For years, colleges and universities have been expelling students for sexual assault when the accuser appeared perfectly coherent and able to give consent.
The schools, under pressure from the federal government to expel accused students, took the accuser’s word that they were “blacked out” and were too drunk to give consent as evidence to expel the accused. Until now, schools ignored the question of what an accused student could have known at the time of the alleged assault.
At the University of Virginia, Haley Lind (who allowed herself to be identified by the Washington Post) met a freshman athlete at a massive yearly drinking party on campus. The two began flirting, kissing and caressing each other. Some witnesses at the party said Lind appeared “belligerent,” while others said she was merely tipsy.
The freshman athlete, who remained anonymous because he was never charged with a crime, told the Post that he thought Lind liked him. He said Lind asked him to accompany her back to her apartment, but he instead suggested they find a room at the house where they were drinking.
The athlete said Lind smiled and led him into a bathroom by the hand. After a discussion about using a condom, he took one out of his wallet and Lind unwrapped it and put it on him. The athlete said he stopped at one point because he heard someone trying to come in, but that Lind told him to “keep going.”
A resident of the house where the two were drinking found out they were in there and climbed onto a balcony to try and get their attention. This resident told investigators that Lind said: “Would you just give us a minute?” The freshman athlete became frightened, grabbed his clothes and ran.
Lind was found naked in the bathroom by a wrestler just a few minutes later.
Lind says she doesn’t remember the night and tried to piece it together the next day. She contacted some athlete friends who were at the party. They arranged for her to meet and speak with the freshman from that night. The freshman athlete was surprised by the request, but attended. Others in attendance recorded the meeting without telling either Lind or the freshman.
The freshman told Lind what happened and said: “If it hurt you, I’m sorry.” Lind told him she must have been too “incoherently drunk” to have consented. The freshman apologized. He left the meeting shaken, but thinking this was all over.
But Lind became withdrawn and struggled on the volleyball team. Some of her teammates eventually told her story to a female assistant coach, who reported it to the school.
Lind emphasized how draining the ordeal has been on her, the freshman said he was “scared out of my mind to be accused of something so serious and that I knew wasn’t true.”
U.Va. issued their report, which exonerated the freshman because he had no way of knowing Lind has blacked out. She appeared coherent, flirty, able to walk, climb stairs and carry on a conversation and was able to perform “fine motor tasks, such as unwrapping a condom.”
After the school found the freshman not responsible, the police “suspended” their investigation, effectively closing it.
The case highlights a major problem when investigating accusations of sexual assault. If Lind was acting coherent, as the freshman and some witnesses claimed, how could anyone have known she was blacked out? Remember: Blacked out is not the same as passed out. Not everyone who seems coherent really is.
Such lessons are learned the hard way when accusations are flying at college campuses, and what were once drunken hookups are now being redefined as rape by default. Men and women are now distrustful of each other, as women are being encouraged to drink while simultaneously being warned they will be preyed upon. Men are being taught that any sexual activity with a woman could become an accusation of sexual assault.
U.Va. did the right thing here, because there was no accurate way of laying blame. Lind may have wanted the freshman to be punished, but because she appeared coherent, there was nothing the school could do unless it expelled him for not knowing something he couldn’t have known.
But other schools have taken a very different approach.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
