Double Standard

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but I’ve been meaning to write on a popular subject lately. This Duke Lacrosse situation has been bugging me since the story first broke. I write some of this with the risk of sounding sympathetic to sex offenders. Make no mistake; people who commit crimes (sex crimes in particular) should be punished to the full extent of the law. But I have a hard time with the way that people accused of committing a sex crime – namely men – are treated with such a double standard when it comes to these cases.

It isn’t fair that the accuser’s identity is kept secret while the images and faces of the accused are flaunted about in the media. This is done partly so that women will feel free to press charges without having to suffer the indignity that accompanies such publicity. Meanwhile, the men who are accused are paraded around the media like criminals throughout the proceedings, before any evidence is even presented.

Two years ago several BYU football players were accused of committing a gang rape. The names of the players were printed in several papers and web sites, ruining their reputations, while the identity of the accuser was always quietly guarded. Before the case could even be brought to trial, it was discovered that the female accuser had lied about the rape because she felt guilty and embarrassed about having engaged in consensual sex with multiple football players at a party. Even after bringing false charges, the whore’s name was still never printed, nor did any media publication issue an apology to the players for portraying them as rapists.

Now the same thing has been going on at Duke for over a month. The entire Lacrosse team has been vilified, despite the fact that ABSOLUTELY NO EVEIDENCE OF ANY WRONG DOING HAS BEEN PRESENTED! So far we’ve seen that (1) there is no DNA evidence implicating any Duke Lacrosse player, (2) photos have shown that the accuser arrived at the scene that night already having sustained several injuries, (3) the accuser was “passed out drunk” (according to police reports) when police were called to pick her up, (4) the girl who was with the accuser that night has no illegal activity to report, (5) the accuser never mentioned Duke, lacrosse, a party, any lacrosse players, or anything relating to it to the doctors who tended to her that night, and (5) not one member of the Lacrosse team felt strongly enough to come forward with any significant information.

We’ve also seen 47 scholarship athletes loose a year of competition, a senior class see their careers end prematurely, several incoming recruits sent to competing schools, and a damn good coach who had nothing to do with any of this, Mike Pressler, forced to resign after 16 exemplary years at Duke (including three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and a trip to last year's national final).

Today two individual players were indicted in the rape case. I wont print their names (even though their names and faces are all over the national news) because they have not been found guilty of a crime. Weather they are guilty or not, they will spend the rest of their tenure in college, and long after, identified by the accusations brought against them.

These two boys may have done something horrible, they may have not. That is for a jury to decide. For the last month, it seems that Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong has been determined to keep searching until he finds something. (Don’t you think it’s strange that a fourth search warrant was also filed today? Why are they still searching for evidence if they have already indicted the players?) I guess he kind of has to though, seeing as how he went on record saying that he was confident that a crime had been committed before bothering to find any evidence. It would look pretty bad for a DA who’s up for re-election later this year to announce that he knows a crime was committed and then not prosecute anyone.

Without a super secret piece of surprise evidence, the case will resort to a “he said, she said” situation, at which point the accusers reputation will be destroyed in the courts in an effort to discredit her character. If that happens in this case, it’s a slam-dunk for the defense. If the accused really did commit this crime, I hope they go to jail. If they didn’t, I feel sorry for what they will have to go through for the next several years. Anyway. I’m off to go buy a Duke Lacrosse T-shirt.