ignoring the story. At the time of publication of this story, not a single newspaper in the country published a story about the women coming forward.
==
==
Fire silverglate
==
straight up accusation of trump 619
2o plus other previous
nyt stalled, book review, online sunday print 3rd day?
==
https://www.c-span.org/video/?452065-21/discussion-consent-campus
==
From the moment the world learned that there were serious accusations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, countless conservatives have done their best to mock, downplay, and disregard the very serious allegations.
Now that the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has come forward, they haven't slowed their attempt to discredit, demean and dismiss her at all. If anything, their attacks have only ramped up as the allegations became more serious and credible.
Fox News commentator Stephen Miller (no relation to the White House staffer) offered up some of the worst takes in the aftermath of Ford's revelations. Ford said that Kavanaugh and a friend of his, Mark Judge, held her down in a bedroom at a party in high school while Kavanaugh groped her and tried to remove her clothes. She says they covered her mouth, turned up music to muffle her screams, and says she feared they'd inadvertently kill her.
Miller's response? "It was drunk teenagers playing seven minutes of heaven."
In this way, he doesn't even accept Kavanaugh's denial that the incident ever took place. He seems to believe that it happened, but he dismisses any claim that it was wrong — despite the fact that Ford says she feared for her life, says it was against her will, and experienced decades of trauma as a result.
David French, a columnist for National Review, conversely, agrees that the charges against Kavanaugh are serious. But from the beginning, he's been clear that there's little reason to believe a woman who brings charges against a well-respected conservative judge.
Before Ford had come forward, he said, "So far, the claims against Kavanaugh are _still_ a dreadful dirty trick."
After she went on the record with the compelling details of her allegations, his mind didn't change. He said it's more likely that he claims are false than that they're true, based on little more than minor (and easily explained) discrepancies between her account now and notes taken by her therapist about the incident in 2012. And, perhaps, the fact that she's a Democrat.
Ed Whelan, a conservative legal writer, has been a vociferous defender of Kavanaugh from the beginning of his nomination. Without providing any justification aside from his faith in Kavanaugh, he has declared that Ford is not telling the truth about her accusations. He's openly speculated that she might have had false memories about the event, without acknowledging that it's at least as likely, if not more, that Kavanaugh could have blacked out himself during a drunken assault. He also fails to acknowledge one of the major lessons of the #MeToo movement — that many men who seem to be upstanding citizens are also guilty of terrible offenses.
Erick Erickson, a conservative writer at The Resurgent, has been one of the most prolific disseminators of vicious talking points against Ford. He has denied that there should even be hearings about the accusation and has baselessly said that Ford is not credible.
He writes: "While I suspect the accuser will bring forward some friends who claim she told them at the time, because that is just how convenient this story is, thus far none have come forward."
Ford has presented a therapist's notes from 2012 about the assault and her husband's corroborating testimony, but this is not enough for Erickson. But, apparently, based on this quote, nothingcould be enough for him. If her friend's come out to confirm the report, that's just a little too "convenient." If they don't, well then how come? Isn't that just a little too suspicious?
He also repeatedly calls her a "Bernie Sanders supporter," as if that damages her credibility.
Another favorite line of attack from many of these conservatives: Going after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who kept Ford's letter quiet when she wanted to remain anonymous. They call the late-game revelation of the accusations a dirty trick, rather than taking seriously the fact that coming forward with these accusations is incredibly risky and emotionally and socially costly. This put both Feinstein and Ford in a very fraught position.
Why is it so difficult to come forward? Because accusers know they will be attacked — and these conservatives have proven that to be true.
---
sues cnn
Professors Dispute Depiction of Harvard Case in Rape Documentary
By CARA BUCKLEY NOV. 13, 2015
An image from “The Hunting Ground.” Professors at Harvard Law say the film misrepresents the case of a student there.
The veracity of one of this year’s most talked about documentaries, “The Hunting Ground,” has been attacked by 19 Harvard Law School professors, who say the film’s portrayal of rape on college campus is distorted, specifically when it comes to their school’s handling of one particular case.
Directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, whose previous team efforts include the Oscar-nominated “The Invisible War” (2012), about sexual assault in the military, “The Hunting Ground” interviews victims of sexual assault at colleges around the country. These women, and some men, recount not only the rapes, but also the institutions’ often weak responses. After its premiere to largely favorable reviews at Sundance in January, it had a spring theatrical release, and is scheduled to be broadcast next Thursday on CNN.
Defenders of the film say the criticism from those faculty members, among them prominent black and feminist legal scholars, is misdirected and focused too much on the legal findings.
“The documentary has created an important conversation about campus sexual assault,” said Diane L. Rosenfeld, a Harvard law lecturer who also appears in the film and did not sign the letter. “We need to be rolling up our sleeves and really figuring out what kind of preventative education programs to develop which create a culture of sexual respect.”
But in their letter, the law professors, who include Laurence H. Tribe,Randall L. Kennedy and Jeannie C. Suk, said the film “provides a seriously false picture both of the general sexual assault phenomenon at universities and of our student,” specifically a male Harvard law student whose case is included in “The Hunting Ground.”
Unidentified in the film but named in the professors’ letter, the student, Brandon Winston, was accused by another law student, Kamilah Willingham, of sexually assaulting both her and a friend when they passed out after a night of drinking. Harvard Law suspended Mr. Winston, but a grand jury did not indict him on the most serious charges, choosing instead two counts of indecent assault and battery against the friend. He was convicted of a misdemeanor nonsexual assault. After reviewing his case, Harvard Law reinstated him.
:{:{}:
}:
But the film, its dissenters say, left the erroneous impression that the student was not only guilty but also probably a serial offender who drugged his victims.
“This is a young human being whose life has been mauled by this process for years, and now he has to walk around campus with people saying, ‘Oh, you’re a repeat sexual offender,’ and he’s not,” said Janet Halley, one of the letter’s authors. “It’s not a documentary. It’s propaganda.”
How colleges are dealing with sexual assaults has come to the fore of the national conversation. In September, a year after the Obama administration started an initiative called “It’s on Us” to tackle campus sexual violence, the Association of American Universities released its finding, from a survey of more than 150,000 students at 27 universities, that nearly a quarter of female undergraduates were the victims of sexual assault and misconduct. At Harvard, which had the highest response rate of all the schools surveyed, 31 percent of female seniors said they had been the target of nonconsensual sexual contact.
Harvard had been roiled by internal fractiousness over its handling of sexual assaults. In the fall of 2014, Ms. Halley, along with 27 current and former law professors, denounced the university’s adoption of a new sexual harassment and sexual violence policy. The procedures, they wrote in a letter published in The Boston Globe, “lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process” and “are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused.” Sixteen of those signatories went on to sign the most recent letter.
Last December, the Department of Education found the law school in violation of Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds, for its response to sexual assaults.
Meanwhile, criticism has been lobbed at “The Hunting Ground” for months. Shortly after its theatrical release, The Harvard Crimson faulted the filmmakers’ calculation of the college’s sexual assault statistics, and, in June, Emily Yoffe published a blistering takedown in Slate of the documentary’s presentation of Ms. Willingham’s case.
CNN has defended the film, saying, “We are confident that both the film and our extensive associated coverage give this important issue the full and fair treatment it deserves.”
The filmmakers have been just as staunch, posting a rebuttal to Ms. Yoffe’s article on their website. And they were equally quick to respond to the letter, which has become a sharply divisive issue on the Harvard campus.
“Everything in ‘The Hunting Ground’ is accurate and we fully stand behind our Harvard Law survivor’s account of her assault, as well as the accounts of all the subjects in our film,” Mr. Dick and Ms. Ziering wrote in a text message to a New York Times reporter. “Studies confirm that failed policies on campuses overwhelmingly favor perpetrators, enabling them to commit crimes with impunity. Where are the letters of outrage from these professors decrying this grave injustice which has been going on for decades, and has a devastating impact on survivors, their families and our society?”
A version of this article appears in print on November 14, 2015, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Professors Dispute Rape Documentary.
==
nyt 1998
Do we really need another tract on the sins of higher education? Haven't we been told more than we ever wanted to know about the offenses committed in academia in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism? The opening pages of ''The Shadow University'' aren't promising. We meet once more the durable cast of villains: aging 60's radicals, grim-lipped feminists, sensitivity enforcers. Worse, the authors' prose bears down on us with all the nuance of a dropped anvil. ''Universities have become the enemy of a free society,'' they declare, ''and it is time for the citizens of that society to recognize this.''
But Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvey A. Silverglate, a civil liberties lawyer, deliver the unexpected. Refreshingly, they seem to believe that even if professors teach what they wish, Western civilization will survive. What does concern them is the threat to free expression posed by the advent of campus speech codes -- adopted, according to one survey, by 60 percent of American colleges and universities as of 1989-- and by the profusion of diversity workshops and the like. The goal of this enormous program of enlightenment may be laudable, the authors concede. The trouble is that far too few institutions encourage free discussion, and far too many promote ''censorship, indoctrination, intimidation, official group identity and groupthink.''
Students and faculty members with the temerity to challenge the new orthodoxy are not dealt with kindly. Many of the most ludicrous examples cited in this book have received ample attention, like the case of the University of Pennsylvania freshman threatened with disciplinary action because, in a fit of pique, he called noisy members of an African-American sorority ''water buffalo.'' But the authors also describe more obscure cases, for instance that of a sociology professor denounced by feminist colleagues for an article he had written justifying patriarchy on the grounds that its roots were biological. The professor was dismissed, as was a dean who intervened on his behalf. Curiously, the institution in question was not a left-wing redoubt but a conservative Baptist university in Dallas. Stories like this, the authors say, are repeated in every region of the country and at every variety of educational institution.
Most usefully, Kors and Silverglate provide an unsparing picture of how campus authorities settle these cases. More often than not the accused are prohibited from mounting even a minimal defense. They are barred from questioning those who have lodged complaints against them and from calling witnesses of their own. In addition, there is a double standard. Conservative white heterosexual men, the authors observe, are monitored like parolees, while homosexuals, feminists and people of color get away with comparative murder. Kors and Silverglate report that ''the theft of student publications at universities is pandemic.'' The majority of the stolen publications are conservative, and ''in most instances, the thefts occur with impunity.''
To their credit, Kors and Silverglate are old-fashioned civil libertarians who support everyone's right to sound off. While most victims of speech codes these days seem to be on the right, the authors also deplore attempts by Emerson College to censor the rap music played on the campus radio station. And they criticize the City College of New York for ejecting Leonard Jeffries, a professor of African-American Studies, from his departmental chairmanship because of his inflammatory opinions about Jews and the slave trade.
One piece of good news about all this is that the press, so often maligned of late, has covered the issue closely. Many of the injustices described in ''The Shadow University'' were first reported in newspapers. This shouldn't be surprising. Even the shabbiest journalist knows the value of free speech. Kors and Silverglate have performed a useful service too. The abuses they describe need fixing, and this cogent book should help.
---
Sam Tanenhaus is an editor at The Times's Op-Ed page and the author of ''Whittaker Chambers.''
==
https://www.ecowatch.com/assam-tea-cost-2479151757.html
...event at George Mason University, Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos officially announcedthe beginning of rollbacks in protections for student survivors of sexual assault under Title IX. The announcement isn’t a surprise since it’s in line with other regressions from Obama-era policies that have gotten the Trump administration treatment.
While the specific changes to Title IX guidance have yet to be shared, we can get an idea of what to expect from a leaked memo courtesy of @ALT_USCIS on Twitter, which is run by self-proclaimed insiders at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
In a Feb. 15, 2017, memo from the Department of Justice to the deputy attorney general, the authors express concern about the consequences faced by students accused of sexual misconduct. They list a few recommended changes in policy to shift even more favor on the side of the accused—one of which is particularly alarming.
Every complainant’s sexual history, if relevant, may be introduced at the hearing. Currently, questions about the complainant’s sexual history with anyone other than the accused perpetrator should not be permitted.
This recommendation is in direct contraction to rape shield laws, which bar the defendant from bringing up the victim’s sexual past in sex crime cases. In the 1970s some states created their own rape shield laws; 1994’s Violence Against Women Act created a federal version. Now the highest law enforcement agency in the land is pointedly recommending a policy that’d only serve to shame survivors who dare to report—and discourage others from speaking up in the process.
Read the full document via Twitter below.
After:
Muslims
Mexicans & Anyone brown
They are now after ovaries/vaginas
Title IX changes r coming
Ur sexual history will be used against u
ALT
Immigration @ALT_uscis==
https://newrepublic.com/article/116768/latest-target-mens-rights-movement-definition-rape
This past December, authorities at Occidental College in Los Angelesnoticed a sudden rise in reports filed on their anonymous online sexual assault reporting site. The site was intended to give students a safe, private space to report sexual assaults to college authorities. But this new influx of reports was clearly something else. Rather than accusing fellow classmates, these forms listed as the perpetrators “Occidental College” or “feminism” or, memorably, “Fatty McFatFat.” “It seemed pretty clear these reports were not being made in good faith,” says Jim Tranquada, Director of Communications and Community Relations at Occidental, in a phone interview.
A loose coalition of activists, the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM), has made its way onto the media’s radar in recent years because of their vocal, mostly online, activism on issues like child custody and domestic violence law, which they see as biased against men. They gather on dedicated Men’s Rights websites like A Voice for Men and on Reddit under subreddits like MensRights and TheRedPill , and share their theories on various YouTube channels. They made headlines last year when Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli was tied to a men’s rights group advocating for divorced fathers; the group’s former leader was a vocal advocate for the theory that women use domestic violence charges to manipulate men. Much of the movement’s notoriety is due to their often-vitriolic style and their habit of targeting those who speak against them with ad hominem online attacks. In fact, as Occidental would soon learn, the reports were being filed by members of a Reddit board dedicated to the so-called Men’s Rights Movement.
Lately, though, the movement has focused much of its attention on the issue of rape. As the nation grapples with rape in increasingly public ways—Obama’s January formation of a new task force to address rape on college campuses, the widespread publicity around the Steubenville and Maryville rape cases—the MRM is crying foul.
They claim that rape statistics are overinflated, that female-on-male sexual assaults are ignored or sneered at, and—above all—that false rape reports are a far larger problem than we acknowledge. And they’re taking action. In Canada this past summer, a men’s rights group plastered the city of Edmonton with posters aimed at young women. “Just because you regret a one-night stand doesn’t mean it wasn’t consensual,” the posters read. This fall, members of a MRM website took online vigilante justice against an Ohio University student they believed was falsely crying rape. (It turned out she was the wrong woman altogether.) The Occidental incident has sparked other, similar actions—this month, MRM websites called for a mass spamming of Dartmouth’s anonymous online sexual assault reporting form.
To dismiss the MRM as merely misogynist and extreme would be to ignore the fact that their beliefs are shared by a troublingly large percentage of the American population. And while the MRM’s rhetoric is ugly and often sophistic, they have identified a number of issues—consent, victim-blaming, and legal standards of proof—that have too often been presented in black and white terms, when the reality is much more complicated.
Take the issue of false rape accusations, which gets endless play on MRM websites and YouTube channels. Women falsely accuse men of rape for “lots of reasons,” Karen Straughan, a 43-year old Canadian mother-of-three who has become a major figure in the MRM, told me when we spoke on the phone. Straughan mentions the case of Praise Martin-Oguike, a Temple University football player falsely accused of rape last year by a woman who was apparently angry that he wouldn’t have a relationship with her. There is also the Hofstra University student who falsely accused five men of rape in 2009, allegedly to keep her boyfriend from finding out she’d cheated on him. (The Hofstra case has become a touchstone in the MRM community, viewed as proof that a woman will ruin five men’s lives to cover her tracks if she needs to.)
The most reliable statistics available place the number of false rape reports at between 2 and 8 percent of all rape reports. Yet most people, both in and out of the MRM community, believe these numbers to be much higher. One survey found that both male and female college students believe that about 50 percent of rape allegations are false. So while the substance of the MRM’s claims are false (false reports of rape take place much less frequently than they claim), they have identified a flashpoint issue that progressives disregard at their peril. False reporting of rape can be a life-destroying crime. It may not be especially common, but it is serious.
The way rape is dealt with on college campuses is another bugaboo of the MRM. “We have a problem with feminists hyper-inflating rape statistics, creating a kind of hysteria on campus over a problem that needs due attention from law enforcement,” says Paul Elam, the founder of A Voice for Men, widely considered the flagship website of the MRM. The site, which features essays pontificating on society’s supposed anti-male bias, gets about 10,000 to 12,000 hits per day, says Elam, 57, proudly declaring that this is more than “every significant feminist website I can think of” except for Jezebel. (Elam’s estimates are probably off. While Slatedoesn’t release precise breakdowns, their overall traffic for January was 24 million; Double Xmade up a good portion of that traffic.) The way Elam sees it, college campuses are hotbeds of feminist bias where all male students are shamed as potential rapists in endless anti-rape orientations and workshops. He and other activists devote much time and energy to disproving the popular “one-in-four college women will be sexually assaulted before graduation” statistic that floats around campus sexual assault awareness seminars and rape support webpages. He especially scorns the way many universities use their own on-campus justice systems to deal with accused rapists, sometimes coming to conclusions different than the court system.
The fact is, the way colleges and universities deal with rape is often problematic. And there is a kernel of truth to the objection to the one-in-four statistic: It is a misstatement of a much-misunderstood study; according to the Justice Department, about 18 percent of women will victims of rape in their lifetime, as will 3 percent of men. More broadly, colleges do sometimes mishandle sexual assault accusations in ways that may be biased against the accused. The MRM frequently points to the case of Caleb Warner, a University of North Dakota student accused of a 2009 rape and subsequently found guilty by a student committee and banned from campus for three years. The police, however, found the report unreliable and eventually issued an arrest warrant for the woman on charges of false reporting. It took 19 months of petitioning to force the university to agree to re-admit Warner.
But the far more pressing issue in terms of the way that colleges address rape accusations has to do with the institutions ignoring or mishandling cases of sexual assault. Occidental, along with a number of other elite colleges, came under federal investigation last year for precisely this. The case was brought by 37 current and former students, including several men. According to the complaint, administrators explicitly discouraged students from coming forward with sexual assault reports. This is not unique to Occidental—similar cases have arisen at the University of North Carolina and Swarthmore, among others. This kind of discouragement, shaming, and victim-blaming is exactly why we need anonymous reporting and more stringent anti-sexual assault policies, say victims’ advocates.
The MRM’s tirades and hijinks certainly don’t meaningfully add to the debate surrounding the way we handle sexual assault. But to totally ignore the issues that they raise does not further a productive conversation. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to talk about these issues in progressive or feminist circles, where discussions of sexual assault prevention can quickly degenerate into angry hyperbole and name-calling. Among progressive media circles, to suggest that sexual assault and sexual assault prevention can be less than clear-cut is to court accusations of being a rape apologist. When Slate’s Emily Yoffe wrote about the importance of teaching college girls about rape and alcohol safety, the blogosphere pounced—the writer Jessica Valenti even accused Yoffe of having “made the world a little bit safer for rapists.” Some feminists dismiss the problem of false rape accusations as trivial in the face of real rape. “A man's chances of being falsely accused of rape are incredibly small,” wrote Slate’s Amanda Marcotte. (To be fair to Slateand the range of perspectives that it offers, Marcotte’s colleague, Emily Bazelon has written that fairly conservative estimates put the number of false rape reports at 20,000 a year.) When *Wall Street Journal* columnist James Taranto wrote a piece several weeks ago bashing the idea of equating drunken sex and rape, organizations like NOW demanded his ouster. Though Taranto does have a record of being a dinosaur when it comes to gender issues, to see his point here as rape apology seemed quite a stretch.
So unless progressives want the MRM to lead the dialogue on these issues, perhaps they should start addressing them more comprehensively and less reactively. There will almost surely be more MRM rape campaigns in the coming year, says Dean Esmay, the managing editor of A Voice for Men: “We will continue to look for ways to stir things up.” Ignoring the matters these campaigns raise risks ceding the conversation.
Emily Matchar is the author of Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity.
---
The Berkeley College Republicans have invited far-right agitator Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at UC Berkeley on February 1st.
Given the recent increase in fascist activity both on and around the UC Berkeley campus, we feel that the university’s willingness to provide a platform to Milo Yiannopoulos and his views is unacceptable, and we intend to shut this event down. We are inviting all allies and the Berkeley community to join us in making UC Berkeley a fascist-free zone.
Yiannopoulos is one of the many online trolls who successfully capitalized on the Trump campaign to bring fascist and racist ideas into the mainstream. While his presence on the web can be traced back to the GamerGate controversy, Yiannopoulos rose to cult fame through his work at Breitbart News Network, where he used his identity as a gay man to express overtly islamophobic views under the facade of queer interests. Similar to Trump, the core of Yiannopoulos’ support has come from places like 4Chan, Reddit, and other online bastions of the “Alt-Right”.
However, since being banned from Twitter for his anti-black harassment of actor Leslie Jones, Milo has been searching for a new platform off the web for his hateful ideology. In fact, on his current book tour Yiannopoulos has used the frame of “anti-political correctness” to push dangerous narratives about a wide array of marginalized groups. Some examples of his hatred on tour so far includes such spectacles as dressing in drag to mock a sexual assault survivor; calling to keep trans folks out of the LGBT movement and encouraging their harassment; and calling BlackLivesMatter a terrorist group. Additionally, Yiannopoulos is connected to Roosh V, a well-known “Men’s Rights Activists,” or MRAs, who have advocated for legalizing rape,and Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute (NPI), intellectual head of the “Alt-Right” that seeks to make America an exclusively white ethno-state, who came to the UC Berkeley campus in May 2016 with UCPD protection to recruit Berkeley students to his white supremacist cause.
In this context, Yiannopoulos’s college speaking tour should be recognized as an effort to embolden “Alt-Right” internet trolls into real world political organizing on college campuses. In light of the success of the Trump campaign, the “Alt-Right” is looking for opportunities to turn their momentum into an organized political front. This event is particularly important as an opportunity for Yiannopoulos to connect with a large audience, and for a large number of far-Right supporters to connect with him and others at the event. This is an opportunity that we cannot give them.
As the last year has demonstrated, this kind of free speech and discussion has meant near impunity for racists and sexists to target marginalized students on campus with little recourse for those who are harassed. We believe that an educational community should not accommodate fascist ideologies. We believe it is the responsibility of communities both on and off campus to shut down this kind of organizing in order to ensure that there is no platform for fascists in Berkeley!
This is a call to action to stand against fascism and the militarization of campuses. This is a call to stand in solidarity with those communities who are most at risk from this kind of neo-fascist “free speech,” especially in the wake of Trump’s election win. We encourage those interested in taking a stand now to use the letter template below to demand that UC Berkeley not host Yiannopoulos.
Feel free to draft your own message or use the letter script provided below however you choose to contact the University. For those interested in delivering their message over the phone or via mail we have provided that info below:
I am writing to express my anger and frustration at UC Berkeley’s decision to host notorious racist, sexist, and transphobic speaker Milo Yiannopoulos on February 1, 2017. I am also notifying you of a growing inter-community coalition to keep Milo off campus and of my support for them. In light of the increasing hostility towards marginalized groups on campus, including the hate crime committed on campus on election night and the increasing racist harassment around campus that has followed, it is disgraceful that UC Berkeley would welcome Mr. Yiannopoulos and his hateful, bigoted rhetoric on campus. Mr. Yiannopoulos was slated to speak at Portland State University and NYU, however both campuses cancelled the events stating that his viewpoints compromised student safety. He has also been permanently banned from DePaul University as the school claimed he created a “hostile environment.”
The permission of this speaking event is yet another example of the continued inaction by the university to protect the interests of many of its students. At this point it is well within the university’s ability to stop this event from happening. I urge the university to issue an apology to the community at large for permitting such a dangerous figure to come to campus and threaten the safety of its students. If the university chooses not to take action, students and community members will take the initiative to keep their campus safe.
--
http://www.harveysilverglate.com/archive/
The new panic: campus sex assaults | February 20, 2015
==
...
Among the report’s recommendations:
●Colleges should learn about what’s happening on campus through systematic surveys.
“When done right, these surveys can gauge the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, test students’ attitudes and awareness about the issue, and provide schools with an invaluable tool for crafting solutions,” the report said. The task force said the administration would consider requiring colleges to conduct such surveys in 2016.
●Colleges should promote “bystander intervention,” in others words, getting witnesses to step in when misconduct arises. “It’s up to all of us to put an end to sexual assault,” Obama said in a public service announcement. “And that starts with you.” The PSA also features Biden and actors Steve Carrell, Daniel Craig, Seth Meyers, Benicio Del Toro and Dulé Hill.
●Colleges should identify trained victim advocates who can provide emergency and ongoing support. The administration also released a sample reporting and confidentiality protocol, as well as a “checklist” for an effective sexual misconduct policy.
The report said the government would make enforcement data and other information about sex assault available through a Web site called NotAlone.gov. It said the site would collect in one easy-to-read place information that students have often struggled to find. The site will aim to “give students a clear explanation of their rights,” the report said, as well as “a simple description of how to file a complaint” with federal authorities. “It will help students wade through often complicated legal definitions and concepts, and point them toward people who can give them confidential advice — and those who can’t,” the report said.
---
mainstream http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
==