The case of a Johnson & Wales University student who claims to have been falsely accused of rape by his partner’s boyfriend and expelled in an unfair “campus trial” will be heading to court after a judge denied the school summary judgment in late December.
According to Ashe Schow, the student, referred to in court documents as John Doe, had a sexual relationship with a woman referred to as Mary Smith, who also had a boyfriend (of whom John was unaware at the time), referred to as B.K.
In his lawsuit, John states that B.K, not Mary, suspiciously reported that Mary had been sexually assaulted twice by John nearly a year after John and Mary’s final sexual encounter.
When asked about B.K.’s allegations, Mary reportedly gave statements that contradicted the claims that she had been sexually assaulted, saying that she and John were “friends with benefits.”
Schow explains the incidents leading to B.K.’s complaints, via The Daily Wire:
On one night in October 2016, Mary said according to John’s lawsuit, that she was with John in his bed and the two had sex but it was rougher than usual. She got up but returned to John’s bed and spent the night with him.
John says this alleged sexual encounter never even happened, and his roommate – who was in the room at the time – said he didn’t hear anything. Another roommate said he saw Smith leaving the next morning and that she was in a good mood. A week later after this alleged sexual assault, Mary went back to John’s room to have sex with him again. She said it started consensually but eventually started “to hurt,” so they changed positions but it started hurting again. There is no indication that she told him she was in pain or asked him to stop. John said their sexual encounter was no different than their previous encounters, and Smith continued to like his social media posts afterward.
Almost a year later, on June 1, 2017, B.K. reported the alleged sexual assaults to JWU security. When Sgt. Robinson called Mary to get a statement about the assaults, she “did not want to talk about it at the moment.” When Robinson emailed her the next day, insisting she was “a victim of sexual assault” and that university officials were “here to support you,” Mary responded by saying she did not need any help.
Robinson then contacted John, who denied the B.K.’s claims.
This should have been where John’s troubles ended, but three months later, B.K. and Mary moved in together and proceeded to lodge a formal complaint against John.
Now, Mary claimed that she had in fact been sexually assaulted by John and that it affected her life in one specific way, “her relationship with her boyfriend.”
John was “charged” by the university with sexual assault and faced a campus hearing where he says he was not allowed to see the evidence against him.
Mary was allowed to name B.K. as her advisor for the proceedings, which kept him from being cross-examined by John about his motives or inconsistencies in his statements.
John was promptly expelled and sued.
What’s ironic here, as an aside, is the fact that these “woke” university types champion the #MeToo movement which routinely denounces organizations, like churches, who attempt to handle sexual abuse complaints internally rather than reporting them to the proper authorities.
By putting John through the university’s kangaroo court rather than allowing the legal system to do its job, these people are committing one of the very atrocities the #MeToo movement claims to fight—except they sided with the supposed “victim,” in which case it’s apparently acceptable.
The three campus “judges” themselves are highly suspect as well.
As author and professor K.C. Johnson points out, Elizabeth Zmarlicki, Tim Brown, and Caitlin Codding, who found John guilty, all used the exact same phrases to claim impartiality in their handling of the case:
According to Zmarlicki, her training led her to approach the case “without any predisposition or bias,” allowing her to reach a decision with “an open mind.” Codding said that she too approached the case “without any predisposition or bias,” allowing her to reach a decision with “an open mind.” What about Brown? He affirmed that he approached the case “without any predisposition or bias,” allowing him to reach a decision with “an open mind.” The three JWU employees did not explain how they came up with the exact same formulation to describe how they approached to the case. (Couldn’t one of them, at least, have used synonyms to make things less obvious?) The university’s position is that outsiders must trust that when these JWU employees said, using the exact same words, that they acted without bias and with open minds, they actually did so: JWU neither recorded nor kept a transcript of the hearing.
Zmarlicki testified that the panel asked “probative” questions of both John and Mary, but she didn’t say what any of those questions were. According to Codding, the panel asked “probative” questions of each student, but she, too, couldn’t identify any of those questions. And Brown? He recalled the panel asking “probative” questions of John and Mary—questions that his affidavit didn’t detail. Again, couldn’t one of the panelists have come up with another word to describe their questioning strategy?
How did each panelist reach the decision? Zmarlicki affirmed that despite having “considered carefully the fact that John Doe and Mary Smith admitted that they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse before the two evenings at issue,” she made a “careful assessment” to conclude that John was nonetheless guilty—because John was “consistently vague” and Mary provided “specific details.” Codding, despite having “considered carefully the fact that John Doe and Mary Smith admitted that they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse before the two evenings at issue,” made a “careful assessment” to conclude that John was nonetheless guilty—because John was “consistently vague” and Mary provided “specific details.” And Brown? Despite having “considered carefully the fact that John Doe and Mary Smith admitted that they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse before the two evenings at issue,” he made a “careful assessment” to conclude that John was nonetheless guilty—because John was “consistently vague” and Mary provided “specific details.” If this trio were JWU students, they would have been brought up on plagiarism charges.
Each of the “judges” also said they deliberated for a “lengthy” period of time but could not remember the “precise duration” of their talks. Talk about being vague!
At a hearing last year, Johnson reported that Judge John McConnell said he could “find no reason at all why the result was Mr. Doe’s expulsion. The only inference [is] . . . gender played a role.”
How on earth did a university allow this mockery of justice to take place? You can argue “believing all victims” all you want—this is something else entirely. This is sexism, plain and simple. No man in this country is safe from these libelous accusations of sexual assault.
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