October 03, 201810/03/2018 From the Right

NC colleges in national spotlight during Kavanaugh hearings, but don't forget Duke

With the main accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, being a UNC Chapel Hill alumna, and a new witness against his character being an NC State professor, the Triangle's schools are getting pulled into this embarrassing national circus. But for those who remember when another NC school was at the center of a high-profile sexual assault accusation, #BelieveAllWomen falls a little flat.

In the age of #MeToo, we see men in the halls of virtually every power structure (whether it's the entertainment industry, the church or politics) being credibly accused of using their positions to take advantage of women. While this is a great moment in many ways, because it exposes evil men for who they really are and gives women who've been abused a path to reclaiming their lives, that doesn't mean all men accused are guilty and all women who accuse are truthful.

Yes, listen to the Wolfpacker and Tar Heel, but don't forget the lesson of the Blue Devils

Social media has a way of turning controversy into a feeding frenzy of red meat for your own political biases. If you are inclined to think that Republican men (and "straight, white men of privilege" in general) are inclined to be abusers of power, the story of Dr. Ford will seem believable and her testimony compelling. Her years of struggle afterwards, including her time at UNC where she says her grades were affected by the incident, will then appear very sympathetic. 

Those same people will then see stories shared at rapid pace backing-up this side of the story, including one from NC State University professor Chad Ludington. He says when they attended Yale together, Brett was a bit more of a drinker than he led on. 

"In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale. When I watched Brett and his wife being interviewed on Fox News on Monday, and when I watched Brett deliver his testimony under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, I cringed. For the fact is, at Yale, and I can speak to no other times, Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker. I know, because, especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man's face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail."

If you're a conservative, you have a lot invested in this too though. We want to see a person in his mold on the Supreme Court — and soon. We are more likely to see Sen. Feinstein's last-minute revealing of these allegations as a delay tactic so Kavanaugh will not be confirmed before November's elections. With this beginning skepticism and the complete lack of corroboration, it shouldn't be hard to see why we don't immediately #BelieveAllWomen.

It's also important to note that "all women" do not always tell the truth. They do have cause to lie and at times they do. It's not just speculation. It's backed by history and science. First for the history. Right here in Durham, NC, a Duke lacrosse team party of "straight, white, privileged males" went wrong after one of the exotic dancers hired decided to go rogue. It was wrong of them to hire her in the first place, but that doesn't justify what happened next.

The same social justice mob that is circling around Judge Kavanaugh decided, before much at all was known, that Crystal Gail Mangum (the dancer in question) was not to be doubted and that the lacrosse players' story was not to be heard. After these young men's reputations were thoroughly dragged through the mud, Attorney General (now governor) Roy Cooper said there was a "tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations” and declared the young men innocent. The Durham district attorney, Mike Nifong, was also convicted of contempt, disbarred and disgraced.

So... #BelieveMostWomen?

Where does that lead us? Is this just one rare exception where men were innocent and women guilty in the accuser vs. accused dynamic? Should we still start with a presumption of guilt for all men and truthfulness for women? The social science suggests no. 

Work by University of Minnesota's Nicki Crick on gender differences in aggression has been cited thousands of times since she has released her findings. The New York Times has even written a full magazine work-up on it called, "Girls just want to be mean."

The findings were, basically, that men are indeed more physically aggressive (as the jails packed full of men would suggest), but women are more "relationally" aggressive and will attack people's reputations if they feel it necessary. As the NYT article quote another academic as saying, "Within the hidden culture of aggression, girls fight with body language and relationships instead of fists and knives." Destroying another person's good name through gossip, rejection and other social tools is a more typical form of "female aggression." 

So, it's a little more complicated than the men = victimizer, women = victim dynamic. In fact, with men being more likely to do physically aggressive acts like sexual abuse and assault, and women more likely to attack a person's reputation, both possibilities are present in cases like this. This means not only is it possible that a man like Kavanaugh may attack a woman, but also that a woman like Ford may attempt to destroy his character if she feels he is threat. 

Let's not forget the lesson of Duke as we listen to the testimony of UNC's Ford and NC State's Ludington.