roanoke.com
A day after Rolling Stone published an article describing a brutal gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house, a former Washington and Lee student claims he was expelled for having consensual sex with another student who eight months later regretted the encounter and claimed rape.
The former W&L student has filed a federal lawsuit claiming the private Lexington university discriminated against him because he is a male, and because it wanted to avoid the negative public scrutiny that UVa was experiencing. Moreover, the student, identified as John Doe in the lawsuit, contends W&L’s Title IX officer advocates to female students that “regret equals rape.”
“W&L has created an environment where an accused male student is fundamentally denied due process by being prosecuted through the conduct process under a presumption of guilt. Such a one-sided process deprived Plaintiff, as a male student, of educational opportunities at W&L on the basis of his sex,” John Doe claims in the lawsuit.
W&L spokesman Brian Eckert said, “We don’t feel it is appropriate to discuss the specifics of a legal proceeding, but we’re confident that we correctly follow our established university policies and procedures, as well as federal mandates. We’re committed to treating all students fairly and maintaining a safe environment on our campus.”
John Doe claims that twice, he had consensual sex with a student identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe. The first encounter occurred in his room at the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity house where they went after an off-campus party on Feb. 8. Both had been drinking, he said.
He claims they sat on chairs in his room and talked for about an hour. He said Jane Doe then said that while she doesn’t usually have sex with a man when she first meets him, she found him very interesting. He said she moved toward him, initiated kissing, took off her clothes except for her underwear and got into bed with him. He said at no point did she say she did not want to have sex.
He claims she spent the night, that he contacted her later through Facebook and that they had sex again in early March. He said she told her friends she had a good time. But at a Pi Kappa Phi St. Patrick’s Day party a few weeks later, Jane Doe left when she saw him kissing another woman, who is now his girlfriend.
It wasn’t until July that Jane Doe told a friend that she was sexually assaulted, the lawsuit claims. Then in October, Jane Doe, as a member of a student organization against sexual assault called SPEAK, attended a presentation by W&L Title IX officer Lauren Kozak. According to the lawsuit, Kozak shared an article, “Is it possible that there is something in between consensual sex and rape … and that it happens to almost every girl out there?”
The article talks about alcohol-fueled sex in which the woman later regrets the encounter.
“Ms. Kozak introduced and discussed the article with the members of SPEAK to make her point that ‘regret equals rape,’ and went on to state her belief that this point was a new idea everyone is starting to agree with,” the lawsuit contends.
Five days after the presentation, Jane Doe reported to Kozak she was sexually assaulted but indicated she did not want to pursue a complaint, the lawsuit said.
There has got to be a lot of he said/she said out there but this is getting ridiculous. Are all encounters where there is later regret going to now get called rape? How is this going to work both ways? It’s fairly difficult if not impossible for women to rape men (using the normal definition). Can men have regrets? (DO they have regrets?)
Basically the sexual encounters of generation z-ers , if that is what they are called, is screwed up and sick if what I am reading about happens more than say once a decade. You don’t cry rape 8 months after the fact. Too many women are joining these anti rape groups without having a clear understanding of what rape really is.
Now correct me if I am wrong. There are 2 kinds of rape. Stranger rape and non-stranger rape. Stranger rape is when someone jumps out of the bushes, grabs you and you don’t know if you are going to live or die. Non-stranger rape is unwanted sexual contact involving the genitals by someone you at least know a little about. It could be a spouse, a boyfriend, a co worker, a date, a neighbor or a casual acquaintance. It is also illegal– just as illegal as stranger rape. But….
Who knows who did what to whom? All of this legal business should send a strong message to these young people to at least know the people they are hooking up with. Maybe they ought to be old fashioned and reserve sexual encounters for solid relationships where everyone knows the other person’s goals and expectations.
I guess this is just one of the downfalls of casual sex. It’s very difficult to know who the real villans are in some of these stories. I suppose my sympathies are with the young man going to a college in another state who says he doesn’t really know “Jackie.” It sounds like his biggest sin was having his picture in the yearbook.
As soon as I posted this article, I read the following in the Washington Post:
It should never be too late to tell your story of rape.
I am so conflicted over this issue.
It’s the hardest crime to figure out what happened. Because it’s the only one where the victim is making it up or reinterpreting it and sizeable chunk of the time. Throw in alchohol and other drugs and there are instances where the two parties themselves might see it differently. Or as in Dunham’s story, one might see it differently over time.
So, there’s value to the idea of always having a video record of every sexual encounter. It worked for those kids in New Jersey a few years ago.
It probably is. What idiot would admit to rape? Even with DNA, that doesn’t prove forced sex. Only forensic evidence shows that.
Its a tough call. Reputation also is often thrown out of court. I am not sure what would happen if I guy was a known letch …would that be allowed as evidence?
I tend to believe the woman in the post and the man from Washington Lee. He apparently laid it out and appears to have an open book policy. Those guilty of rape aren’t usually that transparent.
The only reason I questioned the Jackie story in my head (notice I didn’t lay it out there) was because there were some very subtle conflicts in the report that are part of tradition and probably transcend generations. I don’t think a person who hadn’t spent a lot of time around UVA either as a student or as a townie would really have picked up on it. I also didn’t want to blame the victim so I kept my mouth shut.
I do know that things like that happen. Phi Psi didn’t used to be known for that but….things change. Ask me in private what houses were known for that.
I still think the real truth about the Jackie story will come out and the only sick puppy isn’t going to be just Jackie.
It would not surprise me if Jackie were never raped, and is just a woman who wants to be a victim.
At this point, who knows. I think something happened to her at some point in time. Not sure what though.
Some people are born crazy. Too many of us go around trying to make sense of that, trying to figure out what mistake their parents made raising them, or what bad thing must have happened to them.
Jackie’s less crazy than Danyell Ndome. She didn’t actually go whole hog with this and try to get an innocent man in jail.