Justice Versus “Social” Justice

I saw this story posted on The Twitter:

The Columbia University student targeted by a mattress-carrying protester filed a lawsuit Thursday against the school, arguing that it failed to shield him from harassment even though police and campus authorities refused to pursue rape charges against him.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court,Jean-Paul Nungessersaid the school engaged in gender bias by allowing him to be subjected to a hostile and intimidating learning environment.

The hostile environment was created, the lawsuit says, by the ongoing protest of fellow studentEmma Sulkowicz, also known as the “mattress girl.”

Mr. Nungesser, a German citizen, said the ensuing publicity has hurt his chances of remaining in the U.S., given that his job prospects have been hurt by the publicity surrounding the case.

The students engaged in sexual activity in August 2012, butMr. Nungessersays the encounter was consensual, whileMs. Sulkowiczsays she was raped.

A university tribunal ultimately foundMr. Nungessernot responsible, after whichMs. Sulkowiczlaunched her highly publicized protest.

She was invited by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Democrat, to attend this year’s State of the Union address for her “Carry the Weight” campaign, which has been emulated at other campuses nationwide.

A university spokesman declined comment, according to the Associated Press.

I am unfamiliar with the story, but straight away I am rooting for the victim, the German student falsely accused of rape but this deranged young women carrying the mattress around campus. Here we have a school run by liberal fanatics and they could not find something to use against the guy so we have to assume he is the most innocent man on earth.

Putting that aside, these schools are run by adults who refuse to do their duty as adults in charge of young people. This woman with the mattress should have been expelled. She was given every chance to make her case and failed. To then make a mockery of the school with this protest should have led the adults to step in and send Ms. Sulkowicz packing.

I’m deeply intolerant of protests for exactly what we are seeing here. This young woman is not protesting; she is harassing another student. That’s the nature of protests in general. They are intended to harass the citizenry in order to compel behavior that would not happen otherwise. It’s just another form of mob rule.

Curious about the details, I googled “Jean-Paul Nungesser” and found this story at Slate, the journal of the modern lunatic.

This year, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz became an emblem for how colleges mistreat victims of sexual assault on campus. After Sulkowicz reported an alleged rape to the Columbia administration and the college found the accused not responsible, she began hauling her 50-pound dorm mattress across campus as a powerful symbol of an adjudication system she claims is confounding, ineffectual, and unfair. The act has grown into Sulkowicz’s undergraduate art thesis project and inspired a national movement, Carry That Weight, that advocates on behalf of campus sexual assault survivors. In the shadow of her campaign stands Paul Nungesser, the student Sulkowicz says raped her. Today, the New York Timespublished the first interview with Nungesser himself. It’s the most intimate, high-profile portrait so far of a college student who was accused of rape—one who says that the system has failed him, too.

In his time at Columbia, three female students have accused Nungesser of sexual misconduct. He’s denied each accusation, and has not been formally disciplined by the university. When one student accused Nungesser of groping her at a party, the university initially decided against him, but he successfully appealed the ruling. After another student accused him of intimate partner violence, the university dropped the case when the alleged victim stopped cooperating with the investigation. And when Sulkowicz accused Nungesser of raping her, Columbia declined to find him responsible, citing lack of evidence.

In lieu of any formal finding, Nungesser had paid a social cost. “He has gotten used to former friends crossing the street to avoid him,” Ariel Kaminer reports in theTimes. “He has even gotten used to being denounced as a rapist on fliers and in a rally in the university’s quadrangle. … His name has been plastered on campus bathrooms and published in easily searchable articles. His face is visible online, too, in photos that detractors have posted as warnings to strangers.” Because Columbia failed to discipline Nungesser, Columbia bloggers, activists, and supporters have stepped in to exact their own punishment, and national media has fanned the flames.

It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Nungesser here, even as the opinions he airs on intimate partner violence—“Outside of a forced marriage or kidnapping, it just seems very hard to believe that a person would over and over again put themselves in a situation where they could expect this kind of behavior to occur”—are odious. In a perfect world, Nungesser would never feel compelled to pontificate on that particular issue in the Times. As Sulkowitz has emerged as a symbol of disenfranchised survivors, Nungesser has come to symbolize all the entitled young men who take what they want and never pay the consequences. That’s not quite fair. No matter what actually happened in Nungesser’s three cases, campus rape is a systemic problem, and he’s just one man. Forcing Nungesser to pay personal consequences for the broken system is not going to fix it. Sulkowicz’s mother, Sandra Leong, rightly (and very generously and humanely) frames Nungesser’s experience as an unfortunate byproduct of the university’s failure to appropriately adjudicate sexual assault cases. “I think by sweeping it under the rug [Columbia has] subjected him to a very painful, scarring experience,” she told the Times. “I don’t see it as Emma’s fault because she just had to do what she had to do but I do see it as the school’s fault.”

I’ve never heard the phrase “intimate partner violence” because there’s no reason to have this sterile, banal expression. It’s the sort of thing the bureaucratic mind conjures rather than using the phrase “rough sex.” The former says nothing while the latter is clear and leaves little room for interpretation.

When you read the story behind all of this, it is not hard to see what happened. Boy meets girl. Boy finally bags girl. Boy gets bored and finds new girl. Girl gets pissed and seeks revenge. That’s not a scenario social justice warriors like the Salon writer can comprehend. Theirs is a world haunted solely by black hats and white hats.

It’s why the Salon writer dismisses the witch hunt against this kid and unilaterally declares that rape is a “systematic problem on campus” even though statistics show the exact opposite. The college campus is one of the safest places on earth, especially for women. Again, more men are raped in prison than women are raped in the whole country.

Finally, note the perfect world imagined by Amanda Hess. In that world, men would not be allowed to say things that Ms. Hess finds odious. Perhaps she would simply have them killed or have their tongues ripped out, I don’t know. What I do know is fanatical lunatics like Ms. Hess are always on the business end of the murder machine, clearing the field for the new utopia.

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james wilson
james wilson
9 years ago

At bottom, the feminist feels she is raped because the bad boy-rogue-cad that her ideology hates and which her DNA craves pushed her buttons and moved on to the next conquest. Essentially, she hates herself; there’s more satisfaction in changing the world than in changing yourself. And a bigger support group.

Kathleen
Kathleen
9 years ago

I don’t feel sympathy for Nungesser at all. He placed himself in a situation THREE times where there was an accusation of “sexual misconduct”. To be clear, I don’t think, based on the available evidence, that he is a rapist. But just like the drunk-girl-at-frat-party has to bear some measure of responsibility for allowing herself to be in a situation where she can be taken advantage of, Nungesser has to bear responsibility for his situation.

nae
nae
Reply to  Kathleen
9 years ago

Well, there has been some chatter that Sulkowicz colluded with others who accused him with other charges. He said, she said never really ends.

ed in texas
ed in texas
9 years ago

From the court doc (they’re online), it seem less a case of “Boy finally bags Girl” than “Boy commits unforgivable crime of blowing off Girl to chase different Girl”, after a prolonged sort of relationship.
At least that’s the story he’s selling. You might note he’s suing the university (deep pocket), not her.

BillH
BillH
9 years ago

They’re right about the root problem. The guy obviously has loose zipper syndrome, which appears to run rampant among younger (>60) generations.

Walt
Member
9 years ago

I hope the young German wins his suit against the University and it makes him rich. He has been humiliated around the world and deserves to be compensated.

UKer
UKer
Reply to  Walt
9 years ago

I too hope he wins if he is innocent of all charges. But, the system that has been created these days allows any situation to be judged again and again and revised continually in ‘a new light’

It is similar to the way the Soviets re-wrote history or airbrushed people out of the photos of the gang of miserable old men on the steps of the Kremlin. There is in the leftie world no such thing as a fact, only interpretations and re-interpretations and new ‘thoughts’ to propel their silly agenda forward.

Walt
Member
Reply to  UKer
9 years ago

Then again, the bloke who shot Trayvon Martin was found innocent and so was the police officer from Ferguson. The filth mob was at their respective doors baying for blood too. I’m clutching at straws I know but I still feel like the dyke is holding back the sea. The little boy is running out of fingers though.

el baboso
Member
9 years ago

I think that you are the first commentator, liberal or conservative, who has pointed out the obvious: that is is about rejection/stigma rather than violence. Based on her texts, she was pretty kinky. My guess is that Deutsch-boy bragged or tattled, word got back around, her reputation was on the line, and she went into “deny everything, admit nothing, make counter-accusations” mode. The SJWs picked up her story, and from there, she was propelled by their blandishments and praise (your story is so important to advance the cause… oh, you’re so brave!). This stuff is Salem witch trials meets post-modernism… Read more »