K C Johnson - The campus rape frenzy: the attack on due process at Americas universities

2017 by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

First American edition published in 2017 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Johnson, Robert David, 1967 author. | Taylor, Stuart, 1948 author.

Title: The campus rape frenzy: the attack on due process at Americas universities / by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor, Jr.

Description: New York: Encounter Books, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016019693 (print) | LCCN 2016033441 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594038860 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Rape in universities and collegesUnited States. | Rape in universities and collegesPolitical aspectsUnited States. | Presumption of innocenceUnited States. | Due process of lawUnited States. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / 21st Century. | LAW / Civil Rights. | LAW / Educational Law & Legislation.

Classification: LCC LB2345.3.R37 J65 2017 (print) | LCC LB2345.3.R37 (ebook) | DDC 371.7/82dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019693

Interior page design and composition: BooksByBruce.com

DEDICATIONS

To my sisters Gwennie and Clare, my wife Sally, and our daughters Sarah and Molly

Stuart Taylor Jr.

In memory of my mother, Susan McNamara Johnson

KC Johnson

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

A decade ago, once our book Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case had been published, we hoped that politicians, journalists, and academics alike would come to grips with a central lesson of the Duke lacrosse case: that for institutional, ideological, and pedagogical reasons, college faculties and administrations had become dangerously hostile to due process whenever students were accused of sexual assault. But instead, a powerful movement has made it even less likely that colleges and universitiesand their studentswill judge sexual assault allegations fairly.

We do not seek to minimize the scourge of sexual assault. But amid massive attention to the plight of students who are victims of sexual assault, the fate of students who have been wrongfully accused of sexual assault has been virtually ignored. This book seeks to remedy the problem, by bringing readers inside a system on our nations campuses in which accused students effectively have to prove their innocence, often under procedures that deny them any meaningful opportunity to do so.

In the early morning of February 5, 2012, a student named Alice Stanton* met Michael Cheng,* her roommates boyfriend, in a dormitory common area of Massachusetts Amherst College.

As soon as Cheng left her room, a panicked Stanton texted a male friend (her dorms resident counselor): Ohmygod I jus did something so fuckig stupid. In subsequent texts to this friend, she implied that she had initiated the sexual contact with Cheng and was worried about the fallout. Fellow students who had seen Cheng and her leave the dorm common area, she complained, were not gonna believe that we left to NOT fuck. She floated a cover story about their reason for leaving but worried that Cheng was too drunk to make a good lie out of shit.

Stanton soon turned her attention to other matters. Earlier that evening, before her encounter with Cheng, she had been flirtatiously texting another male student. Praising his military trained bod, she had advised him that she had her room to herself for the weekend if you wanted to come over and entertain me. Now she texted him again. He asked her why her texts had stopped for 45 minutes (the time during which she had been with Cheng). She replied that she had been engaged in sophomore floor bonding, since I thought you were a lost cause.

At 2:30 a.m., the male student texted Stanton to say that he was coming over. Stanton relayed this information to her friend, who responded encouragingly: Double your pleasure, double your fun. Shortly after her new guest arrived, Stanton texted the same friend again, complaining, OK. Why is he just talking to me?... Like, hot girl in a slutty dress. Make. Your. Move. YEAH. She followed up with the results: Ohmygod action did not happen til 5 in the fucking morning.

The next morning, Stanton realized her mistake: I am a shitty friend, she conceded. After her texting pal promised not to tell anyone about the episode with Cheng, Stanton resolved that no one can know, because if anybody knew, her roommate would literally never speak to me again. She tried to rationalize her behavior: We didnt technicallyyyy have sex. So thats not quiteeee as bad? Her friend wasnt convinced. Hahahaha. Technically? When Stanton countered that she wanted the madness to stop, her friendfar more presciently than he ever could have knownresponded, The madness hasnt even begun.

Stantons behavior soon was no secret at Amherst, a residential college with fewer than 2,000 students. As a result, Cheng and his girlfriend broke up. And Stanton lost her group of friends, as one of the former friends later recalled.

There are countless such casual hookups on college campuses every year. If this one had occurred a few years before, few people would have heard about it. But Alice Stantons view of her adventures that night would become swept up in a chain of events that the Obama administration had set in motiona chain that would, almost two years after Stantons encounter with Cheng, upend his life.

In an unprecedented initiative, in 2011 the federal government ordered almost all universities to institute revolutionary changes in their disciplinary policies in order to counter what the Obama administration described as an epidemic of rape and other sexual assaults on college campuses. (We henceforth use sexual assault as inclusive of rape.) These changes dramatically weakened accused students rights to fair proceedings.

As the initial effects of these commands swept across the country, Amherst, like many other colleges, was in the grip of a moral panic about students sexual behavior. What would previously have been a regrettable sexual encounter transformed into actionable sexual misconduct. In this frenzy, Michael Cheng would become a victim.

In October 2012, eight months after Stanton and Cheng had oral sex, a former Amherst undergraduate named Angie Epifano penned a column in the campus newspaper, The Amherst Student. She alleged that college employees had treated her callously after she told them that a fellow student had raped her. She had neither complained to police nor asked Amherst to discipline the alleged rapist. Nor did she make public any evidence supporting her accusation. But she painted a damning portrait of how three Amherst officials reacted to her assertions that she had been raped.