Listen now (66 min) | This week I welcome Lara Bazelon back to the show. Lara is a lawyer, a professor of law, and the author of several books, including the excellent novel A Good Mother. Lara is also an energetic free speech advocate who has taken some principled stands that have, at times, put her at odds with other progressives.
Saying, “No gender or race or ethnicity has a monopoly on the truth” sounds controversial. To a law professor. How did we come to this unreasonable place?!
Sorry to hear about Fryer being on the receiving end of hoax harassment claim. Clearance Thomas, Bret Kavanaugh and Roland Fryer. I think I escaped such outcome only because I am gay. I worry more about that young male student at USF (The Glenn Show) who barely escaped higher education ruin because of a Good Samaritan lawyer. When I was an undergrad, I was very young and dumb about potential hoax harassment claims. Luckily, during the 80’s - it wasn’t the problem it is today.
I am male and I want all women either segregated or banned from all universities (students, faculty and staff) and from all places of work. Being male is unsafe in an era where HR has the ethics of Al Capone and denies due process so as to dishonesty pathologize the heterodox among us.
Luckily I am retired at age 55, (busier than ever). But after I left office on final day of work in Nov 2021, my manager complained that a good-Samaritan secretary dis-obeyed instruction by giving my ID card directly to the building facilities team (owner of everyone’s ID card) rather than to her as middleman. My ID card opened doors and activated corresponding time-stamp record. If I had hypothetically visited off-hours to water plants, then that could be framed as “violation” of unauthorized entry during non-work hours. Many of the most dedicated employees nationwide would hypothetically be in such “violation”due to work project urgency.
In 2019, when needing to discuss journal
article fraud with a director responsible for oversight, I went beyond my “safe space” during “Me-Too” hysteria to keep telephoning office phone until I got a response. The director was female.
The National Human Resources Association in Wisconsin needs new leadership. In the meantime- I want to abolish the criminal organization known as HR.
This all strikes me as an over reaction. Believe women, is in contrast to the history of largely ignoring and shaming women who are victims of bad behavior. The answer should be stop doing that, not believe women exclusively. Maybe a better slogan would be “take women seriously.”
Maybe I don’t understand the term “rape culture” but I’d totally argue colleges in the nineties did have a rape culture. Not because rape was encouraged per se, but heaving drinking and drugs were normal and consent was not a thing that was understood or agreed upon or indeed considered. Having sex with a fully unconscious girl was considered merely bad form, as opposed to a violation. Talking to men in previous generations (especially the late 60s and 70s), it seems that was pretty common earlier as well. A change in culture that no longer encourages or tolerates that kind of behavior is certainly important for women/girls to fully participate in school.
There is a problem in both directions. Underreporting based on fears of societal shame or simply out of a desire to avoid reliving the incident is a thing. False accusations are ALSO a thing. I've been the victim of the latter more than once. I even went to jail for a week the first time in a very similar situation to the one discussed by Lara. Between being raped and being arrested for rape, I'd rather take the former. That's a personal opinion, YMMV, but I think that as the pendulum is swinging, and as is wont to happen in society, it has swung too far in the opposite direction. I'm going to generalize for a moment, but the people who talk about rape as an issue to be addressed downplay the frequency and severity of false accusations. I've seen things like "there are X number of untested rape kits at Y police department, meaning that X rapists are walking free". Which is an absurd conclusion to draw for numerous reasons, but it's presented as unquestionable fact. It's understandable, as people advocating try and make the cause they're advocating for seem as one-sided and urgent as possible. But it needs to be the role of sane adults to fight back against this kind of warping of facts. At the moment, there's little need to fight the notion that rape is not a problem - there's no one espousing that belief, at least not in the public sphere. Five years ago, ten years ago, maybe (although those voices were already mostly overshadowed). But there are a lot of people twisting facts in the other direction, hence the need for someone to speak up and temper the discussion.
Hi Michael, did I read that correctly? You’d rather be raped than accused of rape?
Do you think now there are more rape allegations than actual rapes? The statistic is something like 1/3 woman are sexually assaulted by age 30 (the number for rapes is like 1/5 or 1/6, I don’t know how great those numbers are). Are one in 3 men falsely accused of assault? Maybe my data is skewed, but I have never met a man accused publicly or convicted of rape. I have known many girls (and a guy or two) who have been raped or assaulted. I’m not 20, so maybe my data is no longer correct, and the world is all hunky dory now —but it doesn’t sound like everyone feels safe from attack, but are instead worried about being accused.
I, personally now, think that false accusations are terrifying. I have two sons so I am by no means eager to have their lives ruined by some bitter, petty, or mistaken person whose voice means more than theirs. I also care about people that are not my sons, obviously, just to say I can see this conversation getting personal really fast if my boys become involved.
I also have a daughter. She is really emotional and sensitive and going to college soon enough. I don’t think she would be able to stay at school if she was raped or sexually assaulted. She’s not even interested in boys, which at least in my days made for an even more fun target.
As for rape kits, it is my understanding that a shockingly high number of rapes are perpetrated by a relatively small number of men. Maybe that is evidence that early intervention is the best way to reduce rape overall?
You did read that correctly. Now, to be fair, I've never been *violently* raped. If you don't mind me going on a little long, there's a bit of context. I was a grade A jackass when I was a teenager. Parents kicked me out of the house for selling drugs out of their basement and bringing violent people over at all hours. So I was homeless for a while. I moved in with my ex-girlfriend's parents. I was at a friend's house for his birthday. We smoked a lot of weed, drank a bottle of Aftershock (a godawful cinnamon schnapps that was popular back then) and each popped 2 Percocets his neighbor had given him. A girl from our high school came over and offered to give me a ride home. I couldn't walk on my own, so they loaded me into her car. Instead of driving me to my ex's parents, she drove me to a cornfield and had sex with me. Wasn't something I'd have done if I wasn't blacked out, but it wasn't something that was like life-long traumatic for me either. Again, that's a YMMV thing, for some people, non-consensual sex like that IS incredibly traumatic, I'm just speaking for me personally. Anyway, she told several of her friends about it. One of her friends had a crush on her boyfriend, so that girl told him that his girlfriend was cheating on him. He went to her parents house, and told them about her cheating. She didn't want to tell her boyfriend she cheated or tell her parents that she wasn't a good celibate Christian girl, so she told them that I raped her. I didn't learn about any of this until weeks later, after I'd been released. When the police asked me to come to the station to answer questions, I (quite naturally I think) assumed it was something about dealing drugs. I think I came pretty close to being murdered my first night in jail. When I first went into the holding cell, one of the inmates threatened me until I told him what I was in for. Sex offenders are not looked at kindly in jail and I probably would've been beaten badly that first night, except for a small bit of serendipity. The guy that had threatened me called his girlfriend a bit later and was telling her about how he was locked up with a filthy rapist. As luck would have it, his girlfriend was a girl from my high school who knew the whole story and told him that I was innocent. I spent nearly a week in jail before one of the girl's other friends went to the police and told them that the girl had made it up to avoid looking bad. The girl had told the police that I hurt her arm while I was raping her and that was why she was wearing an arm brace. She had actually fallen at a concert a couple months prior. That was when the cops started looking into her story more closely. Because of that discrepancy, the police requestioned her, she kept changing her story and the charges against me were dropped and I was released. When the police released me, I asked the officer if anything was going to happen to her. He told me that there had been a similar case earlier that year and that the local newspaper made it look like the police were harassing this rape victim and that the DA couldn't take any more bad publicity. She was never charged with anything. She never came clean, and she even tried to add me on Facebook maybe 10 or 12 years ago. For most people, even back then, being accused of rape was equivalent of being convicted. For years, I didn't talk about it at all, with anyone, ever. I was terrified of the consequences of talking about it. It still makes me anxious to talk about it because it's been my experience that the mindset is still: accusation = guilty. That accusation followed me for a long time. It almost kept me out of the Navy, even though the charges had been dropped. Now, it's not something I'm going to bring up in random conversation, but I think it's important to be frank about what happened to me when it's relevant, even if there is a risk of people perceiving me as a threat, because I know that it happens - I lived it. I think that letting people know it's a real thing is the right thing to do, even if I'd rather leave it in the past, because maybe me talking will have an impact on how people view other men who have been accused and exonerated.
So do I think there are more false claims than rapes? Absolutely not. While I think that rapes and false accusations are both dark numbers, I think it would be absurd to imagine the latter outnumbering the former. But just because one problem is more prevalent than the other doesn't mean that both aren't problems. I'm not trying to say that rape isn't bad or that we shouldn't work to reduce the occurrences of rape in this country and indeed across the world. I think it's a core task of humanity to minimize the risk of any violent crime. I also think that while that voice is lifted right now, the voice addressing false accusations is repressed, largely because people think that to address it minimizes attention to rape. I think both are important.
At the end of the day, I have a relatively normal life. I have a job and a wonderful wife and we're living our happily ever after as best one can do in the real world, so the false accusation thing is better than, say, being murdered. But it was a lot worse than any instance of non-consensual sex I've ever had, both in terms of mental and emotional wellbeing and social standing. And while I can't say for sure, having never experience violent rape, I tend to think I'd still prefer that to the false accusation. It's a little impolite to say it, but my sphincter will heal. On the other side, I might not survive as a sex offender in prison, and I have zero faith in the idea that being innocent means I won't be convicted.
"As for rape kits, it is my understanding that a shockingly high number of rapes are perpetrated by a relatively small number of men."
This is one reasons why I think "X kits means X rapists" is an absurd conclusion to draw. I wasn't going to go into all of the issues I have with activist points because I don't want to be misconstrued as being pro-rape or dismissing the problem, but yeah, that's my understanding as well.
Well, thanks for sharing that ordeal. I, personally, am not the one who needs to be convinced that there are false reports. The conversation was mostly about how going through law enforcement is better than a title Ix university process. I think there’s a place for both, but was kind of feeling like rape and sexual assault were being minimized.
Just want to let you know, that even though what you experienced was rape, it isn’t the unwanted sex that is really the problem. It is the violence, the powerlessness, and often the words. Things like “you stupid fucking bitch, you goddamn worthless whore, why are you fighting? I know you are liking it. I know this is what you want because you are worthless… just shut up bitch” on repeat, until they decide to stop. Or saying those things after, when you feel used and discarded. Or them just telling everyone those things and laughing, encouraging others to do the same. All that takes away your safety, autonomy, and the sense that you have any power over what happens in your life. Also knowing that everyone knows or that you need to keep it secret because of shame and fear that everyone will see you the way your rapist did. Basically powerlessness sucks. Your story of prison was powerlessness. So is rape, but as you note to varying degrees. Just think, you’d feel differently about prison if you got a high five from a buddy and played cards the whole time…
Glenn--are you aware that Brown University has been sued a number of times for due process violations under Title IX? Six of them with actual decisions were from accused students, and the university has lost every time. It's incredible...
Shoutout to LB, this could not have been an easy interview for her. She talked at the very end about the individual in OK (I believe it was OK) that she disagreed with politically 100%, but they were in agreement about the core value of justice, evidence and proof being necessary to sustain a problematic conviction. I feel the same way about LB's positions--don't know that I agree with her politically about anything (her team is not my team), but her basic decency about due process, truth, fact is inspiring!
Professor Loury- Congratulations on “The Bradley Prize.” My goal is to win the Bradley when I am Loury’s age. Hello Laura Bazelon. I live in SF and retired from SF DPH at age 55 in Dec 2021. Do you have an email address? “Due Process” was the phrase that police used when complaining to the feds about 2020 Defund. “Due Process” is the phrase I used when complaining about ideological mania in public health in 2020. USF should provide a Title-9 orientation to all men on campus at the beginning of each school year. The orientation should focus on instructing men to err on side of caution. And USF men should never have sex with a USF woman. The risk of institutional harm is too high. Remember the “mattress-student at Columbia”? Better to date a woman off-campus. And I don’t like the idea of heterosexual women using dating apps. I don’t think it’s safe for women. You text back and forth with date candidate- but you don’t know the person. Any Tinder guy could text in a normal manner, but still could be a weirdo.
This sort of conversation represents the best of TGS for me. Both Glenn and Lara displayed profound humility in confronting their own collaborations with their respective tribal affiliations, and isn't that where growth happens? Today, I appreciate 'Innocent until proven guilty' with fresh eyes. Thanks to both speakers.
This is tough stuff. The thing I have a hard time understanding is, even "progressives" will, on average, give birth to a boy 50% of the time. Don't they understand their own flesh and blood is vulnerable to the mockery of justice these trials are, or are they in some denial about THEIR kid ever doing anything of which these kangaroo courts could ever find them guilty?
This was an excellent conversation. I found Lara’s fear of speaking out frightening in itself. It shows how riddled with litmus tests our society has become.
I must say Lara should be praised for following her principles and taking this young man's case at risk to her career and social life. I wished more people would think long and hard about their values and principles and then stand on them.
With that said, I'm a bit dismayed after hearing how outrageously false this case was to being with and only got more outrageous as she described it that she hesitated so long to take it in the first place. To me it almost seemed like if the accused man in this case was white, she wouldn't have taken the case and he likely would have had the disciplinary action against him stand and the restraining order in place. This is not directed at Lara; does it take these injustices to happen to non-white people before self proclaimed justice warriors care about justice and civil liberties? Last I checked principles shouldn't care about your skin color, religion, sex, etc..
Again I'm very glad she finally did take it, and I hope he can sue for a big payment from the people who tried to ruin his life.
It doesn't matter why Lara took up this particular case. Every single occurrence is an injustice; to take on any of these cases for any reason is a worthy cause.
Winning this case was important, but what is exemplary is how Lara acted afterward. She was not happy with a victory for just her client; she is working for due process for all those so accused under Title 9. That is the profundity, the monumentality, of what she is doing. She began working on a particular case for a particular defendant. Now, she is advocating for everyone accused under this system, regardless of skin color. She took the specific and made it universal. This is truly an action to applaud.
I almost disregarded the first episode when Glenn had Lara on, but it ended up being one of the most memorable episodes I have seen. Fortunately she’s not a one hit wonder, this discussion was wonderful as well!
One thing I wish Bazelon and other Title IX reform advocates (especially around due process) would address is whether universities quietly pushed for the Trump/Devos-era Title IX reforms. Of course they'll never admit it, but it must grow tiresome being sued by so many young men who have been wrongly accused of sexual assault and who then go on to win lawsuits against their universities. It's always been my suspicious that universities wanted Trump to pursue these reforms, but I might be totally wrong about this, since universities are just as often sued by alleged victims for not doing enough to help them.
I don't think universities cared much about respondents, and I've not heard of any instance where a university actually wanted the DeVos reforms. In fact, they try very hard NOT to implement those rules. That's why there are two track adjudication at these schools--Title IX with due process protections, and Conduct Code (this includes off campus incidents which would be Title IX if it happened on campus) with few if any protections. It's much more damaging to their reputations to be sued by an accuser or be investigated by the Ed. Dept OCR--so they are willing to take the risk.
Thank you for this episode, Glenn! I am familiar with Bazelon's work from having taught a college course on Title IX and campus sexual assault for several years. I use the racial disparity angle as a trojan horse to illustrate just how unjust and unfair the Title IX process is to the accused. It works a lot better than the Duke rape hoax case. Notably, my students still think the white lacrosse players are guilty "of something" even after watching an excellent documentary on the entire saga including the accuser recanting and admitting that nothing happened. But when I raise the specter of Black men being accused by white women and expelled, having their college careers ruined, it confuses their ideologue brains enough to enable them to think critically. I thank people like Lara Bazelon and reporter Emily Yoffee for bringing to light the racial disparities in Title IX allegations because without them there would be even less sympathy for the accused and the utter lack of due process provided by Title IX.
I was thinking along those lines as well when she mentioned that it was her students who encouraged her to take the case. I’m not sure if they would’ve been able to recognize the injustice had it been a white guy. The Duke lacrosse team also came to mind. To this day, I think most people have little sympathy for those young men whose lives were ruined from those accusations even though the accusations were proven to be fallacious.
First of all GREAT conversation! I just wanted to point out that although Trump is questioning the 2020 election and those that follow him agree, I'd like to recall what Hilary Clinton and the mainstream media did to Trumps for 4 full years. Calling him illegitimate and that the election was stolen because Russia interfered. However, it has been proven Hilary's campaign paid for the document that the FBI used to go after Trump and everyone now knows it was all a campaign hit job. So, where did the election integrity question start, seems like in 2016 with all facts considered. I am not saying Trump is right but he is not the first person to say an election was stolen, so please to those who have selective memories.
Um what? Clinton did win the popular vote *and* there were multiple incidences of coordination of the Trump campaign with Russia which have been established, even if not a legal “collusion” or “conspiracy”. Hilary’s campaign paid for the famous dossier which was raw intel, ie leads — some proved right and some proved wrong. He was never held legally responsible for any of it. He is the first president to refuse to concede. It’s kind of an honor thing for most presidents, even if they believed the process was tainted/ unfair/biased. Only Trump said, if I can’t have it… burn it down!
1: Clinton winning the popular vote - is not disputed. Trump won the electoral. 2: I am not convinced of Trump campaign as coordination with Russia. See AG Barr ruling. 3: Pence acted heroically on Jan 6 by refusing to go along with Trump’s attempt to lie about the election outcome. Shame on Trump. 4: Harris really did immediately announce plans to undermine the legitimate electoral outcome of 2016.
As for 4. I think, at the time, a lot of people could not believe Trump could win without shenanigans. Right or wrong, I don’t know. It was a very close election and scandal and shady people follow Trump around like that dirt cloud that follows pigpen in old peanuts cartoons. I would agree the “not my president” movement was basically the same as the “let’s go Brandon” on the right is now. It’s sad to see the way everything is being torn apart. As for me, I remember in the beginning of his presidency, I thought he should impeached for emoluments violations and the fact that he maintained his business interests, and in fact used his office to profit in a way no other federal employee could. I don’t remember Kamala wanting to impeach, but I suspect it was because of illegal/ questionably legal things he did — but maybe not! maybe it was a primal scream like todays let’s go Brandon…
After the election I felt so betrayed by a non-informed news media that I turned off all news. Besides in 4 years it wouldn’t be Yang vs. Butigeig and Trump vs. Cruz on election day, all I need to know was how to read name of political party on election day. My years-long break from news caused my shock when I saw CNN or MSNBC anchor on TB at friend’s house. Fox bias in opposite direction.
I agree with this 100%, I kept consuming news, but have observed it slide into something that is really biased. That doesn’t bother me too much, when you watch opinion, you should expect opinion. What really gets me is the selective choice of facts to present and the supposedly objective media “characterizing” facts to support a “narrative”. News used to do that a little, but it is really out of control now. It makes me sad. No one can improve things if we can’t be honest about what the problems even are!
We live in a world of nonsense. X hits Y with a stick 25 times. No one cares. Y hits X with a stick once and it's THE HORROR THE HORROR. Logic and rational thinking no longer matter to a large segment of our population.
Saying, “No gender or race or ethnicity has a monopoly on the truth” sounds controversial. To a law professor. How did we come to this unreasonable place?!
Sorry to hear about Fryer being on the receiving end of hoax harassment claim. Clearance Thomas, Bret Kavanaugh and Roland Fryer. I think I escaped such outcome only because I am gay. I worry more about that young male student at USF (The Glenn Show) who barely escaped higher education ruin because of a Good Samaritan lawyer. When I was an undergrad, I was very young and dumb about potential hoax harassment claims. Luckily, during the 80’s - it wasn’t the problem it is today.
I am male and I want all women either segregated or banned from all universities (students, faculty and staff) and from all places of work. Being male is unsafe in an era where HR has the ethics of Al Capone and denies due process so as to dishonesty pathologize the heterodox among us.
Luckily I am retired at age 55, (busier than ever). But after I left office on final day of work in Nov 2021, my manager complained that a good-Samaritan secretary dis-obeyed instruction by giving my ID card directly to the building facilities team (owner of everyone’s ID card) rather than to her as middleman. My ID card opened doors and activated corresponding time-stamp record. If I had hypothetically visited off-hours to water plants, then that could be framed as “violation” of unauthorized entry during non-work hours. Many of the most dedicated employees nationwide would hypothetically be in such “violation”due to work project urgency.
In 2019, when needing to discuss journal
article fraud with a director responsible for oversight, I went beyond my “safe space” during “Me-Too” hysteria to keep telephoning office phone until I got a response. The director was female.
The National Human Resources Association in Wisconsin needs new leadership. In the meantime- I want to abolish the criminal organization known as HR.
This all strikes me as an over reaction. Believe women, is in contrast to the history of largely ignoring and shaming women who are victims of bad behavior. The answer should be stop doing that, not believe women exclusively. Maybe a better slogan would be “take women seriously.”
Maybe I don’t understand the term “rape culture” but I’d totally argue colleges in the nineties did have a rape culture. Not because rape was encouraged per se, but heaving drinking and drugs were normal and consent was not a thing that was understood or agreed upon or indeed considered. Having sex with a fully unconscious girl was considered merely bad form, as opposed to a violation. Talking to men in previous generations (especially the late 60s and 70s), it seems that was pretty common earlier as well. A change in culture that no longer encourages or tolerates that kind of behavior is certainly important for women/girls to fully participate in school.
There is a problem in both directions. Underreporting based on fears of societal shame or simply out of a desire to avoid reliving the incident is a thing. False accusations are ALSO a thing. I've been the victim of the latter more than once. I even went to jail for a week the first time in a very similar situation to the one discussed by Lara. Between being raped and being arrested for rape, I'd rather take the former. That's a personal opinion, YMMV, but I think that as the pendulum is swinging, and as is wont to happen in society, it has swung too far in the opposite direction. I'm going to generalize for a moment, but the people who talk about rape as an issue to be addressed downplay the frequency and severity of false accusations. I've seen things like "there are X number of untested rape kits at Y police department, meaning that X rapists are walking free". Which is an absurd conclusion to draw for numerous reasons, but it's presented as unquestionable fact. It's understandable, as people advocating try and make the cause they're advocating for seem as one-sided and urgent as possible. But it needs to be the role of sane adults to fight back against this kind of warping of facts. At the moment, there's little need to fight the notion that rape is not a problem - there's no one espousing that belief, at least not in the public sphere. Five years ago, ten years ago, maybe (although those voices were already mostly overshadowed). But there are a lot of people twisting facts in the other direction, hence the need for someone to speak up and temper the discussion.
Hi Michael, did I read that correctly? You’d rather be raped than accused of rape?
Do you think now there are more rape allegations than actual rapes? The statistic is something like 1/3 woman are sexually assaulted by age 30 (the number for rapes is like 1/5 or 1/6, I don’t know how great those numbers are). Are one in 3 men falsely accused of assault? Maybe my data is skewed, but I have never met a man accused publicly or convicted of rape. I have known many girls (and a guy or two) who have been raped or assaulted. I’m not 20, so maybe my data is no longer correct, and the world is all hunky dory now —but it doesn’t sound like everyone feels safe from attack, but are instead worried about being accused.
I, personally now, think that false accusations are terrifying. I have two sons so I am by no means eager to have their lives ruined by some bitter, petty, or mistaken person whose voice means more than theirs. I also care about people that are not my sons, obviously, just to say I can see this conversation getting personal really fast if my boys become involved.
I also have a daughter. She is really emotional and sensitive and going to college soon enough. I don’t think she would be able to stay at school if she was raped or sexually assaulted. She’s not even interested in boys, which at least in my days made for an even more fun target.
As for rape kits, it is my understanding that a shockingly high number of rapes are perpetrated by a relatively small number of men. Maybe that is evidence that early intervention is the best way to reduce rape overall?
You did read that correctly. Now, to be fair, I've never been *violently* raped. If you don't mind me going on a little long, there's a bit of context. I was a grade A jackass when I was a teenager. Parents kicked me out of the house for selling drugs out of their basement and bringing violent people over at all hours. So I was homeless for a while. I moved in with my ex-girlfriend's parents. I was at a friend's house for his birthday. We smoked a lot of weed, drank a bottle of Aftershock (a godawful cinnamon schnapps that was popular back then) and each popped 2 Percocets his neighbor had given him. A girl from our high school came over and offered to give me a ride home. I couldn't walk on my own, so they loaded me into her car. Instead of driving me to my ex's parents, she drove me to a cornfield and had sex with me. Wasn't something I'd have done if I wasn't blacked out, but it wasn't something that was like life-long traumatic for me either. Again, that's a YMMV thing, for some people, non-consensual sex like that IS incredibly traumatic, I'm just speaking for me personally. Anyway, she told several of her friends about it. One of her friends had a crush on her boyfriend, so that girl told him that his girlfriend was cheating on him. He went to her parents house, and told them about her cheating. She didn't want to tell her boyfriend she cheated or tell her parents that she wasn't a good celibate Christian girl, so she told them that I raped her. I didn't learn about any of this until weeks later, after I'd been released. When the police asked me to come to the station to answer questions, I (quite naturally I think) assumed it was something about dealing drugs. I think I came pretty close to being murdered my first night in jail. When I first went into the holding cell, one of the inmates threatened me until I told him what I was in for. Sex offenders are not looked at kindly in jail and I probably would've been beaten badly that first night, except for a small bit of serendipity. The guy that had threatened me called his girlfriend a bit later and was telling her about how he was locked up with a filthy rapist. As luck would have it, his girlfriend was a girl from my high school who knew the whole story and told him that I was innocent. I spent nearly a week in jail before one of the girl's other friends went to the police and told them that the girl had made it up to avoid looking bad. The girl had told the police that I hurt her arm while I was raping her and that was why she was wearing an arm brace. She had actually fallen at a concert a couple months prior. That was when the cops started looking into her story more closely. Because of that discrepancy, the police requestioned her, she kept changing her story and the charges against me were dropped and I was released. When the police released me, I asked the officer if anything was going to happen to her. He told me that there had been a similar case earlier that year and that the local newspaper made it look like the police were harassing this rape victim and that the DA couldn't take any more bad publicity. She was never charged with anything. She never came clean, and she even tried to add me on Facebook maybe 10 or 12 years ago. For most people, even back then, being accused of rape was equivalent of being convicted. For years, I didn't talk about it at all, with anyone, ever. I was terrified of the consequences of talking about it. It still makes me anxious to talk about it because it's been my experience that the mindset is still: accusation = guilty. That accusation followed me for a long time. It almost kept me out of the Navy, even though the charges had been dropped. Now, it's not something I'm going to bring up in random conversation, but I think it's important to be frank about what happened to me when it's relevant, even if there is a risk of people perceiving me as a threat, because I know that it happens - I lived it. I think that letting people know it's a real thing is the right thing to do, even if I'd rather leave it in the past, because maybe me talking will have an impact on how people view other men who have been accused and exonerated.
So do I think there are more false claims than rapes? Absolutely not. While I think that rapes and false accusations are both dark numbers, I think it would be absurd to imagine the latter outnumbering the former. But just because one problem is more prevalent than the other doesn't mean that both aren't problems. I'm not trying to say that rape isn't bad or that we shouldn't work to reduce the occurrences of rape in this country and indeed across the world. I think it's a core task of humanity to minimize the risk of any violent crime. I also think that while that voice is lifted right now, the voice addressing false accusations is repressed, largely because people think that to address it minimizes attention to rape. I think both are important.
At the end of the day, I have a relatively normal life. I have a job and a wonderful wife and we're living our happily ever after as best one can do in the real world, so the false accusation thing is better than, say, being murdered. But it was a lot worse than any instance of non-consensual sex I've ever had, both in terms of mental and emotional wellbeing and social standing. And while I can't say for sure, having never experience violent rape, I tend to think I'd still prefer that to the false accusation. It's a little impolite to say it, but my sphincter will heal. On the other side, I might not survive as a sex offender in prison, and I have zero faith in the idea that being innocent means I won't be convicted.
"As for rape kits, it is my understanding that a shockingly high number of rapes are perpetrated by a relatively small number of men."
This is one reasons why I think "X kits means X rapists" is an absurd conclusion to draw. I wasn't going to go into all of the issues I have with activist points because I don't want to be misconstrued as being pro-rape or dismissing the problem, but yeah, that's my understanding as well.
Well, thanks for sharing that ordeal. I, personally, am not the one who needs to be convinced that there are false reports. The conversation was mostly about how going through law enforcement is better than a title Ix university process. I think there’s a place for both, but was kind of feeling like rape and sexual assault were being minimized.
Just want to let you know, that even though what you experienced was rape, it isn’t the unwanted sex that is really the problem. It is the violence, the powerlessness, and often the words. Things like “you stupid fucking bitch, you goddamn worthless whore, why are you fighting? I know you are liking it. I know this is what you want because you are worthless… just shut up bitch” on repeat, until they decide to stop. Or saying those things after, when you feel used and discarded. Or them just telling everyone those things and laughing, encouraging others to do the same. All that takes away your safety, autonomy, and the sense that you have any power over what happens in your life. Also knowing that everyone knows or that you need to keep it secret because of shame and fear that everyone will see you the way your rapist did. Basically powerlessness sucks. Your story of prison was powerlessness. So is rape, but as you note to varying degrees. Just think, you’d feel differently about prison if you got a high five from a buddy and played cards the whole time…
Glenn--are you aware that Brown University has been sued a number of times for due process violations under Title IX? Six of them with actual decisions were from accused students, and the university has lost every time. It's incredible...
The progressive snake is eating its own tail. All ye who are entangled with it, abandon hope! To co-op your own stupidity, it’s time to “move on.”
Oh we knew she was a progressive to start, the correction of ‘gender’ instead of sex locked the stamp on any doubt.
And good interview. Learned quite a bit. Thank you both
Wow, what an interview!
Shoutout to LB, this could not have been an easy interview for her. She talked at the very end about the individual in OK (I believe it was OK) that she disagreed with politically 100%, but they were in agreement about the core value of justice, evidence and proof being necessary to sustain a problematic conviction. I feel the same way about LB's positions--don't know that I agree with her politically about anything (her team is not my team), but her basic decency about due process, truth, fact is inspiring!
Professor Loury- Congratulations on “The Bradley Prize.” My goal is to win the Bradley when I am Loury’s age. Hello Laura Bazelon. I live in SF and retired from SF DPH at age 55 in Dec 2021. Do you have an email address? “Due Process” was the phrase that police used when complaining to the feds about 2020 Defund. “Due Process” is the phrase I used when complaining about ideological mania in public health in 2020. USF should provide a Title-9 orientation to all men on campus at the beginning of each school year. The orientation should focus on instructing men to err on side of caution. And USF men should never have sex with a USF woman. The risk of institutional harm is too high. Remember the “mattress-student at Columbia”? Better to date a woman off-campus. And I don’t like the idea of heterosexual women using dating apps. I don’t think it’s safe for women. You text back and forth with date candidate- but you don’t know the person. Any Tinder guy could text in a normal manner, but still could be a weirdo.
This sort of conversation represents the best of TGS for me. Both Glenn and Lara displayed profound humility in confronting their own collaborations with their respective tribal affiliations, and isn't that where growth happens? Today, I appreciate 'Innocent until proven guilty' with fresh eyes. Thanks to both speakers.
This is tough stuff. The thing I have a hard time understanding is, even "progressives" will, on average, give birth to a boy 50% of the time. Don't they understand their own flesh and blood is vulnerable to the mockery of justice these trials are, or are they in some denial about THEIR kid ever doing anything of which these kangaroo courts could ever find them guilty?
This was an excellent conversation. I found Lara’s fear of speaking out frightening in itself. It shows how riddled with litmus tests our society has become.
I must say Lara should be praised for following her principles and taking this young man's case at risk to her career and social life. I wished more people would think long and hard about their values and principles and then stand on them.
With that said, I'm a bit dismayed after hearing how outrageously false this case was to being with and only got more outrageous as she described it that she hesitated so long to take it in the first place. To me it almost seemed like if the accused man in this case was white, she wouldn't have taken the case and he likely would have had the disciplinary action against him stand and the restraining order in place. This is not directed at Lara; does it take these injustices to happen to non-white people before self proclaimed justice warriors care about justice and civil liberties? Last I checked principles shouldn't care about your skin color, religion, sex, etc..
Again I'm very glad she finally did take it, and I hope he can sue for a big payment from the people who tried to ruin his life.
It doesn't matter why Lara took up this particular case. Every single occurrence is an injustice; to take on any of these cases for any reason is a worthy cause.
Winning this case was important, but what is exemplary is how Lara acted afterward. She was not happy with a victory for just her client; she is working for due process for all those so accused under Title 9. That is the profundity, the monumentality, of what she is doing. She began working on a particular case for a particular defendant. Now, she is advocating for everyone accused under this system, regardless of skin color. She took the specific and made it universal. This is truly an action to applaud.
I almost disregarded the first episode when Glenn had Lara on, but it ended up being one of the most memorable episodes I have seen. Fortunately she’s not a one hit wonder, this discussion was wonderful as well!
One thing I wish Bazelon and other Title IX reform advocates (especially around due process) would address is whether universities quietly pushed for the Trump/Devos-era Title IX reforms. Of course they'll never admit it, but it must grow tiresome being sued by so many young men who have been wrongly accused of sexual assault and who then go on to win lawsuits against their universities. It's always been my suspicious that universities wanted Trump to pursue these reforms, but I might be totally wrong about this, since universities are just as often sued by alleged victims for not doing enough to help them.
I don't think universities cared much about respondents, and I've not heard of any instance where a university actually wanted the DeVos reforms. In fact, they try very hard NOT to implement those rules. That's why there are two track adjudication at these schools--Title IX with due process protections, and Conduct Code (this includes off campus incidents which would be Title IX if it happened on campus) with few if any protections. It's much more damaging to their reputations to be sued by an accuser or be investigated by the Ed. Dept OCR--so they are willing to take the risk.
Thank you for this episode, Glenn! I am familiar with Bazelon's work from having taught a college course on Title IX and campus sexual assault for several years. I use the racial disparity angle as a trojan horse to illustrate just how unjust and unfair the Title IX process is to the accused. It works a lot better than the Duke rape hoax case. Notably, my students still think the white lacrosse players are guilty "of something" even after watching an excellent documentary on the entire saga including the accuser recanting and admitting that nothing happened. But when I raise the specter of Black men being accused by white women and expelled, having their college careers ruined, it confuses their ideologue brains enough to enable them to think critically. I thank people like Lara Bazelon and reporter Emily Yoffee for bringing to light the racial disparities in Title IX allegations because without them there would be even less sympathy for the accused and the utter lack of due process provided by Title IX.
I was thinking along those lines as well when she mentioned that it was her students who encouraged her to take the case. I’m not sure if they would’ve been able to recognize the injustice had it been a white guy. The Duke lacrosse team also came to mind. To this day, I think most people have little sympathy for those young men whose lives were ruined from those accusations even though the accusations were proven to be fallacious.
First of all GREAT conversation! I just wanted to point out that although Trump is questioning the 2020 election and those that follow him agree, I'd like to recall what Hilary Clinton and the mainstream media did to Trumps for 4 full years. Calling him illegitimate and that the election was stolen because Russia interfered. However, it has been proven Hilary's campaign paid for the document that the FBI used to go after Trump and everyone now knows it was all a campaign hit job. So, where did the election integrity question start, seems like in 2016 with all facts considered. I am not saying Trump is right but he is not the first person to say an election was stolen, so please to those who have selective memories.
Um what? Clinton did win the popular vote *and* there were multiple incidences of coordination of the Trump campaign with Russia which have been established, even if not a legal “collusion” or “conspiracy”. Hilary’s campaign paid for the famous dossier which was raw intel, ie leads — some proved right and some proved wrong. He was never held legally responsible for any of it. He is the first president to refuse to concede. It’s kind of an honor thing for most presidents, even if they believed the process was tainted/ unfair/biased. Only Trump said, if I can’t have it… burn it down!
1: Clinton winning the popular vote - is not disputed. Trump won the electoral. 2: I am not convinced of Trump campaign as coordination with Russia. See AG Barr ruling. 3: Pence acted heroically on Jan 6 by refusing to go along with Trump’s attempt to lie about the election outcome. Shame on Trump. 4: Harris really did immediately announce plans to undermine the legitimate electoral outcome of 2016.
As for 4. I think, at the time, a lot of people could not believe Trump could win without shenanigans. Right or wrong, I don’t know. It was a very close election and scandal and shady people follow Trump around like that dirt cloud that follows pigpen in old peanuts cartoons. I would agree the “not my president” movement was basically the same as the “let’s go Brandon” on the right is now. It’s sad to see the way everything is being torn apart. As for me, I remember in the beginning of his presidency, I thought he should impeached for emoluments violations and the fact that he maintained his business interests, and in fact used his office to profit in a way no other federal employee could. I don’t remember Kamala wanting to impeach, but I suspect it was because of illegal/ questionably legal things he did — but maybe not! maybe it was a primal scream like todays let’s go Brandon…
After the election I felt so betrayed by a non-informed news media that I turned off all news. Besides in 4 years it wouldn’t be Yang vs. Butigeig and Trump vs. Cruz on election day, all I need to know was how to read name of political party on election day. My years-long break from news caused my shock when I saw CNN or MSNBC anchor on TB at friend’s house. Fox bias in opposite direction.
I agree with this 100%, I kept consuming news, but have observed it slide into something that is really biased. That doesn’t bother me too much, when you watch opinion, you should expect opinion. What really gets me is the selective choice of facts to present and the supposedly objective media “characterizing” facts to support a “narrative”. News used to do that a little, but it is really out of control now. It makes me sad. No one can improve things if we can’t be honest about what the problems even are!
3 days after 2016 election, Kamala Harris on TV news, “We are going to impeach”.
We live in a world of nonsense. X hits Y with a stick 25 times. No one cares. Y hits X with a stick once and it's THE HORROR THE HORROR. Logic and rational thinking no longer matter to a large segment of our population.