Mainstream Media Turning Skeptical on Campus Rape Moral Panic?

It may just be a blip, or it may be a turning point, but Newsweek has come out with an article that takes a rather skeptical view of the notion that a rape epidemic afflicts college campuses. Focusing on Paul Nungesser, the man who was falsely accused of rape by “mattress girl” (Emma Sulkowicz), it details how rape accusations that were rejected by Columbia University, and by prosecutors in New York City because the convenient politically correct truth for social justice warriors, and much of the mainstream media.

It also details how accused males are increasingly suing when they are denied due process rights in campus kangaroo courts, and pressing claims of sex discrimination. From guys assumed to be guilty simply because they are male, such claims are plausible.

CNN

On the other hand we have CNN, which aired “The Hunting Ground” — a documentary that accepts all the standard cant about a “rape culture” and a “rape epidemic.” Robbie Soave of Reason debunks the whole enterprise, showing that it is a piece of advocacy rather than journalism. And indeed, 19 Harvard Law professors (not a particularly conservative bunch) condemned the documentary for distorting the facts about a Harvard student. Even the liberal Slate published a critique of the film.

Liberal Hypocrisy

It is interesting that liberals, who have always been scrupulous about due process and “innocent until proven guilty” where robberies, ordinary assaults, murders and all other sorts of crimes are concerned, should suddenly junk all that when rape is the issue. What we have here, of course, is a set of social biases, rather than a set of principled convictions. Liberals want to view ordinary criminals as victims of social injustice. But white males on campus, being the stereotyped oppressor group, need swift, summary, harsh justice. And given that they are white males, we need not worry excessively about whether they actually did what they were accused of.