Protesting due process

Johnson, who co-wrote the book about the false rape allegation against the Duke lacrosse team, has been trying to bring sanity back to the debate over how college campuses handle sexual assault accusations by explaining repeatedly that accused students should not be convicted based on an allegation, without the ability to defend themselves.

And that’s where the activists disagree.

Protesters showed up to his lecture with homemade signs and t-shirts that said “rape is real” (no one is saying it isn’t) and “sex without consent is always rape” (no one is saying otherwise). They stood up when he was about to speak and blocked the audience’s view of Johnson.

Johnson, in an email to the Washington Examiner, said there were 15 to 18 protesters, who sat in the first two rows of seats, ironically blocking a clip of President Obama announcing his administration’s sexual assault policies from last year, which sparked much of the current ongoing debate.

The protesters sat down after other members of the audience complained they couldn’t see and after police said they would be removed.

One member of the group F*ckRapeCulture accused Johnson of disrespecting women.

“As a member of F*ckRapeCulture, we appreciate you coming to validate our fight against rape apologists such as yourself,” said Claire Chadwick, who helped start the group. “You clearly do not respect women or any survivor of sexual assault.”

Remember kids, standing up for due process means you’re pro-rape and hate women. Naturally, this logic should be extended to include opponents of the death penalty, who are obviously pro-murder.

Chadwick did not immediately respond to an Examiner request for comment.

Johnson’s lecture, as described by the New Political, touched on the same issues I’ve been writing about for months, mainly that students accused of sexual assault are afforded no due process, not even in the media, which rarely if ever give the accused’s side of the story in he said/she said situations. One way they do this, Johnson argued, is by referring to the accused as “rapist” and the accuser as “victim” or “survivor” without any evidence in the case to suggest either title is necessary.

Johnson told the Examiner that activists asked about half the questions during that session of his lecture. He said some questions were “off the wall,” like one activist who claimed an FBI report stated the rate of false rape accusations was one per 2.7 million.

Johnson said almost all of the questions from activists were “written and read from their phones.” He also said one student claimed due process only benefitted white males, despite evidence to the contrary. He also suspected the activists were not aware of his previous work.

“It seems very unlikely the activists had read anything I’ve written before I came — their questions seemed to operate from the premise that I was going to be arguing something along the lines of rape never occurring or something like that,” Johnson wrote.

Johnson said that overall, the questions from activists and supporters were respectful, and the protesters were “not obstructionist” after they first sat down (with one exception, when students mistook Johnson’s comments about minorities being harmed by an erosion of due process to mean the opposite).

In a statement to the student-run publication, the New Political, Johnson said he respected the student’s right to protest.

“I think on this issue, most times when the issue is raised by anyone who is not uncritically accepting of activist viewpoints, you get these kinds of protests,” Johnson said. “People have a First Amendment right to protest. My general sense is that if you’re confident in your opinion, you’re able to engage critically rather than in protest, but everyone has the right to handle protests as they see fit.”