There’s a rule — often unspoken — on college campuses and with law enforcement that bringing up a rape accuser’s sexual history is akin to “victim-blaming.”
Most people agree with this. Just because Susie slept with Brad and Tom doesn’t mean she also wanted to sleep with Bill. To say “she wanted it” merely because she allegedly slept with other people — even a lot of other people (which could also just be a rumor) — should have no bearing in a sexual assault investigation.
But there is a time when someone’s romantic history might actually be necessary to establish credibility — that is, when the person explicitly ties their credibility to said history.
Such is the case at Virginia Wesleyan College, which is asking a sexual assault accuser for the names of men she has dated since the rape she claimed occurred. The reason is that this accuser claimed she is no longer able to have sex and has “experienced difficulties in romantic relationships” due to her disinterest in sex.
Given that claim, it makes sense that the college would want — and need — to verify it. The best way to do that would be to interview the people who would know best. The woman is claiming she has been traumatized by the encounter, and the college’s alleged failings to properly discipline the accused, and the school has not just a right but an obligation to verify this.
The school did discipline the accused student. He was found responsible in a campus hearing and was expelled in 2013. A few months after the expulsion, the school changed his transcript status from “expelled” to “voluntarily withdrawn.” This, the college wrote in a letter to the accusing student, would “assist him in seeking further studies.”
The accusing student, named as Jane Doe in her lawsuit against VWC, dropped out of the college following the alleged attack and the letter from the school. She claims in her lawsuit that the school didn’t do enough to help her following the incident.
Naturally, the request for a woman’s sexual history in a case involving an alleged rape has prompted outrage on social media, thanks in part to the Huffington Post’s misleading and inflammatory headline: “Virginia Wesleyan College Demands Rape Victim’s Entire Sexual History.”
The article waits until the middle of the fourth paragraph to mention the reason the college is seeking the information — not to prove that she wanted the sexual encounter, but to verify her claim that she became so traumatized that she lost interest in sex and could not have a romantic relationship. What is the politically correct way for the college to verify this as part of its defense in a lawsuit?
Doe is asking for $10 million from VWC. Naturally, the validity of her claims matter. If this were any other type of lawsuit — say, a worker’s compensation claim — no one would think twice about talking to the witnesses who can best disprove the accuser’s claim. If he claimed he couldn’t walk and people saw him dancing, that would be obviously relevant. But because of hypersensitivity to those making sexual assault accusations, a college’s attempt to defend itself in court is portrayed as a negative here in order to spark false outrage.
Perhaps a judge will deem the information irrelevant or only partially irrelevant (HuffPo’s Tyler Kingkade wrote that the school was also seeking to verify her claim of being a “virgin” before the alleged attack). If the judge orders the accuser to produce names of men she has tried to date since the encounter there will surely be more outrage. But again, these are witnesses who could dispute her claims of trauma.
