The Wall Street Journal is about as publicity stunt-y as The New York Times’ Style section in terms of publishing articles guaranteed to kick up a fuss. But the WSJ, being owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp (Fox News, etc.), leads with a conservative slant. This week’s case-in-point is an op-ed by lawyer Judith Grossman, whose son was accused of vaguely stated sexual misconduct by an ex-girlfriend at his college and subjected to a messy campus tribunal process.
You can read the entire piece here, but the summarized version is that her son was accused by an ex-girlfriend of “nonconsensual sex,” as Grossman puts it, “that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship a few years earlier.” She then describes the “nightmare” her son and family endured through the college’s tribunal process. Her son was given written notice of the charges against him from the campus Title IX officer, listed in “a barrage of vague statements.” Writes Grossman, “The letter lacked even the most basic information about the acts alleged to have happened years before. Nor were the allegations supported by any evidence other than the word of the ex-girlfriend.” During the two-hour tribunal process, her son was grilled by the campus. Eventually the charges against him were dismissed — an outcome, Grossman implies, attributed to the fact he has a lawyer for a mother who was able to advise him on how to handle it. Keep reading »
