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dannno
06-01-2015, 01:56 PM
http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/01/central-allegation-in-rape-film-the-hunt



Central Allegation in The Hunting Ground Collapses Under Scrutiny
Undermines entire documentary

Robby Soave|Jun. 1, 2015 2:48 pm

The Hunting Ground, a documentary about campus sexual assault that features interviews with alleged survivors of rape, has been criticized ever since its February debut. The film was as polarizing as any other high-profile piece about the purported college rape crisis—victims’ rights groups praised it, civil libertarians expressed skepticism.

Today, that skepticism seems vindicated. Slate’s Emily Yoffe just published a comprehensive review of the alleged sexual assault of Harvard University law student Kamilah Willingham, one of documentary’s central purported victims. Yoffe found significant discrepancies between what The Hunting Ground claimed happened to Willingham and what actually happened; these differences are so stark that they call into serious question whether the accused student, Brandon Winston, did anything remotely criminal. Yoffe’s report deals a serious blow to The Hunting Ground’s credibility, undermining the film’s message that college is a place where innocent girls are preyed upon by sociopathic rapists.

From Slate:

I looked into the case of Kamilah Willingham, whose allegations generated a voluminous record. What the evidence (including Willingham’s own testimony) shows is often dramatically at odds with the account presented in the film.

Willingham’s story is not an illustration of a sexual predator allowed to run loose by self-interested administrators. The record shows that what happened that night was precisely the kind of spontaneous, drunken encounter that administrators who deal with campus sexual assault accusations say is typical. (The filmmakers, who favor David Lisak’s poorly substantiated position that our college campuses are rife with serial rapists, reject the suggestion that such encounters are the source of many sexual assault allegations.) Nor is Willingham’s story an example of official indifference. Harvard did not ignore her complaints; the school thoroughly investigated them. And because of her allegations, the law school education of her alleged assailant has been halted for the past four years.

The filmmakers present what happened between Kamilah Willingham and Brandon Winston as a terrifying warning to female college students and their parents, and a call to arms to government officials and college administrators. They offer the case as prima facie evidence that draconian regulations, laws, and punishments are required to end what they say is a scourge of sexual violence. But there is another story, which the filmmakers do not tell. It’s a story in which Willingham’s accusations are taken seriously and Winston’s actions are thoroughly investigated, first by Harvard University and later by the Middlesex County district attorney’s office. It’s a story in which neither the school nor the legal system finds that a rape occurred, and in which Willingham’s credibility is called seriously into question. It’s a story of an ambiguous sexual encounter among young adults that almost destroyed the life of the accused, a young black man with no previous record of criminal behavior. It’s a story that demonstrates how deeply the filmmakers’ politics colored their presentation of the facts—and how deeply flawed their influential film is as a result.

Read Yoffe’s full article here.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/doublex/2015/06/the_hunting_ground_a_closer_look_at_the_influentia l_documentary_reveals.single.html

Of the details Yoffe reported, I was must struck by the fact that Willingham had offered Winston—an old acquaintance who had come to Willingham’s apartment to rekindle their friendship—cocaine, which they both consumed. The night eventually included a trip to a bar in the company of a female friend of Willingham’s. All three drank copious amounts of alcohol, and Winston and the friend (“KF”) made out on the dance floor. If there was an initiator in this encounter, it seems to have been KF.

The trio returned to Willingham’s apartment at 2 a.m. And guess what? Their recollections of what happened aren’t that great (alcohol and cocaine tend to have that effect). All collapsed on a bed at various points; there was some kissing and sexual contact, but no intercourse. There’s not a shred of evidence that Winston did anything criminal to either of the girls, aside from Willingham’s error-riddled assertions that he did. Some of her claims border on parody: she insisted that Winston had raped KF and a bloody condom in her wastebasket was the proof. But according to a lab test, it was Willingham’s blood on the condom, not KF’s, and no traces of Winston’s DNA were found.

Yoffe wrote that Winston “was hardly a perfect gentleman” on the night in question, and perhaps that’s true. But only if one assumes that all men, by nature of their physiology (or perhaps because of rape culture), are always the instigators in sexual encounters, and that women have no sexual agency whatsoever, could it be said that he was a rapist.

For his non-criminal ungentlemanly conduct, Winston’s academic future was put on hold for years. He was prosecuted, and eventually acquitted of felony charges but convicted of a misdemeanor, “touching of a non-sexual nature.” The Hunting Grounds holds this up as a travesty of justice, and it is. But, as Yoffe persuasively argues, that victim in this case was the accused, not the accuser.

What does it say about the accuracy of the rest of the film, if it got this important story so wrong?

dannno
06-01-2015, 04:49 PM
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/11/bjs-rate-of-sexual-assault-shows-sharp-d


"The rate of rape and sexual assault was 1.2 times higher for nonstudents (7.6 per 1,000) than for students (6.1 per 1,000)."


Between 1997 and 2013, the rate of rape or sexual assault against women dropped by about 50 percent.

dannno
06-03-2015, 02:41 PM
I know some people like to avoid this topic, but this documentary is screening at college campuses across the nation, the White House, has been lauded by members of congress and will be screened on CNN.

The central story in the film which was detailed above was a case of false rape accusation.

The Slate article linked to above pointed out basically that Harvard Law student Kamilah Willingham was upset that the man she wanted had affections for a white girl (KF), so she filed rape charges.

The falsely accused male Brandon Winston was found not guilty in a court of law as well as by Harvard's own investigation. He will permitted to re-enroll at Harvard Law this year and continue his education towards a law degree. His reputation and future employment prospects are most likely severely damaged.

But in the meantime Kamilah Willingham is portrayed as a victim and hero in the new campus rape documentary.

juleswin
06-03-2015, 07:51 PM
Nice read. The sad part is that this witch hunt on men will discourage and maybe destroy the lives of a lot of men and also might increase the rate of false rape reports. The lies and misinformation will soon be repeated so many times that at some point everybody will take it as the truth.

Yea, all this serious political news about Rand is depressing the heck out of me, so I come here to vent :)

roho76
06-03-2015, 08:26 PM
Fuck women, masturbate instead. Honestly, it's more gratifying anyways. Only you, know yourself.

Full disclosure: I'm married so this advice is for everyone else.

Danke
06-03-2015, 08:32 PM
//

Origanalist
06-03-2015, 08:56 PM
It's all about the "rape culture" "patriarchy" blah blah blah blah. I find myself amazed that anyone smart enough to add two plus two believes any of this bullshit.

UWDude
06-03-2015, 11:06 PM
Between 1997 and 2013, the rate of rape or sexual assault against women dropped by about 50 percent.


So, porn use must have dropped 50% in that time, since everyone knows porn leads to rape.

dannno
06-03-2015, 11:19 PM
So, porn use must have dropped 50% in that time, since everyone knows porn leads to rape.

I know, porn was so much easier to come by before the internet.

surf
06-04-2015, 10:12 AM
there's a goal of about every male student in college (and in that age group). I wonder if that's changed.

dannno
06-04-2015, 10:50 AM
there's a goal of about every male student in college (and in that age group). I wonder if that's changed.


I don't know how many college students have rape on their list of goals :confused: I think the goal is to have consensual sex with as many women as possible.

The thing is there are a lot of cases like we see here - a male student has sex with multiple women, which certainly aligns with the goal you speak of - and one of the females becomes extremely bitter and regrets having sex with them. To get back at them, they can say they were raped. Now, most women would not do this, but there are a small percentage of entitled women who have princess syndrome and are used to getting what they want (think: flighty, selfish, not incredibly bright, rarely thinks about consequences of their actions). They might convince themselves that one of the nights they were together they may have had too much to drink and forgot what happened and even though it was consensual at the time now that their attitude about the person has changed they can now convince themselves that they didn't actually want to have sex and that they were raped. This takes some self-psychological manipulation.

That's just one scenario - the other scenario is to straight up lie about it for revenge.

Another scenario could be they got drunk, initiated sex with a new guy when that might not normally be within their character sober, woke up, realized they had sex and don't remembering initiating or consenting because they were drunk. Now, you can blame the male for having sex with a drunk female, but if the female is initiating and consenting the activity then I don't blame the male at all. I mean, the girl is also having sex with a drunk person (the guy) and if we were to be fair, they both committed the same crime of having sex with someone who was drunk. I mean, are we going to apply different standards and say that a woman has no responsibility to stop herself from consenting or initiating sex while drunk, but a male has the responsibility to stop himself from consenting or initiating sex while drunk? That doesn't seem very smart considering males have much less restraint in the sex department. We should certainly expect men to restrain themselves from raping, but not from having sex with a willing, consenting or initiating female.

Anyway, guys also rape in these situations at times and if you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt then they should go to jail. But the fact is alcohol really mucks up the waters and makes things very difficult to determine. That is why these school administrators who work in these rape crisis centers are getting red flagged by the feminists, because they don't always believe women who come in saying they got raped after they interview some friends and find out it appears they were drunk, they have little or no memory of the event and from everybody else's perspective it was totally consensual. Or they find out the guy was sleeping with another girl and it starts to look like she may have been doing it for revenge. So these administrators and some law enforcement become weary, and sometimes an actual rape of a woman who was drunk may slip by unfortunately. But how do you prove whether a woman was raped if she was drunk doesn't remember if she consented or not? That becomes very difficult.

Some would argue women should drink responsibly depending on what situation they are in, but then they get attacked by feminists who say that women should be able to get as drunk as they want whenever they want and have the right not to be raped. But they aren't understanding the full scope of the issue as I've explained it.

Warrior_of_Freedom
06-07-2015, 01:13 AM
there's no real education going on at most colleges. it's like a 4 year camp for adults

Mr.NoSmile
06-07-2015, 06:56 AM
Willingham's tale in particular was such a small part of the documentary that I'm wondering why this is even that big of a deal. Had it been one of the two main women it followed, I could see that, but Willingham's story is one of many in the film.

willwash
06-07-2015, 07:45 PM
It's all about the "rape culture" "patriarchy" blah blah blah blah. I find myself amazed that anyone smart enough to add two plus two believes any of this bullshit.

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”


― George Orwell, 1984

Warrior_of_Freedom
06-08-2015, 07:30 PM
the problem with these psychos is that promoting safety at college campuses suddenly turns into hatred towards everyone of a certain gender and blaming the gender not the individual, then it just loses all credibility. no diff than Hitler blaming all Jews for what happened to Germany and we all know what happened there.