Former Columbia Newspaper Editor: Standing Up For Due Process For Men Would Have Made Me Unpopular!
Ashe Schow writes at the Wash Ex about the expression of remorse by Daniel Garisto, a former opinion editor for the Columbia Spectator -- Columbia University's student newspaper -- for not being "thorough and impartial" in reporting stories on sexual assault accusations.

Daniel Garisto, a junior at Columbia College (part of CU), responded to a recent expose in the Daily Beast that provided Paul Nungesser's account of what happened between him and fellow Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz. Sulkowicz has made numerous media appearances claiming she was hit, choked and raped by Nungesser and is carrying a mattress around campus as an art project and effort to get him to leave the school.

Garisto said he was "perturbed" by the Daily Beast article, because of its claim that Nungesser was found guilty in a "trial-by-media." He explained his role in telling the stories of accusers in an effort to "promote discourse about sexual assault policy."

"But I think we -- not just the opinion page, not just Spec -- but we, the members of the campus media, failed specifically with Sulkowicz's story by not being thorough and impartial," Garisto wrote.

"Instead, campus media's goal to promote discussion about sexual assault and to support survivors became conflated with a fear of rigorous reporting," he added. "Personally, I felt that if I covered the existence of a different perspective -- say, that due process should be respected -- not only would I have been excoriated, but many would have said that I was harming survivors and the fight against sexual assault."

Cathy Young's terrific Daily Beast piece. Paul Nungesser was accused of raping Emma Sulkowicz, who, as Young puts it, is "famous for carrying her mattress on campus as a symbol of her burden as a victim and a protest against Columbia's failure to expel the man she calls her rapist."

The story Sulkowicz has told, in numerous media appearances and interviews, is nothing short of harrowing. On Aug. 27, 2012, she has said, a sexual encounter that began as consensual suddenly turned terrifyingly violent: Her partner, a man whom she considered a close friend and with whom she had sex on two prior occasions, began choking and hitting her and then penetrated her anally while she struggled and screamed in pain. By Sulkowicz's account, she finally decided to file a complaint within the university system several months later when she heard stories of other sexual assaults by the same man--only to see him exonerated after a shoddy investigation and a hearing at which she was subjected to clueless and insensitive questions. What's more, charges brought against the man by two other women also ended up being dismissed.

...Sulkowicz has said in interviews that she was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk to anyone about the rape, let alone report it; an account of her mattress protest by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith says that she "suffered in silence" in the aftermath of the assault. Yet Nungesser says that for weeks after that night, he and Sulkowicz maintained a cordial relationship, and says she seemingly never indicated that anything was amiss.

Nungesser provided The Daily Beast with Facebook messages with Sulkowicz from August, September, and October 2012. (In an email to The Daily Beast, Sulkowicz confirmed that these records were authentic and not redacted in any way; while she initially offered to provide "annotations" explaining the context on the messages, she then emailed again to say that she would not be sending them.) On Aug. 29, two days after the alleged rape, Nungesser messaged Sulkowicz on Facebook to say, "Small shindig in our room tonight--bring cool freshmen." Her response:

lol yusss

Also I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and thingz

because we still haven't really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr

On Sept. 9, on a morning before an ADP meeting, it was Sulkowicz who initiated the Facebook contact, asking Nungesser if he wanted to "hang out a little bit" before or after the meeting and concluding with:

whatever I want to see yoyououoyou

respond--I'll get the message on ma phone

There's also a copy of a page of text messages from her that includes this sequence:

"I want to snuggle with you"

"And talk about our summers"

"But not right now"

"I also love you"

More from Young:

Sulkowicz's act, which is also her senior project for her visual arts degree, has been praised as both protest and art. To Nungesser, however, it is something else altogether: harassment. "It's explicitly designed to bully me into leaving the school--she has said so repeatedly," he says, referring to Sulkowicz's statement that she will carry the mattress until either Nungesser leaves Columbia or they both graduate. "That is not art. If she was doing this for artistic self-expression, or exploration of her identity--all these are valid motives. Scaring another student into leaving university is not a valid motive."

...Karin Nungesser fully understands the desire to support someone who comes forward with an accusation of rape: "This is a good cause--but even in a good cause, you have to try to check the facts." What she views as the failure to check the facts in this case appalls her not only as a feminist but as a journalist. "We can't understand to this day why the major media never asked Paul about his side," she says. "Going back to our own history, the media in western Germany were built upon the model of The New York Times. It was the idea of good journalism, of good fact-checking, of not doing propaganda."

It is likely that some facts in this case will never be known. Nungesser's feminist upbringing does not make him incapable of sexual assault, and his former girlfriend's reported psychological problems prior to their relationship do not mean that he did not abuse her. The reported interaction between Nungesser's alleged victims does not necessarily prove that they unduly influenced each other's stories.

Yet this case is far from as clear-cut as much of the media coverage has made it out to be. And if Nungesser is not a sexual predator, he could be seen as a true victim: a man who has been treated as guilty even after he has proved his innocence.

via @instapundit