I'm trying really hard not to laugh in Ms. Grossman's ignorant, dumb-struck, pathetic face, HARD, here.
I'll settle for this:
Hey Ms. Grossman, what GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND, BABY. Poison the well, AND NOW YOU CAN DRINK FROM IT.
HOW DOES IT TASTE!?!?!?!?
April 24th, 2013 by Robert
Franklin, Esq.
There used to be a saying, a
joke really, with a point to make. My memory of it isn't perfect, but it went
something like this: a conservative is a liberal who's just been mugged; a
liberal is a conservative who's just lost his job. Or words to that effect. So
in the same vein, I guess a fathers'/men's rights activist is a feminist who
had this happen
to her son (Wall Street Journal, 4/16/13).
I am a feminist.
I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on
many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women's rights.
Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and
for the Violence Against Women Act.
But that was
before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New
England , was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of
"nonconsensual sex" that supposedly occurred during the course of
their relationship a few years earlier.
What followed was
a nightmare—a fall through Alice
It began with a
text of desperation. "CALL ME. URGENT. NOW."
"Could not possibly have
believed existed..."? Really? Ms. Grossman is a feminist who doesn't know
what much feminism consists of. The idea that she has a son in college and
didn't know about the feminist-inspired and backed attacks on male sexuality,
particularly on college campuses beggars belief. After all, how long has it
been since we heard about The Antioch Rules under which every male student must
obtain clear verbal assent to every single thing he does with a woman. Failure
to do so can result in academic discipline up to and including expulsion.
"Is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress?"
Needless to say, no woman on Antioch
So Ms. Grossman wants us to
believe that, highly intelligent, highly educated feminist that she is, she's
never heard of the Antioch
I, for one, am not buying it.
Her WSJ piece
comes directly under the heading of the famous line from "Casablanca
Still, she's writing in the
pages of a very influential and widely-read newspaper, so her
"discovery" that campus sexual assault policies come close to
Stalinism in their "guilty till proven innocent" mindset is welcome.
That was how my
son informed me that not only had charges been brought against him but that he
was ordered to appear to answer these allegations in a matter of days. There
was no preliminary inquiry on the part of anyone at the school into these
accusations about behavior alleged to have taken place a few years earlier, no
consideration of the possibility that jealousy or revenge might be motivating a
spurned young ex-lover to lash out. Worst of all, my son would not be afforded
a presumption of innocence.
In fact, Title
IX, that so-called guarantor of equality between the sexes on college campuses,
and as applied by a recent directive from the Department of Education's Office
for Civil Rights, has obliterated the presumption of innocence that is so
foundational to our traditions of justice. On today's college campuses, neither
"beyond a reasonable doubt," nor even the lesser "by clear and
convincing evidence" standard of proof is required to establish guilt of
sexual misconduct.
These safeguards
of due process have, by order of the federal government, been replaced by what
is known as "a preponderance of the evidence." What this means, in
plain English, is that all my son's accuser needed to establish before a campus
tribunal is that the allegations were "more likely than not" to have
occurred by a margin of proof that can be as slim as 50.1% to 49.9%.
How does this
campus tribunal proceed to evaluate the accusations? Upon what evidence is it
able to make a judgment?
The frightening
answer is that like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, the tribunal does pretty
much whatever it wants, showing scant regard for fundamental fairness, due
process of law, and the well-established rules and procedures that have evolved
under the Constitution for citizens' protection. Who knew that American college
students are required to surrender the Bill of Rights at the campus gates?
My son was given
written notice of the charges against him, in the form of a letter from the
campus Title IX officer. But instead of affording him the right to be fully
informed, the separately listed allegations were a barrage of vague statements,
rendering any defense virtually impossible. The letter lacked even the most
basic information about the acts alleged to have happened years before. Nor
were the allegations supported by any evidence other than the word of the
ex-girlfriend.
The hearing
itself was a two-hour ordeal of unabated grilling by the school's committee,
during which, my son later reported, he was expressly denied his request to be
represented by counsel or even to have an attorney outside the door of the
room. The questioning, he said, ran far afield even from the vaguely stated
allegations contained in the so-called notice. Questions from the distant past,
even about unrelated matters, were flung at him with no opportunity for him to
give thoughtful answers.
The many pages of
written documentation that my son had put together—which were directly on point
about his relationship with his accuser during the time period of his alleged
wrongful conduct—were dismissed as somehow not relevant. What was relevant,
however, according to the committee, was the unsworn testimony of
"witnesses" deemed to have observable knowledge about the long-ago
relationship between my son and his accuser.
That the
recollections of these young people (made under intense peer pressure and with
none of the safeguards consistent with fundamental fairness) were relevant—while
records of the accuser's email and social media postings were not—made a
mockery of the very term. While my son was instructed by the committee not to
"discuss this matter" with any potential witnesses, these witnesses
against him were not identified to him, nor was he allowed to confront or
question either them or his accuser.
And that, my friends, is a
pretty fair summary of what's laughingly called "due process"
regarding allegations of sexual misconduct on campus. It's a perfect
description of a system that's designed to do one thing - convict. Noon is a
dark time on campus these days.
And of course, lest anyone
think the consequences of said system stop at the campus gates, think again.
The accused is essentially required to defend himself and without access to an
attorney, so he'll likely say a lot to try to clear his name. What he probably
doesn't know is that, if he's ever brought before a criminal tribunal, every
word he said at the college hearing can be used against him in the criminal
trial.
Grossman is an attorney and was
able to help her son through his Star Chamber ordeal without punishment. Good
for her. Better is her "death row" conversion.
I am also keenly
aware not only of how easily this all could have gone the other way—with
life-altering consequences—but how all too often it does...
I fear that in
the current climate the goal of "women's rights," with the compliance
of politically motivated government policy and the tacit complicity of college
administrators, runs the risk of grounding our most cherished institutions in a
veritable snake pit of injustice—not unlike the very injustices the movement
itself has for so long sought to correct. Unbridled feminist orthodoxy is no
more the answer than are attitudes and policies that victimize the victim.
Has her son's experience truly
made her understand her own complicity in it? She's a feminist, so what was she
doing while Russlyn Ali and countless other feminists were doing everything in
their power to make sexual assault an ever broader term and sexual assault
claims ever easier to prove? Did she, as part of her activist zeal, ever write
a letter to NOW, to Ms., to
any of the feminist organizations that blatantly demand one set of standards
for the sexual behavior of men and another for that of women? She's a lawyer,
so what's she done about false claims of domestic or sexual abuse as part of a
campaign to deny children real, ongoing relationships with their fathers?
We hear a lot from feminists to
the effect that there's a Great Silent Majority of them who aren't radical, who
don't hate men, who would never lie about domestic violence, the wage gap,
patriarchy, the "rape culture," etc. But the fact is that if there
were that many feminists who differed from what feminism has become, well, it
wouldn't have become what it is. Grossman's anguish is real enough, but only because
it was her son whose head was on the block. Had it been another young man's -
and it has been far more than she has any idea - she'd have ignored it
completely.
But of course, that's how the
fathers' and men's rights movements get so many of their adherents. Second
wives of fathers who pay too much child support but don't get to see their
kids, or who pay alimony to an ex who wouldn't dream of getting a job and off
the gravy train are a constant stream of new recruits for us. Mothers whose
sons find themselves the victims of paternity fraud or see their children
adopted away without their consent are too. And of course there are many
others.
Judith Grossman should be ashamed of herself. She was always oh-so aware of injustice except when it was done to others and when it was done by those on "her side." It's only when her ox is gored that she wakes up and sees what she and her comrades have wrought over the years.
On the other hand, at least she
sees it now and wrote a piece for millions to see about her tardy epiphany.
THE NATIONAL PARENTS
ORGANIZATION IS A SHARED PARENTING ORGANIZATION
The National Parents
Organization is a non-profit organization that is educating the public,
families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting
and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents and extended families. If
you would like to get involved in our organization, you can do so several ways.
First, we would love to have you as an official member of
the National Parents Organization team. Second, the National Parents
Organization is an organization that believes in the importance of using social
media as a means to spread the word about shared parenting and other topics,
and you can visit us on our Facebook Page to learn more about our efforts.
Last, we hope you will share this article with other families using the many
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parenting. Thank you for your support.
