| Blog and Media Roundup - Friday, December 22, 2017; News Roundup | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 22 2017, 04:46 AM (85 Views) | |
| abb | Dec 22 2017, 04:46 AM Post #1 |
|
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2017/12/the-chronicles-top-news-stories-of-2017 The Chronicle's top news stories of 2017: Duke alum Stephen Miller becomes Trump’s senior policy adviser By Staff Reports | 12/22/2017 As 2017 nears its end, The Chronicle takes a look back at its top 10 news stories from the year, beginning with number 10. Check back each day to see which story will be revealed next as 2018 quickly approaches. 10. Former Chronicle columnist Stephen Miller becomes President Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser Miller, Trinity ’07, was one of the chief architects of the executive order that includes a halt on immigration from seven predominantly-Muslim countries and indefinitely bans Syrian refugees. The executive order received criticism from universities across the country, including from then-President Richard Brodhead. In addition, Duke alums drafted an open letter to Miller, expressing their disappointment in his involvement in creating the immigration ban. Controversy didn’t start in 2017 for Miller, however. While at Duke, Miller authored more than 20 columns as an outspoken critic of political correctness. His columns included a series taking apart the rape accusations made against the Duke lacrosse players. "Our fellow students are not on trial because of evidence, but in spite of it," Miller once wrote. "This is a moral, social and legal outrage. It is an assault on our peers, our community and the core values of our nation." Although Miller may have been advocating for facts during the Duke Lacrosse scandal, he has been criticized for spouting debunked claims about mass voter fraud in the 2016 election on national television. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 22 2017, 04:50 AM Post #2 |
|
December 22, 2017 The #MeToo Tipping Point By Janice Shaw Crouse The cultural and overall societal impact of the deluge of sexual assault and harassment accusations has only just begun to be realized. Already, careful observers – both men and women alike – are noting that the broad and fuzzy definition of "harassment" can encompass behaviors previously considered routine flirtation and will obliterate the good manners of gentlemen who compliment women. This new spate of redefining acceptable behavior continues to complicate relationships between men and women during an era when the uncertainties and overturning of tradition have already made male-female interactions not just problematic, but precarious. Dating is increasingly rare – almost nonexistent – anymore, and men are left bewildered about how or whether to express interest in any woman for fear of offending her. Employers are wondering whether it is worth the risk to hire women for high-level positions, for which daily consultations and occasional out-of-town travel are de rigueur. The inescapable conclusion is that women are going to be the losers big-time in this cultural transformation. Feminism promised women that adopting the behaviors of men (good, bad, and ugly) would yield an equal playing field. Instead, in the workplace women shed their true feminine power to reach for the brass ring, only to discover that this new world reduced them to mere sexual objects who had to "play along" to get in the door of top-floor suites. On campus, they gave up courtship and romance only to discover that they were viewed, in the words of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simons, as sexual "dumpsters." Now marriage rates are abysmally low, and young women who cohabit give up their best years to guys who are happy to have them foot the bills and do the chores before ending up, after several years of sexual and financial freeloading, marrying someone younger and "hotter." Many of us are wondering if this sexual climate will lead to a new Victorian era, where chaperones will be necessary to protect women from male predators and immunize men from female predators. When the pendulum has swung so far, it must swing back. It remains to be seen just how far it will travel towards stricter rules and more traditional standards of male-female interaction. Have we seen the last of the "anything goes" era? Will we, once again, recognize female vulnerability and the dangers posed by an alcohol- and drug-soaked culture? Certainly, men in public positions must be searching their memories, wondering if they have overstepped any boundaries or put themselves in a situation where some woman can make accusations that could destroy their families, careers, and standing in the community. In the world of no-fault divorce, men were already leery of the risk of marriage. But now, if we accept that a woman can make accusations about events in the dimly remembered past and be believed without question, with no way to establish who is telling the truth, it is a fearsome world for men. In such a climate, men are at the mercy of any woman with a grudge; a political agenda; or the desire for a little cash, some attention, or 15 minutes of fame. In such a world, a man would be foolish to ever show interest in a woman or put himself in a vulnerable situation. Ultimately, women are losers because they will be avoided both personally and professionally. Men lose, too, because they have to protect themselves in every encounter and never be alone with a woman. Even then, under the right circumstances or for the right sum, some women will be willing to concoct a plausible story of harassment or abuse. If Anita Hill's far-fetched and devious imaginings can be construed as evidenced of abuse in spite of all evidence to the contrary, no man is safe. I had newly arrived in D.C. when that trial was televised on PBS. I was not alone in being stunned and appalled to hear the distortion in Nina Totenburg's reporting. She made no attempt to accurately report what happened; instead, she editorialized to portray Anita Hill as a victim. Things have gradually escalated since then until the current tsunami of women coming before television cameras to sell their stories, both real and imagined. In today's climate, the woman is supposed to be believed regardless, resulting in men, justly and unjustly, losing their reputations and their jobs. Feminism relentlessly peddled an unreal utopia where women could be safeguarded merely by their right to "just say no" and where men are required to get "consent" at every stage of pursuit. At the same time, the culture has created an environment where girls get tipsy before going to a bar where they get drunk enough to have the courage to get in a stranger's car or go to an unknown guy's room. The next morning, in best-case scenarios, when the guy doesn't even remember her name or acknowledge her when they pass on campus, she feels (rightly) used and abused! In worst-case scenarios, she contracts an incurable (yes, incurable) STD, or is brutally assaulted or raped, or ends up murdered at the hands of a serial sex offender. The good news from all the attention on harassment and sexual assault is that men must clean up their act; they can no longer get away with a "Harvey" move. Perhaps we have finally reached a tipping point, where lewd jokes and vulgar comments are once again considered ill mannered in "ladies'" presence. Better still, we have spotlighted the long-term impact when some brute abuses or assaults a woman. I'm not at all sure that we have learned that we cannot continue to lump together all complaints into a generic category of abuse, where no distinction is made among offensive language, sexual harassment, and physical assault or rape. Nor am I sure that we have made the connection between alcohol and these offensive acts (though some corporations have chosen to ban alcohol from office parties). In short, as a society, either we'll acknowledge the need for a saner approach to harassment, abuse, and assault or we'll have to return to the Victorian practices of chaperones, some sort of neo-patriarchy, and a return to restrictions on women's freedom and autonomy. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/12/the_metoo_tipping_point.html#ixzz51ywIhW1Z Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 22 2017, 04:52 AM Post #3 |
|
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tylerkingkade/meet-the-republican-lawmaker-whos-taken-up-the-cause-of?utm_term=.fnL4GNlVQ#.ptXEZbWek Meet The Republican Lawmaker Who's Taken Up The Cause Of Defending College Men Accused Of Rape Tyler Kingkade 12/21/17 In October 2016, officials at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University were considering the fate of a 20-year-old man accused of raping a classmate. A school investigation had already found the man culpable, and his accuser assumed he'd be thrown off campus. Then an influential state representative, Earl Ehrhart, got wind of the situation. Within weeks, Ehrhart had written directly to KSU's president, Sam Olens, blasting the case as "made for TV absurdity" and demanding to know why, if cops hadn’t pressed charges, the school hadn’t exonerated the student in the first place. A month later, the university did just that. Ehrhart, a 58-year-old Republican from Cobb County, near Atlanta, and a wealthy CEO of a sprawling sports complex, was first elected in 1988. Since then, he has made a name for himself as a lightning rod around social issues. He fought affirmative action for years, tried to pass laws undercutting antidiscrimination ordinances in Atlanta, and declared in 2005 that what "militant homosexuals are seeking is special rights, not equal rights." Lately, Ehrhart's pet project has been changing how colleges deal with sexual assault, out of concern for the treatment of accused students. He tried earlier this year to push through a controversial campus rape bill that he said would have protected “hundreds” of men falsely accused of sexual assault. "He is using his office and his position to essentially bully the University System of Georgia to see his way." While Ehrhart's legislation failed, it appears that he was able to achieve many of his goals behind the scenes, and some government ethics experts are alarmed at how the powerful lawmaker has flexed his political muscles. "He is using his office and his position to essentially bully the University System of Georgia to see his way," said Sara Henderson, head of Common Cause Georgia, a nonpartisan watchdog group. Emails obtained by BuzzFeed News show that Ehrhart suggested he could cut funding from state universities investigating sexual assault allegations and that he told administrators to shut down their systems for adjudicating sexual misconduct. In one case, he said a dean conducting a background check on a prospective student with a past misconduct accusation should be fired. He has labeled critics "men-haters" and "intolerant snowflakes," and lately, he has even taken on college cheerleaders who refused to stand for the national anthem. Ehrhart's positions have only helped bolster his national prominence. Four years ago, when he pushed to increase scholarships to schools that discriminate against gay children, Ehrhart explained that constituents have a "real taste for anything that promotes school choice in Georgia." His reputation as a champion for school choice helped him secure a personal meeting with US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos two months after she took office, emails from the White House show. He has labeled critics "men-haters" and "intolerant snowflakes," and lately, he has even taken on college cheerleaders. Since then, DeVos has scrapped Obama-era mandates on how colleges handle sexual assault cases — the goal of a lawsuit Ehrhart had filed against the Education Department under the previous administration. As advocates for sexual assault victims fear more rollbacks of Title IX protections under DeVos, they now see Georgia as another front in the war over how to deal with campus rape. Public universities have changed their policies to be more in line with Ehrhart's proposals, and he has said he'll try to revive the controversial legislation on campus rape that failed this year. If he’s successful, his critics fear lawmakers in other states will be emboldened by Ehrhart’s tactics and emulate them. To some, Ehrhart is simply acting like a politician. Michael Shires, a public policy professor at Pepperdine University, said elected officials use their influence all the time to steer decisions for constituents. He said it sounds like Ehrhart "was trying to exert pressure with everything he had" when he got involved in individual cases. To others, Ehrhart is crossing an ethical line. “A public official who is acting outside of his or her jurisdiction is abusing their authority, and he does not have jurisdiction over students, or student conduct, or a university rulemaking process," said Hana Callaghan, director of the Government Ethics Program at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center. In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Ehrhart said his viewpoint is simple: "Young men who are accused of assaulting women should have due process just like every other American citizen. Legally, there is still a presumption of innocence in this country. We can protect that sacred principle while also protecting women who have been assaulted." He characterized his career in the Georgia Assembly as "focused on helping people, protecting families, and helping to build a strong economy for my constituents and the people of the state." And two of his guiding principles, he said, are "Rule of Law" and "Due Process." David Goldman / AP Georgia Rep. Earl Ehrhart in Atlanta on March 21. At this #MeToo moment, defending students accused of sexual misconduct might seem like a risky platform for a politician, but Ehrhart says he didn't pick the cause — the cause found him. Two years ago, days after Rolling Stone retracted a story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that turned out to be fabricated, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a feature story about how Georgia universities had punished college students for sexual assault even when criminal prosecutors declined to do so. "Almost the next day I get a call from a constituent mom, and I met her for breakfast and she was just sobbing," Ehrhart told BuzzFeed News in March. "Her son had been accused, and she had barely made it home from a business trip in time — he attempted suicide. She got him to a hospital in time. Just so you know, that young man is now found not responsible, but it almost ruined his life, and the family and everything." He estimates that since reading that Journal-Constitution story, he's met with five or six mothers in similar situations. "My advice is to shut down this office and all pending kangaroo courts until my bill passes." In one example, a parent emailed Ehrhart directly on Jan. 29, concerned that their son was being treated unfairly in a sexual misconduct case at the University of Georgia. Ehrhart, who at the time was pushing legislation to change campus rape investigations, forwarded the message to University of Georgia officials, with a note: "My advice is to shut down this office and all pending kangaroo courts until my bill passes." Ehrhart intervened in the KSU case at the request of Lisa Wells, the accused student's lawyer. The man had denied raping the woman, basing his defense in part on impotence, police records show. Prosecutors decided in May 2016 there was insufficient evidence of a crime. But a university investigator concluded that an assault had occurred, prompting Wells to write to KSU demanding it take another look at the incident. She copied Ehrhart on her email. KSU officials agreed to reopen the case, and while they were reviewing it, Ehrhart emailed Olens, the university president, noting the cops’ finding that no crime had occurred. "How on earth a University bureaucrat can be allowed to draw a different conclusion ruining someone's life escapes me," he wrote in an email that was first reported by the New York Times Magazine. Olens forwarded the email to KSU Title IX administrators. A few weeks later, they reversed their original decision and cleared the man. Wells said the first investigation of her client was a "witch hunt," and she said that bias by investigators against the man — not Ehrhart’s involvement — led to the reversal. Lisa Anderson, an attorney who represented the woman, including through unsuccessful appeals, and who runs Atlanta Women for Equality, disagrees. "Georgia has become the proverbial embodiment of what can go wrong when people abuse power to erode Title IX protections," she said. "I am doing my job for the taxpayers of Georgia by pointing out abuses," Ehrhart said in his statement. David Goldman / AP Members of the public come and go as Earl Ehrhart, chair of the Higher Education Subcommittee of Appropriations, top left, and Terry England, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, top right, listen during a hearing at the Capitol in Atlanta on Feb. 23, 2011. When Ehrhart was getting started in Republican politics in the 1980s, he volunteered to help abused children and was a member of the Cobb County Victim Witness Assistance Unit. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1986, "It is time we start worrying about the rights of victims of crime and not the criminals." That sentiment rose to the surface again in the mid-2000s, when Ehrhart opposed efforts to repeal Georgia’s so-called Seven Deadly Sins law, which imposed mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentences for juveniles convicted of any one of seven specific felonies, including rape. Critics said the law denied due process to young offenders, most of them black teens who could not afford to hire their own defense attorneys. Ehrhart disagreed. "I don't like to be considered an angry white male." "Most of these kids are pretty far gone, and for these seven heinous crimes, I believe the sentences are just compensation to society and the victims," Ehrhart said in 2004, years before he would begin championing the rights of male college students accused of rape. Throughout his career, Ehrhart has gone on multiyear campaigns to block policies that primarily benefit women, minorities, and the LGBT community. His argument against policies aimed at reversing past discrimination is that people should not be punished for past discrimination committed by their elders. "I don't like to be considered an angry white male," Ehrhart said in 1995. "I'm just of a generation that is not culpable, not responsible, and refuses to be immolated on the sins of our fathers." Ehrhart’s efforts have made him a hero of men's rights activists. "For every deadbeat spouse you hear about, there is a gold digger on the other side." During the 2000s, Ehrhart took up the cause of reforming the state's child support laws so that payments were determined by both parents' incomes. Ehrhart said reform was needed because second wives were getting a raw deal as a result of their husbands having to support first wives. "For every deadbeat spouse you hear about, there is a gold digger on the other side," Ehrhart said in 2002. Ehrhart, who divorced in 1998 and later remarried, rejected criticism that his campaign was motivated by his personal life, and noted he had custody of his kids. It took several years, but a child support overhaul was eventually passed in 2006. David Goldman / AP Ehrhart takes his seat to testify at a Senate subcommittee hearing in Atlanta on March 21, 2017. Ehrhart devoted much of this year to fighting to pass House Bill 51, his proposal that originally would have required a college to wait until a criminal investigation and trial was completed before punishing a student accused of sexual assault — a process that can take years. Ehrhart said the legislation would have benefited rape victims by preventing schools from interfering in police work, but in comments to BuzzFeed News last spring, he also said it would shut down campus "kangaroo courts" that led to innocent students being expelled. Ehrhart did not know the actual rate of people lying about rape, but said, "I know from my own experience there is a significant amount of false reporting, I've seen a lot of them, it's not one-off anecdotals." He said he had files from 50 to 60 cases in Georgia alone where a college student was falsely accused. Ehrhart’s biggest weapon in his battle to change the way colleges treat accused students is money. The bill was celebrated by men's rights activists. The fringe website A Voice for Men said the bill could "become a template for other states’ handling of this issue," maybe even for reform at the federal level. HB 51 failed in the spring but in August, the state’s university system rolled out a new policy reflecting one of Ehrhart's goals: Sexual assault cases would go through the same judicial process as other student misconduct, removing the Title IX coordinator from having primary oversight of such investigations. Officials confirmed to BuzzFeed News that Ehrhart provided input on the new policy, but said the change came after years of discussions. The new policy raises the burden of proof for expelling an accused student and gives the university system more influence on punishments. In an email to BuzzFeed News that month, Ehrhart celebrated the change as "responding to the nationwide tragedy of Due Process of law denied." Ehrhart’s biggest weapon in his battle to change the way colleges treat accused students is money: He chairs the committee that controls funding for Georgia's state universities, and he makes no secret of his willingness to wield that baton. In January 2016, Ehrhart convened a hearing on due process after the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Georgia Tech complained it had been unfairly punished over allegations that individuals at the frat house had yelled racial slurs at black students. "Hear me clearly," Ehrhart said to three university administrators at the hearing. "You got a bond project? If you don't protect students of this state with due process, don't come looking to us for money." "You got a bond project? If you don't protect students of this state with due process, don't come looking to us for money." The next month, Georgia Tech dropped its request for $47 million to renovate its library. Ehrhart later said he'd struck down the request. When Kennesaw State’s Zuckerman Museum of Art hosted an "Art AIDS America" exhibit in May 2016 that some lawmakers, including Ehrhart, found distasteful, he reminded the school of the $47 million library request that had died. "I had a lot of success in getting Tech's attention in spending taxpayer money on ridiculous things," he said. (This year, emails show Ehrhart backed Georgia Tech's request for the library money. The state’s public universities had started changing their policies on handling campus rape in the intervening months.) But Ehrhart insisted in a statement he has "never threatened funding to any higher education institution," he's just holding university administrators accountable, which "is a big part of my job as a legislator." Ehrhart’s power is such that he has become the go-to guy for lawyers who want some extra muscle in battles with state schools. In August 2016, attorney Jonathan Hawkins told Ehrhart about a student who wanted to transfer to Georgia State University but who had a sexual misconduct investigation pending at his previous school. As a result, Georgia State officials had delayed his transfer while it conducted a background check. The student said he was transferring to escape this false accusation and, angry that it would dig into his past, told Georgia State that he no longer wanted to attend the school. Ehrhart dived right into the dispute, firing off a furious email to GSU lobbyist Julie Kerlin in which he called for the assistant dean involved in the delayed transfer, LaRonda Rena Brewer, to be fired for her "thuggish behavior." "Tell President [Mark] Becker I am tired of these issues, and I am going to inform all of my decisions on University funding by those who harbor these types of thugs on their campus," Ehrhart wrote. Brewer, who remains on the job, did not respond to requests for comment. Ehrhart's defenders say his intervention has ensured that some students' rights aren't trampled upon. Kerlin told Ehrhart that it was standard for the school to do a background check on a transfer student under such circumstances, but the lawmaker pressed the university to apologize to the man and refund his $376 application fee, which it did. "The fact that Earl Ehrhart put all of this in writing, in emails, just shows how emboldened and empowered he feels to do this," Henderson, of Common Cause, told BuzzFeed News. Ehrhart's defenders say his intervention has ensured that some students' rights aren't trampled upon. Earlier this year, he intervened on behalf of a Georgia State University law student named Nicholas Nesmith who'd appeared at the Capitol to testify in support of Ehrhart's HB 51. Three years earlier, Nesmith had been found in violation of the school's sexual misconduct policy and served a one-year suspension. The woman who'd accused him of misconduct was also at the Capitol, to oppose HB 51, and feared Nesmith might be there to intimidate her. She alerted Georgia State, prompting the school to call Nesmith in for a meeting to ask whether he was "repeatedly and deliberately" attending events where they were likely to encounter each other. Ari Cohn, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties group, complained to GSU administrators for apparently investigating Nesmith. Cohn also alerted Ehrhart, who weighed in with an angry email to the school calling Nesmith's treatment "outrageous." Days later, the university concluded that Nesmith had done nothing wrong. Cohn said it was a case where Ehrhart had good reason to get involved. It’s one thing for a lawmaker to try to get a college student out of trouble for underage drinking, he said, but a far different story when a public university "is flagrantly violating the Constitution." "When that is occurring, any and all forces should be brought to bear," Cohn told BuzzFeed News. Ehrhart is known for "inflammatory tactics" in the legislature, as newspapers have described it. He lost his first reelection bid, in 1990, when Republicans said he couldn't be effective because he practiced "a strange brand of alienation politics." He came back in 1992. In 1998, to get people to listen to one of his speeches, Ehrhart tried to get the house speaker to use a rule that allows for the arrest of lawmakers if they don't return to their seats, though the speaker at the time, a Democrat, declined Ehrhart's request. Cory Hancock Five Kennesaw State University cheerleaders kneel during the national anthem prior to a football game on Sept. 30. While Ehrhart did multiple phone interviews in the spring with BuzzFeed News, he proved hard to reach this summer and fall. His business, a 1,400-acre sports and recreation complex geared toward the booming youth sports travel league industry, in Emerson, Georgia, appeared empty when BuzzFeed News dropped by unannounced on a Tuesday afternoon in October. Ehrhart didn't answer his office phone when this reporter called from the parking lot. The week that BuzzFeed News tried to catch Ehrhart at work, he was busy making calls to Sam Olens, the KSU president, to complain about cheerleaders who had knelt during the national anthem at a Sept. 30 football game, to protest racial injustice. "Sam is coddling them," Ehrhart texted Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren, according to messages released through records requests. Ehrhart, Warren, and Warren's wife called Olens to complain about the protest in the days after the game. Olens assured them that the cheerleaders were going to be kept off the field in the future. "He had to be dragged there but with you and I pushing he had no choice," Ehrhart texted Warren. "Thanks for your patriotism my friend." "Thanks for always standing up too these liberal that hate the USA," Warren told Ehrhart in a text. Days after the game, Olens approved a change by the school's athletic department to keep cheerleaders off the field until after the anthem, under the guise of "improv[ing] fan experience," according to a University System of Georgia investigation into the situation. School officials insisted the change was logistical and not a result of the kneeling protest, but Olens was accused of caving to political pressure and of ignoring the state attorney general's office, which had said the cheerleaders had a constitutional right to kneel during the anthem. The new policy was scrapped after just one game amid complaints from students and a local civil rights group. Students and a local civil rights group protested Olens for keeping the cheerleaders off the field at all, following local newspapers reports about the text messages showing Ehrhart's pressure on the university president. On Dec. 14, Olens announced he would step down as KSU president in February. Ehrhart was upset when he heard that some KSU faculty held a happy hour to herald the news. Ehrhart had been a backer of Olens' when he was picked for the job last year and had fired off an angry email to a local reporter upon learning of a petition to block Olens’ appointment because of his anti-LGBT views. "Seek a safe space you intolerant snowflakes; you are not going to get your way! I will see if we can find a supplier for the 33,000 pacifiers your petition signers are going to need." Ehrhart wrote. Even though the cheerleader controversy appears to have cost Olens his job, Ehrhart has no regrets about taking up the cause. "I clearly communicated my views as an individual," Ehrhart told BuzzFeed News, "which is my right and which reflected the strong majority of the people in my district. First and foremost, I am elected to represent my constituents." He also said he won't back away from the debate over handling sexual assault on college campuses, saying he'll continue to push for cases to be handled by "law enforcement, not dysfunctional administrative courts in colleges or universities." "My constituents have supported me for more than 30 years," he said, "and I'm very proud of my record." ● Tyler Kingkade is a national reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York City. Contact Tyler Kingkade at tyler.kingkade@buzzfeed.com. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 22 2017, 04:56 AM Post #4 |
|
http://www.kxxv.com/story/37119607/court-filing-claims-starr-and-other-baylor-leaders-helped-student-accused-of-sexual-misconduct Court filing claims Starr and other Baylor leaders helped student accused of sexual misconduct Thursday, December 21st 2017, 11:55 am CST By Shannon Najmabadi, The Texas Tribune A motion filed this week in an ongoing federal lawsuit against Baylor University alleges that high-ranking officials – including former president and chancellor Ken Starr – helped a student they knew had been accused of sexual harassment. The accused student, the motion claims, had a close relationship with Starr and other Baylor leaders, and was employed on campus in a capacity where he oversaw female students and worked on Title IX initiatives. That's the federal statute that bans discrimination against women on campus. The motion was filed Tuesday evening by former Democratic state Rep. Jim Dunnam and Houston attorney Chad Dunn, who are representing several anonymous women who have sued Baylor on the grounds that the school has failed to comply with Title IX. Starr could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. He was president of the university from 2010 until last year, when he resigned under pressure in the fallout of a scandal over how the university handled allegations of sexual assault among students. Baylor spokesman Jason Cook said in a statement that the school “will decline to comment in the media until legal counsel has an opportunity to thoroughly review the filing.” He said, “any response will be provided to the court in the appropriate legal forum.” To back up its allegations, Dunn and Dunnam's motion refers to and quotes from documents and emails that are mentioned in footnotes, but could not be independently analyzed by The Texas Tribune. The lawyers received access to the documents through their lawsuit's discovery process. In one document the lawyers quote in the motion, the student says he got a job in Starr's office because he was “already bros” with Starr. In another, he refers to Starr as “Uncle Ken." The student is referred to throughout the motion as "Assailant 3" — a reference to the fact that he has not just been accused of sexual harassment, but of sexually assaulting a female student who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The motion makes several other accusations against the university or its officials: It alleges that an official tasked with enforcing Title IX at Baylor “conducted an investigation at light speed” into "Assailant 3." The filing claims "Assailant 3" emailed Bethany McCraw, Baylor's associate dean for student conduct administration, on the same day a sexual harassment complaint was made against him in January 2014. According to the motion, he wrote: “I’ve gotten myself into what may be a lot of trouble, and I would really appreciate your counsel on the matter. Do you have any openings today?” The case was closed the next day, according to the motion. Asked about the allegation Wednesday, McCraw’s office referred questions to the university’s media relations department. The motion says "Assailant 3" was working for Starr and Vice President for Student Life Kevin Jackson at the time he allegedly committed sexual assault against one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs. Quoting from the student's LinkedIn page, the motion says he “touted how he ‘worked with the university’s counseling center and Title IX office to write rhetoric for sexual harassment/assault awareness and prevention initiatives.’” The motion also says that after the accused student graduated from Baylor, he sought and was denied a government security clearance – at least in part because of sexual misconduct allegations against him at Baylor. The motion alleges that Jackson and Starr tried to sway the federal government to reconsider the denial by writing a character reference on the student’s behalf. In an email exchange quoted in the motion, Jackson said the reference letter should have a “qualifier at the beginning… speaking to how [Starr] doesn’t know anything about the alleged incidents earlier.” Citing another e-mail exchange, the motion argues “Starr and Jackson both knew the exact reasons for the denial.” The security clearance denial was not reconsidered. On Wednesday, Jackson referred questions about the motion to Cook. The motion says "Assailant 3" was readmitted to Baylor as a graduate student and "it was Jackson who recommended Assailant 3." The re-admittance happened shortly after one of the plaintiffs in the case reported an assault by the student to the Title IX office, and after “Assailant 3 had already undergone at least one formal sexual harassment claim at Baylor,” the motion says. The plaintiff had been told that a Title IX investigation into her sexual assault allegation would be opened if the accused student returned to campus. The motion says there is no evidence of an investigation being opened in the documents that the plaintiffs' lawyers have reviewed. Baylor's sexual assault scandal broke a year prior to Starr's resignation, when former football player Sam Ukwuachu was convicted of raping a member of the women’s soccer team. Testimony in his trial revealed Baylor had investigated the allegations against Ukwuachu but did not take punitive action. Ukwuachu’s case unleashed a torrent of similar allegations from female students whose reports of being sexually assaulted were met with little support from Baylor. That prompted the university to retain an outside law firm to investigate. A report of the firm’s findings, which were delivered to the university’s board of regents, found pervasive mishandling of sexual assault cases at the university. A public summary of the report released by the university didn’t highlight specific actions by Starr, but criticized the university for not having the proper procedures in place to respond to complaints of sexual violence or provide support to victims. Baylor officials have said dramatic improvements have since been made to how the school handles reported instances of sexual assault. But Baylor remains entangled in lawsuits and is currently being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education, the Texas Rangers and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Tuesday’s motion was in response to another motion filed by the university earlier this month. Previous filings by Dunnam, a Baylor alum, and Dunn have kept Baylor in the headlines. A June filing included emails from 2009 in which then-Regent Neal “Buddy” Jones described female students he suspected of drinking alcohol at parties as "perverted little tarts," the "vilest and most despicable girls" and a "group of very bad apples." In September, the lawyers unearthed an email conversation in which David Garland, who served as interim president after Starr’s departure, described hearing a radio interview about drinking in college that helped him understand why some women “seem willingly to make themselves victims.” |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 22 2017, 06:28 PM Post #5 |
|
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/courts/article_4b000a20-e741-11e7-9c93-93cee255246a.html Woman accuses West Feliciana DA, Sheriff of colluding in rape case to protect Angola assistant warden | Courts JOE GYAN JR. | jgyan@theadvocate.com 12/22/17 A woman whose sexual assault examination was not presented to a West Feliciana Parish grand jury that cleared an Angola assistant warden of raping her is accusing the parish's district attorney and sheriff of conspiring to protect her alleged rapist from prosecution. Priscilla Lefebure makes that claim in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday against West Feliciana Parish District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla, Sheriff J. Austin Daniel, Louisiana State Penitentiary Assistant Warden Barrett Boeker, and West Feliciana Parish. Lefebure, 24, alleges Boeker raped her on several occasions at his home on Angola property in late 2016. Boeker's wife and their children are Lefebure's cousins. A grand jury rejected a second-degree rape charge against Boeker in March, but it was revealed later that the panel was not provided the sexual assault forensic examination, commonly known as a "rape kit," and report done by a nurse at Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge. The grand jury that declined to charge a state prison assistant warden in a rape case earlier this month was not provided the sexual assault f… "Instead of protecting her rights as the victim of a violent crime, the Defendants … violated her rights … by willfully refusing to do their jobs and instead colluding (to) protect an alleged rapist from prosecution," the suit charges. Daniel said Friday he could not comment on the suit because he had not received a copy of it and his legal counsel had not reviewed it. But when told that the suit alleged collusion in an attempt to protect Boeker, the sheriff said, "I have no reason to protect either one of them." D'Aquilla responded in an email, saying: "This is the first I have heard of this so no comment until I can review what has been filed." Boeker's attorney, Cy D'Aquila, a distant relative of D'Aquilla, said previously that Boeker maintains the sex was consensual, and he passed a privately administered polygraph examination on that point. D'Aquilla said after the grand jury made its decision in March that they did not need to use the rape kit because both the victim and the perpetrator said sexual intercourse had occurred. D'Aquilla said the pertinent question in the case was consent, which could not be tested by the rape kit evidence. However, Lefebure's lawsuit says the rape examination showed bruising on her inner and upper thighs, right arm and left shin "in the pattern of finger and hand prints." The suit claims Boeker was given "preferential treatment" instead of being "treated as a suspect in a crime." D'Aquilla said in March that bruising doesn't necessarily mean sex wasn't consensual. "Ms. Lefebure was treated as the accused from the beginning, and Mr. Boeker was able to use his official position and connections to law enforcement and parish officials to ensure he would not be held accountable for his actions," Lefebure's attorney, Michelle Rutherford, states in the suit. Boeker, the suit claims, is the only one who claims the sexual encounters were consensual. Boeker and Lefebure both testified in front of the grand jury. The suit accuses Boeker of, among things, rape, sexual battery, false imprisonment and negligent infliction of emotional distress. In an interview, Rutherford said that if an accused armed robber tells police, "but the store owner gave me the money," they would not ignore the store video surveillance and merely trust the word of the robber. Sponsored Content on the Advocate By Salvation Army - From buying groceries to keeping the lights on, life is... "`He said she said' is not a proper method of crime investigation or prosecution," Rutherford added. "I do not understand the reasoning." In June, the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office gave the rape kit to the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab. Daniel acknowledged then that the entire process "should have been done more timely." West Feliciana Parish sends rape kit in case against Angola warden to be tested after months in possession The West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office on Monday gave the rape kit in the case against an Angola assistant warden to the State Police Crim… Retired East Baton Rouge Parish sex crimes prosecutor Sue Bernie told The Advocate in March, "If there's a rape exam done, I can't imagine not looking at the sexual assault exam. You'd always want to see that." Bernie's comments are included in Lefebure's suit. D'Aquilla said in March his office would reopen the case against Boeker if any further evidence is found. Lefebure's suit seeks monetary damages. It also asks that U.S. District Judge John deGravelles require the West Feliciana district attorney's and sheriff's offices to implement a written policy to collect and review rape kits and sexual assault exams, send them to the crime lab for testing and present them as evidence in grand jury proceedings. The Advocate typically does not name people who report they are victims of sexual assault, but Lefebure has said she wanted to use her name. Follow Joe Gyan Jr. on Twitter, @JoeGyanJr. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
![]() ZetaBoards gives you all the tools to create a successful discussion community. Learn More · Sign-up for Free |
|
| « Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic » |







9:18 AM Jul 11