Huffington Post on Wrong Side of Due Process in Campus Rape Case
Leave it to the Huffington Post to wrongly criticize the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. (FIRE)
KC Johnson of Minding the Campus reports.
HuffPost Gets It Wrong on a Campus Rape Case
Earlier this week, Huffington Post’s Tyler Kingkade published an article strongly critical of FIRE’s efforts to shine light on Occidental College’s troubling approach to due process. The article implied—without saying so directly—that FIRE was responsible for alleged harassment towards anti-due process activists on the campus. The underlying skepticism about the free exchange of information might seem unusual, but actually is a hardly uncommon tactic among opponents of campus due process.
The basics: FIRE posted court documents from one of the many campus due process lawsuits, this one filed by a student who claimed he was falsely convicted by a disciplinary panel at Occidental College. Kingkade claims that, in the aftermath, several witnesses to the case received harassing e-mails, “presumably” as a result of the FIRE post. Kingkade’s article gives no indication that he attempted to contact the authors of the allegedly harassing e-mails.
Kingkade’s article was odd in two important respects. First, it implied that FIRE had somehow breached decorum or court guidelines by inappropriately publishing confidential material. In fact, FIRE had posted publicly available court documents. It’s not clear why Kingkade believed these documents were confidential, or why he didn’t check with the court before making writing his article. (A subsequent correction to the article alleged an “editing error” but only obfuscated the issue, still implying that FIRE had inappropriately posted confidential items rather than publicly available court documents.)
Second, though his article included several other alleged e-mails, Kingkade presented to FIRE evidence of only one harassing item, an e-mail allegedly sent to Professor Danielle Dirks. But Dirks’ involvement in the case is hardly a secret, and no one could simply presume that the alleged e-mailer learned of Dirks’ role from the court documents. Here, for example, is an interview with her on the topic (with photo, as well) in LA Weekly. And here she is (just a flattering photo) in a Los Angeles Times article. And here she’s thrice referenced (no photo, this time!) in a LA Progressive article on the lawsuit against the school filed by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred. And here she is, being uncritically quoted by Marie Claire.
Comments
A few things stood out to me:
1) Were an organization to shine the light on how badly women (and men) who were sexual assault victims were treated, and the bad actors were to receive E-mails shaming them for their part – I think the HuffPo crowd would LOVE that form of activism.
IOW – When I like the cause the action is just – when I disagree with the cause the action is bad.
2) Colleges and their star chamber tactics, which are shamefull, like to keep their twisted actions secret and now that it’s coming to light, they don’t like it.
IOW – I want to do things that cannot stand the light of day and examination by disinterested 3rd parties – so I cry foul that you are looking.
3) Colleges say that they act in good faith, but now that it’s shown they don’t – they go with the ideology they know: Play the victim, while in reality they are the abuers.
I know this because NO ONE in academia is trying to expand these star chambers for all “crimes” (though I have no doubt that will come)
and
Especially no admin or faculty want to be subject to these same tribunals.
To folks like this the ends justify the means, a single standard is unfair, and anyone who questions them is victimizing them.
That’s my summary of it.