University of Oregon men face witch-hunt rape accusations

Protesters on campus held signs declaring:

There was no evidence that a rape had been committed, yet the administration began to encourage outraged protesters in various ways.

President Gottfredson told the UO faculty senate on 14 May:

“President Obama has identified sexual assault at colleges and universities as a significant threat to our campuses, our communities, and our country. The White House Task Force reports that nationally, one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college. One in five. This is shocking to many people. It is appalling. But I promise you, this figure does not shock the good people on our campus, and others across the nation, who work in student health centers, campus counseling centers, and Dean of Students offices. Those who work every day to protect students and to provide them with support services, advocacy, and education regarding sexual violence are all too familiar with this statistic.”

The ‘one in five’ statistic has been refuted by several researchers, notably Christine Hoff Sommers. The inflated ratio is achieved by placing unwanted attention into the same definitional category (sexual assault) as rape.

Psychology professor Jennifer Freyd was interviewed on Oregon Public Broadcasting and boasted that she’d just attended President Obama’s announcement of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.

Freyd has capitalized on the opportunity the alarm has generated. That she herself has fed the controversy by repeatedly stating false statistics on the rate of sexual abuse may not escape the scrutiny of the ethics panel of the American Psychological Association. Ethical standard number 5 states:

“Psychologists do not knowingly make public statements that are false, deceptive or fraudulent concerning their research, practice or other work activities or those of persons or organizations with which they are affiliated.”

Other ethical standards prohibit human rights violations, and misuse of the psychologist’s work.

Freyd’s professional activities have focused on what she calls “institutional betrayal.” Her questionnaire to detect institutional betrayal is designed to measure whether an institution responds adequately to sexual assault.

Question 13 of one version of the questionnaire asks, “If you told anyone about your experience/s, how did they react?” The three players, had they been asked this question would have been quick to answer:

‘The police interviewed two of us and we told them what happened. And they listened to recordings of phone conversations we had with the woman who engaged in group sex with us. They declined to file charges, even after the D.A. reviewed the evidence.’

Could there be a deeper betrayal than ruining the lives of the three young men? Rape accusations are forever. A Google search of the term “UO rape” produces thousands of instant hits. Those can’t be erased.

Now to answer the question: yes, there is a deeper betrayal. The following paragraph is from ABC news:

“Speaking to reporters on Friday afternoon, coach Dana Altman said the decision to dismiss the athletes from the team was ultimately made in the “best interest” of the players, the team and the university because of the intense scrutiny they faced. The players were no longer on campus.”

So you see, their lives were ruined for their own good.

How is it possible to turn reality so completely on its head? It was years in the making, of course, built on hubris, tradition–and money, the mother’s milk of corruption. Now faculty members want a full accounting of how this incident could have happened. Which is to say, they want to cover up what has really happened.

Carol Stabile is the director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at UO. She spoke as a member of the faculty senate on 14 May:

“We need an investigation that is fully independent of the influence of big sports or the Greek system,” Stabile said. “We need an investigation that asks the hard questions about system breakdowns in our policies, procedures and campus climate. And then we need to look the answer in the face, publicly and bravely. Anything less just isn’t going to cut it.”

The hard question which has no chance of getting asked on the UO campus is this:  Why do we refuse to consider that the woman, Amanda Jasmine, lied?

There is more than sufficient evidence that she wanted to be with the players, wanted to have sex with them, and then misled police and university officials about what actually happened.

Professor Freyd zealously promotes a need for “campus climate” surveys, her own specialty, and Gottfredson dutifully beats the same drum, claiming that it will address sexual assault on campus. But who needs a weather report then you’re drowning in a deluge?

The climate is impunity for female students who make false allegations. There is no survey to discover the amount of fear male students have about becoming the target of false allegations. It can happen as a result of simply asking a classmate for a date, and it can happen after consensual sexual activity between a male and female student.

At a few universities male students have begun to assert their rights to due process by filing civil suits against university administrators.

In April a suit was filed by engineering student Drew Sterrett against University of Michigan. Sterrett’s suit alleges that he was denied due process rights after that university suspended him for sexual misconduct following an investigation that grossly violated his rights to due process. Sterrett charges that the encounter was consensual, and that the investigators suppressed evidence of consent. Remarkably, his dorm mate was in the top bunk while the two below engaged each other with enthusiasm. (Sterrett v U. Michigan)

Earlier this month a male Columbia University student filed a complaint in federal court in New York. “John Doe” was suspended for sexual assault based on a preponderance of evidence, the standard promoted by President Obama. Five months after a single sexual experience in a dorm bathroom, for which “Jane Doe” first retrieved a condom, the female student decided to report the experience as non-consensual. No police report was ever filed, and Jane Doe never sought medical attention. Therefore the only evidence was her verbal representation.

John Doe’s attorney told a reporter from Legal Insurrection, “Particularly of note is the fact that even the complainant believed the sanction to be too severe and personally appealed the decision.” The suit cites lack of procedural safeguards to be the basis of presumed guilt.

The culture of impunity on campuses has become a cancer so aggressive that absurdity is allowed free rein. For example, at the 14 May University of Oregon faculty senate meeting Dr. Freyd read from a letter she wrote two years ago “portending a sexual assault problem at UO,” wrote the Oregon Daily Emerald reporter.

We should be alarmed, right? Here is a credentialed faculty member who warned of something two years ago which has now resulted in great personal harm to a student because the warning was not heeded.Reciting her letter, Freyd read: “Currently, the University of Oregon fails to comply with its obligations under Title IX regarding sexual harassment and its discriminatory impact on students. We cannot wait until a Penn State-type incident occurs until we take these issues seriously.”

In the alarmist tornado over Eugene, gloating has become a substitute for academic integrity. The Penn State case happened because real sex offenses were committed against minor children who had no ability to consent. There was a cover-up which destroyed the credibility of the athletic department and perhaps the university in general.

To compare the UO situation to Penn State is profoundly stupid and inappropriate. But to brag to the faculty senate that you warned the administration (Gottfredson was present at the meeting and had addressed the senate) reflects nothing less than a depraved political agenda. Freyd’s payoff appears as demand number three in the Coalition to End Sexual Violence’s list of demands to Gottfredson : more funding for “climate research.”

The university president has hinted that he will meet the demand, which is to fund more surveys designed and administered by Freyd and her students. Of course, no climate survey is going to prevent students from having consensual sex; neither will any survey prohibit a student from lying about her participation in sexual activity.

Personally, for a long time I have been aware of the trend on campus toward unequal justice. When this incident broke into the headlines I decided to follow it in detail. The hypocrisies flowing out of the university became so great that I filed a complaint of Title IX violation with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

The complaint can be viewed on my Facebook page, along with supporting evidence and some comments which illustrate how political correctness has mowed down support for Constitutional rights. Naturally I’m being called “rape apologist.”

Federal intervention is needed at University of Oregon because the University of Oregon has inverted the presumption of innocence into a presumption of guilt. Male students are presumed guilty, even when there is evidence demonstrating that the accuser is not telling the truth. The office of student affairs, responsible for enforcing Title IX, is a violator of Title IX and so cannot be trusted to enforce it. That’s the real cover-up.

The complaint argues that to falsely accuse of sexual misconduct is itself sexual misconduct. Male students who would shout “Whore!” at a female student would be disciplined for contributing to a hostile environment. But female students who publicly declare innocent male students to be rapists, well, they get grants and publicity, and the general endorsement from the university administration.

It’s hard to keep count of the number of times Gottfredson has verbally endorsed Obama’s sexual assault task force. He repeats the mythical “1 in 5” with such passion he appears to be self-flagellating in a ritual enacted in the suffering hope of retaining his job, which really does appear to be at risk. A faculty member’s website posts daily entreaties for Gottfredon’s firing or forced resignation.

Indeed, the president of the university shows no ability or interest in putting a stop to the gang which I’ve begun to call the new McCarthyites. It is a fitting pejorative for people who destroy others with character smears designed to cast themselves as defenders of virtue and morality. Like McCarthyism, there is a political objective. President Obama is pandering to a student voting block which Hillary Clinton will rely on heavily when she runs for President of the U.S. The University of Oregon is a vast bevy of Democratic voters, especially every four years. The critical key is to motivate voter turn-out.

I am not personally acquainted with any of the three (now former) basketball players. That does not matter, as the attack on them is an attack on the rights to presumption of innocence and privacy. For example, if the university president had called a press conference to denounce a softball team member as a disgusting lesbian, I would join the protest to protect her rights to access higher education, and I’d join the loudest of demands for firing the president. But that is only a hypothetical incident. Reality rarely drops itself into your lap as a warm, fuzzy gift.