ASHE SCHOW: Ezra Klein favors extreme ‘yes means yes’ law because of a myth.
Klein, a supposed explanatory journalist, accepts hook, line and sinker that one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college.
Forget that this statistic was derived from a survey of just two colleges (Klein does note this) and the survey’s own researchers acknowledged that it had a low response rate, Klein assumes this is a solid representation of what life is like on college campuses for women. Glenn Kessler, fact-checker at the Washington Post, even debunked this survey.
But it appears Rahm Emanuel’s idiom that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” has been adapted to “never let a good myth go to waste,” as Klein bases his support for the California law around one.
Klein dreams of a world where men are afraid they’ll be branded rapists for having any contact with a woman (as I’ve written before, this is already happening).
“That culture of sexual entitlement is built on fear; fear that the word ‘no’ will lead to violence, or that the complaint you bring to the authorities will be be [sic] ignored, or that the hearing will become a venue for your humiliation, as the man who assaulted you details all the ways you were asking for it,” Klein wrote. “‘No Means No’ has created a world where women are afraid. To work, ‘Yes Means Yes’ needs to create a world where men are afraid.”
A quick correction for that paragraph: It is not necessarily “the man who assaulted you,” but rather “the man who allegedly assaulted you.” And it’s not him detailing “all the ways you were asking for it,” but rather “presenting his case that you consented,” something this law doesn’t allow for.
Klein notes the “nightmare scenario” where a false accusation is leveled upon a man for whatever reason, but notes how rare such situations are, even though there is a growing number of young men suing their universities for what they claim are exactly such incidents. And this law will certainly do nothing to reduce those numbers.
“This is, in a way, the definition of what it means to be entitled: the rules are designed to protect you from dangers that barely exist at the expense of exposing others to constant threat,” Klein wrote.
But those “rules” are due process rights being denied for students on a college campus. Rape and sexual assaults are crimes, and college campuses are acting as judge, jury and executioner for these cases — without the expertise needed. So Klein is essentially arguing, along with other supporters of the “yes means yes” law, that it’s okay to disregard an accused person’s defense if they’re being accused of sexual assault on a college campus.
It’s getting harder to see why any young man would want to go to college. Or vote Democrat.