The Sick Joke That Due Process Has Become For Men On Campus
Ashe Schow writes at Wash Ex of feminist judge Nancy Gertner's rethinking of and misgivings about how sexual assault adjudication is playing out on campus.

What caused Gertner's shift?

It happened when her law firm took the case of a young man Gertner believed to be wrongly accused of rape even though a grand jury indicted him. In the case Gertner described, the man was accused 10 months after the encounter by a woman whose story constantly changed and was contradicted by witnesses.

She ended up being one of 28 Harvard law profs (current and former) to sign a letter against the school's new sexual assault policy, in which men's rights are yanked from them.

During a panel on Thursday, as Schow reports, Gertner came up with five problematic points for how sexual assault is now dealt with on campus. For example:

1. Investigating an accuser's claim is not victim-blaming

Contrary to what some of the loudest feminist voices of today are saying, questioning an accuser's account of sexual assault is not in itself victim-blaming.

"We've filled the airwaves with discussions that are more about sound bites than reality. So on the one hand it is right that we shouldn't be blaming the victim, on the other hand blaming the victim cannot mean you don't say she's lying," Gertner said. "Blaming the victim can't mean that there are inconsistencies in her account, [that] there are things that she is saying which are not true to the other witnesses."

"That's about process, not blaming the victim," she added.

...3. The alcohol element cannot be ignored

When we talk about alcohol on college campuses in regards to consent, it invariably comes down to the accuser (usually a woman) being absolved of responsibility to give (and take) consent and the accused (usually a man) still being responsible for obtaining consent as well as monitoring the accuser's alcohol intake.

"We have to deal with alcohol," Gertner said. "The Harvard policy treated...sex under impairment as rape. Not even incapacitation, but impairment. If she was drunk and impaired - not unconscious but impaired - it could be rape. But his impairment didn't count."

Gertner further explained that Harvard's policy allows "a woman who willingly gets drunk" to make an accusation because she's "not responsible for what happens." She also explained that these kinds of policies "take away a woman's agencies and responsibility."

Gertner said this, and no one in the audience made a sound. There was no indication that anyone was outraged by this (or anything Gertner said). Contrast that with the vilification that those who aren't described as feminists get.

Gertner's feminist credentials allowed her thoughts to be heard instead of jeered down.

Feminists and people on the left -- if they are truly for fairness (as they claim to be) and not just pushing ideology as a way to get unearned power over others -- need to speak up for civil liberties, including those of the people with penises.

Unless you are for the equal rights and fair treatment of all people, you really are not for equal rights but special rights for some. And excuse me, but wasn't that what you were all complaining about (about men) for all these years?