Sunday, August 5, 2018

Innocent Until Proven Guilty By Gossip in the Media




It is difficult to keep your job and your reputation if you are famous and accused of a crime. There are individuals and special interest groups that will destroy us if we seem to be a vulnerable target. 

Men accused of "sexual harassment" are especially vulnerable. If they are in college the hanging will very likely be swift and filled with hysterical accusations but little if any right to a fair trial. There are numerous cases of false chargers against male groups that ended with complete exoneration weeks after the organization and its members were hounded, publicly scorned, and punished academically. 

A fraternity at the University of Virginia was accused of sexual attacks against a young woman in Rolling Stone Magazine. The group was sanctioned by the President and the members attacked by the President. The fraternity and all men were found to be innocent and the magazine and woman who charged them to found to be lying. The president of Virginia attacked the organization and the men and yet was never held accountable. She recently retired with no regrets. 

When I serve as Associate Dean of Students at Cincinnati we were always careful to give every student due process if he or she was accused of wrongdoing. But with great pressure from the Obama administration due process was not applied and many schools are now having to pay millions of dollars for following the DC demands. 

We cannot afford to allow the mantra of "Innocent until proven guilty" to become "Innocent until accused by gossipy liars, and social media". 


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