Following a too-lenient punishment for several felony convictions of sexual assault, Brock Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer, was held up by many as evidence of rape culture.
Turner certainly checked the narrative boxes that activists have been looking for but have previously (at Duke University and the University of Virginia) failed to find. He’s white, privileged, an athlete and the sexual assault happened outside of a fraternity. He’s also a sexual offender.
I guess rape culture means whatever activists want it to mean at their convenience, because no one outside of Turner’s father looks at what he did and thinks it was acceptable. Turner was not involved in a drunken hookup, he was found by two strangers on top of an unconscious woman (he was penetrating her with his fingers).
Nor did Stanford University try to sweep the incident under the proverbial rug. A campus police officer found the woman and she was taken to a hospital. The woman may never have known what had happened to her, as she woke up at the hospital before undergoing a sexual assault kit, which she described as traumatic and humiliating.
“Once Stanford learned the identity of the young woman involved, the university reached out confidentially to offer her support and to tell her the steps we were taking,” Stanford said in a statement. “In less than two weeks after the incident, Stanford had conducted an investigation and banned Turner from setting foot on campus — as a student or otherwise. This is the harshest sanction that a university can impose on a student.”
Beyond his ban from campus, Turner was put through the justice system and convicted. Prosecutors asked that he be sentenced to six years in prison, but the judge sentenced him to just 6 months, along with three years probation and required him to register as a sex offender for life.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, who handed down the sentence, said he did so because Turner was young and had no previous criminal history. “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” Persky said. “I think he will not be a danger to others.”
The justice system is imperfect, and needs reform, for sure, but it is also where these cases belong. The same activists claiming that the sentence was too lenient call for campuses to adjudicate these felonies. But the worst thing a campus can do to someone like Turner is ban him from campus, leaving him free to prey on off-campus victims.
Turner belongs in prison — for more than six months. He is a sex offender, he received his due process and he should face the consequences of his actions.
Correction: An earlier version of this article claimed Turner was having sex with the unconcious woman. He was penetrating her with his finger. This is why he was convicted of having an intent to rape, and of penetration with a foreign object. This article has also been updated to remove the word “rapist,” as Turner was not convicted of rape.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
