Over at the World Socialist Web Site (yes, that’s a thing), writer David Walsh took the Obama administration to task for its support of draconian sexual assault policies.
The “extremely right-wing” administration, as Walsh labeled them, has focused on campus sexual assault because the subject “requires absolutely nothing from the Obama White House except a lot of hot air” and will rally the “liberal and ‘left’ layers of the upper middle class mesmerized by question of personal identity.”
That scathing critique aside, Walsh made some good points regarding campus sexual assault. He noted the recent letter signed by 28 current and former Harvard Law faculty members denouncing the university’s sexual assault policy and how the policy is “deeply unfair and undemocratic.”
Walsh also decried California’s “yes means yes” law, calling the measure “regressive and unenforceable” because it creates “endless possibilities for vindictiveness and retribution.”
“In essence, [the law] treats all sexual activity as presumptively rape, unless the accused can ‘prove’ that he or she obtained verbal consent beforehand,” Walsh wrote.
And of course, outside of video and audio recordings or some kind of notarized document, there’s really no legal or morally acceptable way to prove such consent (or lack thereof).
Walsh theorized that the focus on such policies is not about reducing sexual assault, but “an opportunity for various Democratic Party politicians to make cheap political hay.” He also believes the policies “represent further encroachments on democratic and constitutional rights, increase the powers of the authorities, whether university or government, and create new regulatory bodies that provide employment and activity for a good many middle class professionals.”
Walsh also noted how these kangaroo court systems, which favor the accuser’s word over any evidence provided by the accused, stand to ruin lives.
“In reality, in this day and age, being suspended from or drummed out of Harvard (or nearly anywhere else) on sexual harassment charges, or even being reprimanded (perhaps even being investigated!), will likely ruin one’s life, certainly one’s professional life,” Walsh wrote. “True, it is not the same as spending decades behind bars, but that may come as small consolation if the accusation is false.”
Accusers, Walsh pointed out, should not “belong to a category of human beings immune from lying—or making mistakes.” Walsh asks how rare is rare when it comes to false accusations.
Indeed, if one rape is too many, shouldn’t one false accusation be too many?
When progressive policies lose the socialists …
