The Political Hat

     The Star Chamber has nothing on the total inversion of justice committed by Amherst University: Amherst has expelled a student for an incident where he was objectively raped.

“Amherst expelled a student for committing rape—despite text messages from the accuser, sent  immediately after the alleged assault, (1) telling one student that she had initiated the sexual contact with the student she later accused (her roommate’s boyfriend); (2) inviting another student to her room for a sexual liaison minutes after she was allegedly raped.

“Amherst, on grounds that the accused student (who, per college policy, had no attorney) didn’t discover the text messages until it was too late, has allowed the rape finding to stand, even though the college’s decision relied on the accuser’s credibility (which is now non-existent). Amherst faces a due-process lawsuit in the case.”

     Amherst obviously looked at the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Tribunal” and thought to themselves, “we can top that!”

“Once the complaint is filed, an investigator, who lacks subpoena power, interviews the accuser and the accused student; beyond that, the college promises only that the investigator will make a ‘good faith effort’ to speak to relevant witnesses, and will ‘try’ to obtain relevant physical or medical evidence. If the investigator’s ‘good faith’ effort doesn’t track down relevant witnesses, the policy presumes that the accused student won’t be able to call those witnesses before the hearing.

“‘Attorneys cannot participate in the Hearing Board process’ at Amherst (although, the college helpfully notes, the accused student can hire an attorney—at his own expense—and have the attorney present on campus the day of the hearing, perhaps for a very expensive form of virtual, moral support). The attorney-less accused student does receive an ‘advisor’ from the campus community, but this advisor ‘is not an advocate for the student.’

“Amherst does not permit the accused student to directly cross-examine his accuser; he can only submit questions to the panel chair, who may ask or reject the questions as the chair chooses. Effective cross-examination under such circumstances is all but impossible—even more so since the accuser is allowed to write responses, rather than respond to questions orally. Any guilty finding is ‘permanently noted on the student’s record.'”

     Unsurprisingly, the “advisor” assigned to the young man was trained in “social justice”:

“Doe’s advisor, on the other hand, was an Amherst administrator (who lacked tenure protections) named Torin Moore, whose academic training came not in the law or in anything related to civil liberties but instead in ‘social justice education.'”

     After he was expelled, it was proven that the girl who accused him was the initiator, and that is was “blacked out”:

“Despite an accuser who offered borderline non-coherent responses that subtly expanded on her initial story, the panel ultimately accepted her credibility. It ruled that while Doe likely was ‘blacked out’ during the oral sex, ‘[b]eing intoxicated or impaired by drugs or alcohol is never an excuse.’ Since AS said she withdrew consent at some point during the sexual act, and since Doe couldn’t challenge that recollection, the panel was at least 50.01 percent inclined to believe the accuser’s tale.”

     Objectively, he was raped.

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