Men suffer false rape accusations on campus

One of the greatest legal rights that we have under the U.S. Constitution is the presumption of innocence in the event that we are accused of committing a crime. The Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments provide us with due process, a speedy and public trial and equal protection under U.S. laws.Then why has the climate surrounding rape accusations in this country taken such a disturbing turn towards a presumption of guilt, particularly the guilt of accused men?

The Rice Wellness Center has a Web site with invaluable information regarding rape and sexual assault, both on college campuses and outside the hedges. While the ubiquitous one-in-four rape statistic has always been grossly unreliable at worst and suspect at best, the point of fact remains that rape can happen to anyone. I do not dispute the reality of rape. To do such a thing would be careless and insensitive, especially in Rice’s environment of glorifying binge drinking and blitzed hookups — a sure-fire way to raise the probability of sexual assault.

Indeed, just this past October, Rice University Police Department Lieutenant Dianna Marshall stated at a sexual violence forum that about two or three sexual assaults were reported to RUPD last year.

But, with the undeniable reality of Rice’s celebratory mindset towards intoxicated sexual encounters, two or three seems like a gross underestimation of how many assaults may have occurred.

I believe that everyone should educate themselves beyond the “No means no” rhetoric of rape talk and instead focus on the actions that actually constitute sexual assault — especially on Rice’s wet campus. I do not take issue with groups like Students Organized Against Rape, which does a great service with its education programs. What I do take issue with is the way so-called feminist jurisprudence injects itself into the national and collegiate dialogue about rape and sexual assault. Women who make sexual assault claims against men are no longer treated like plaintiffs in a courtroom subject to the burden of proof. Instead, it seems as if rape claims are granted instant evidentiary value and justification. As a consequence, the women who make such claims — a number of which are undoubtedly bogus — are approached by public perception as demigods and victims, while their alleged attackers are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

In Febrary 2001, a female Rice undergrad sent out a mass e-mail accusing another student of raping her friend. The e-mail warned: “Don’t let yourself or your best girl friends be the next victims!” The male, a new student at Rice and innocent of any wrongdoing, was forced to release an anonymous statement to the Thresher to try to recover his barely-formed freshman reputation (“Statement from accused male student,” Feb. 16, 2001).

What compelled the female student to write the mass e-mail was neither evidence nor consent of disclosure from her “victim” friend. It was idiotic, and false, campus gossip — not unlike the kind Rice feverishly enjoys the morning after a booze-filled, sexually-infused public party.

The Wellness Center warns us: “No one deserves to be sexually assaulted.” We hear statements like this time and again when parties involving alcohol and the potential for drunken sex sprout up around campus. It would be nice if the Wellness Center would include the following on their Web site as well: “No one deserves to be falsely accused of sexual assault.”

Rape is terrible. But hurling bogus charges to excuse a lapse in judgment is a disservice to both men and actual rape victims. Like nearly all men, I am not a rapist. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have never been and will never be a rapist. What is not so certain is that I will never be accused as such. In the event that this does occur in my life, all I want as a man is due process without reactionaries calling me a rapist or treating me like a criminal just because it feels like the self-righteous thing to do.

The Constitution does, after all, protect that right.

Philip Arthur Moore graduated from Lovett College in 2006.

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