False rape accusations take away from valid cases where rapists should be tried and convicted. Those who falsely accuses another of rape, and later admit to lying, should serve time in jail. Rape cases can be difficult to prove since physical evidence can be easily damaged, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Common, acts, such as showering and using the restroom, can be enough to potentially compromise crucial evidence. Although it may be hard to prove, no effort should be spared when serving justice to those who break the law, but when innocent people go to jail for life-ruining sentences, that is where our justice system fails. Brian Banks was a standout high school

The Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas at Austin recently launched a new program to help male students “take control over their gender identity and develop a healthy sense of masculinity.” Treating masculinity as if it were a mental health crisis, “MasculinUT” is organized by the school’s counseling staff and most recently organized a poster series encouraging students to develop a “healthy model of masculinity.” The program is predicated on a critique of so-called “restrictive masculinity.” Men, the program argues, suffer when they are told to “act like a man” or when they are encouraged to fulfill traditional gender roles, such as being “successful” or “the brea

A bill that would significantly alter the way Colorado colleges handle sexual assault investigations passed the House on Wednesday, but it carries some contentious changes, KCNC-TV reported. The bill, HB 18-1391, would bar attorneys from actively representing either party in a sexual assault investigation, and would set a uniform burden of proof for sexual assault cases at Colorado universities. What does the bill say? HB 18-1391, “Sexual Misconduct in Higher Education” aims to require higher education institutions to set clear policies for sexual assault reporting and investigating, and to establish minimum standards for those policies. There are two main sticking points causing controversy

‘Jane Roe did have a motive to claim she was too drunk: she was threatened with expulsion’ A year and a half after a federal judge let a due-process lawsuit continue against Ohio State University officials, one of them may face personal ruin for her decisions during a Title IX proceeding. “A reasonable jury could find that Natalie Spiert,” sexual violence support coordinator and advocate for “Jane Roe” during the proceeding, “knew or should have known that Jane Roe lied or misled the disciplinary board” and did not correct the record, U.S. District Judge James Graham ruled Tuesday. Graham denied summary judgment to Spiert on the issue of whether “John Doe” was deprived due process when he wa

An Illinois State University student is suing his school because even though they found him not responsible for sexual assault, a premature suspension effectively punished him. An Illinois State University student is suing his school because even though they found him not responsible for sexual assault, a premature suspension caused him to fail his courses for one semester and kept him from enrolling for the next, effectively punishing him even though he was innocent. The male student, referred to in court documents obtained by The Federalist as John Doe, was accused two weeks after their sexual encounter by a female student referred to only as Jane Doe. At some point during the investigatio

‘Evidence of a practice’ that affects all accused students Administrators in California public colleges should sit up and take notice of a new ruling out of the state Superior Court against the University of California regents. Not only were they ordered to pay $31,000 to an accused student in a Title IX proceeding, but Judge Tara Desautels specifically faulted the “trauma informed” training that was used in the University of California-Santa Barbara’s proceeding against “John Doe.” This approach to investigating sexual violence, commonly used in Title IX proceedings nationwide and increasingly in police investigations, has come under fire from neuroscience researchers and legal experts as u

The Education Department has started dismissing hundreds of civil rights complaints that investigators deem onerous or unnecessary. The New York Times reported that the Education Department's Civil Rights Office has begun dismissing the cases under a new provision implemented as part of a plan to revise the agency's manual for handling civil rights complaints. The revisions are intended to help the department better manage its docket, Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, told the Times. The provision allows the Office of Civil Rights to throw out cases that signal "a pattern of complaints previously filed with O.C.R. by an individual or a group against multiple recipients,"

In a decision published Tuesday, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled to the benefit of several media groups over UNC-Chapel Hill, ordering the school to release the names of students found responsible for certain offenses in the university system. As reported by Technician, the ruling establishes that the North Carolina Public Records Act supersedes the discretion granted to universities by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. In the opinion of the court, state law can be used to force the hand of its public universities in the few instances where schools are allowed to disclose any information about its students. In a column I wrote at the beginning of March, I prayed for th

UNC Chapel Hill must provide the public with the names of students and employees found responsible for rape, sexual assault or related offenses through the school’s honor court and internal procedures. The North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Tuesday disputing the university’s claims that federal law prohibits UNC Chapel Hill officials from turning over such records. The unanimous ruling came almost a month after attorneys for The Daily Tar Heel, the UNC student newspaper, and other media organizations made arguments in a special court session held at N.C. Central University in Durham. The court case stems from a Sept. 30, 2016, public information request by The Daily Tar Heel.

What, if anything, do ballet and tech have in common? The obvious answer is that both fields show highly disproportionate gender distributions. Less acknowledged but no less relevant is this uncomfortable commonality: Both are industries where it pays to be in the sexual minority. I know, because I was a ballet dancer for 16 years. In the ballet world, men’s unfair advantage in hiring and casting is as widely understood and as rarely acknowledged as is the rampant anorexia. A less skilled male dancer is more likely to land a role or get a job than a female dancer of comparable skill. Due to the scarcity of men, the hurdles to a professional career are distinctly lower than they are for most

A male college student member of the National Coalition For Men (NCFM) has entered Day 10 of a hunger strike dedicated to drawing attention to male discrimination and has issued the following statement: To be a man in today’s world is to experience discrimination on a daily basis. Men die sooner than women due to a variety of factors, including higher suicide rates and workplace deaths.[1] Men are more likely to die in warfare not only as combatants but also as civilians.[2] Women receive far more preferential treatment than men in the criminal justice system.[3] This includes the death penalty.[4] Men have no reproductive rights in America.[5] The family court system is biased against men.[

Springfield police executed a search warrant at a Drury University dorm room last month, seizing bedding, condoms and other items as part of a rape investigation. The search came days after a 19-year-old woman reported she was sexually assaulted by Malek Bahri in the early morning of Sunday, March 25, police say. Bahri's attorney, Adam Woody, strenuously denied any wrongdoing by his client. "This is a wholly false allegation that has no merit, and if anyone was victimized or taken advantage of, it was my client," Woody said. "(Bahri) has an impeccable reputation as a student athlete and he is well thought of." A Drury spokesman said Bahri is a former walk-on for the school's swim team. Accor

Christine Cromer is led out of the Luzerne County Courthouse after a preliminary hearing on Friday. This time, the proceeding was more civil, with just a few verbal taunts. Christine Cromer, 37, of Plains Township, returned to court Friday for the continuation of her preliminary hearing on charges she falsely accused two state troopers of raping her outside the Mohegan Sun Pocono casino in November 2016. In the end, a judge sent the case to Luzerne County Court for trial. The last time Cromer came before District Judge Thomas Malloy Sr. was at a combative preliminary hearing Feb. 2. It ended abruptly when Cromer’s attorney, Joseph Sklarosky Sr., said he felt he was being unfairly treated and

April is Consent Month at Oberlin. I think extremely highly of those who work in the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and work to raise awareness about consent and sexual misconduct. However, while we are having these necessary conversations this month, Oberlin must confront the Orwellian underbelly of the national Title IX system: its enforcement. Until a few months ago, Oberlin, like almost all educational institutions, was bound by the 2011 Obama-era “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights created in response to public backlash over college administrator sexual misconduct on campuses across the country. The letter recommended that t

Beware the upcoming VAWA reauthorization There’s a general rule I’ve learned in journalism: The more pure the cause is perceived, the less scrutiny the media apply. It particularly holds with any group that fights sexual victimization, whether against children, college students or women in general. Back when online child exploitation was the latest fear, I was politely arguing with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children about some dodgy statistics it was sharing. I don’t think these folks – welcomed in every Capitol Hill office with no questions – were used to being questioned. And when the media do not show informed skepticism of these groups, you get results like the United K

Our culture is very bad for boys. It's bad for girls, too. It's bad for everyone. But I think we fail to recognize and appreciate the unique struggles that boys face. Partly we fail to recognize it because we are too busy worrying about the Patriarchy's persecution of women. Partly we fail to recognize it because, collectively, we just don't care that much about boys. Partly we fail to recognize it because men are not as likely to talk about their own plight. And partly a man will not talk about it because everyone, even his fellow men, will only laugh at him and downplay the problem. There are many factors at play, and they all lead to a pretty dire situation. Men are told about their privi

A Syracuse University conduct board determined that two-thirds of a female accuser’s accusations against a male student were unfounded, yet allowed her to change her account of the third accusation, and indefinitely suspended the male student. The male student is now suing Syracuse for gender bias and for failing to provide him due process rights. The student, referred to in court documents as John Doe, met his accuser, referred to only as Jane Roe, at a bar on Sept. 1, 2016. The two were with respective friends at the bar, and the group decided to go to a nearby fraternity house, where John and Jane continued to talk and flirt. Jane invited John back to her dorm room. After grabbing some fo

The National Coalition for Men can proceed with its class action lawsuit challenging the government’s men-only mandate for registering for the military draft, a federal judge ruled on Friday. Although the U.S. military is now an all-volunteer force, to stay prepared for a major war the Military Select Service Act requires men age 18 to 25 to register with the Select Service System. The government held its last draft, for the Vietnam War, in 1973. All men, including undocumented immigrants, who do not register and keep their contact information current can be sentenced to five years in prison, fined up to $250,000 and be disqualified from federal financial aid and citizenship, though no man h

Next week gender activists and feminist organizations like the American Association of University Women will be promoting “Equal Pay Day” on Tuesday, April 10 and this is an update of my “Bigfoot” post from a year ago to help counteract some of questionable statistics and mythology that get recycled every year in early April about the “gender pay gap.” The annual event known as Equal Pay Day brings awareness to a completely bogus apples-to-oranges comparison of median incomes by gender. Specifically this year’s Equal Pay Day will publicize the 19.5% unadjusted difference in median annual earnings for women and men working full-time in 2016 (most recent data available) when absolutely nothin

Extensive list of allegations presented as ‘thoughts, experiences and memories and things we have overheard’ A spreadsheet is making the rounds at Harvard accusing over a hundred men at the university and outside of it of sexual harassment and misconduct, but the creators of the spreadsheet openly admit that they cannot verify the accusations made within it. The spreadsheet, titled “Shitty Architecture Men,” identifies by name “more than 100 men affiliated with institutions of higher education like Yale University as well as men who work for prominent architecture firms,” according to the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson. The list of extremely specific and targeted accusations, which ac