India: Accused rapist lynched by mob, accusation later shown to be false

Video report on YouTube here. Articles here and here. Excerpts:

From first article:
'In a shocking twist to the Nagaland lynching case, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said that 'unconfirmed medical reports' show that the complainant in the case was not raped.

Speaking to NDTV, Gogoi said, "it is up to the Nagaland government to come out with the facts. We have received an unofficial report of no rape." The chief minister further said that the accused Syed Khan was not an illegal immigrant and was a citizen of India.

Moreover, the brother of the accused, Jamal Uddin Khan, corroborated Gogoi's remarks, saying his brother had been made a scapegoat in the case and that the police was hand-in-glove with certain Naga groups.

"Is the Nagaland government running a jungle raj? The girl who filed the rape complaint was my brother's wife's cousin. Nagaland police have said that the medical reports say she was not raped," Jamal Khan told NDTV, adding that several of his family members were working in the country's armed forces and they were all Indian.

The victim, however, said she was given money by the accused after the assault to remain silent. "Rumours that I did this for money are false. The police arrested him the very same day. I did not think he would be attacked like this," she said.'

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Even less-than-preponderance seems good enough for some

Story here. Excerpt:

'In late 2013 and early 2014, according to the Chronicle’s story, two women told classmates in group discussions at student retreats that Sulaimon had sexually assaulted them. Neither woman filed a complaint with law enforcement or Duke’s Office of Student Conduct, which investigates allegations of sexual misconduct on campus. And neither spoke to Chronicle reporters, whose story is based, in part, on the recollections of other students at those retreats and an “anonymous affiliate” of Duke basketball.

The “affiliate,” the Chronicle reported, heard about the allegations and brought them to Krzyzewski and several other administrators in spring 2014. This January, a second person — a Duke student who worked as a secretary in the basketball office — also told administrators about the rumors. On Jan. 29, Krzyzewski kicked Sulaimon off the team and released a statement saying the junior guard had been “unable to consistently live up to the standards required to be a member of our program.”

Federal law mandates university employees such as Krzyzewski report allegations of sexual violence and requires schools to investigate. But because the women wouldn’t agree to talk to school officials about their allegations, it would have been difficult for Duke to investigate. In statements this week, Duke administrators pledged they responded properly. On Thursday, Sulaimon’s attorney, who has refuted the accusations, told media outlets the university investigated last year and closed the case because the claims could not be substantiated.
...
The Chronicle reporters — Emma Baccellieri and Nick Martin — declined interview requests this week and referred questions to Chronicle Editor Carleigh Stiehm. Stiehm declined to answer questions.
...

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Court Denies Civil Rights of a Parent

Article here. Excerpt:

'A woman in Florida will be incarcerated unless she signs a consent form to have her four-year-old son circumcised. Although Heather Hironimus originally agreed with the boy’s father, Dennis Nebus, to have the boy’s foreskin removed, she has changed her mind. Her decision resulted in a court battle with the father.

Hironimus subsequently fled with her son; Nebus has not seen the boy since February 20th. Judge Jeffrey Gillen labeled the mother as ‘reprehensible’ for placing the boy in the public spotlight. Gillen has placed Hironimus in contempt of court. If she does not surrender the boy by Tuesday, she will become the object of a police search. He has ordered her to sign the consent form or face time in jail.

The boy is in no physical danger if the circumcision is not performed; the surgery is not necessary. However, the judge has made his decision in favor of the father. He blames the mother for placing the case and the little boy before excessive scrutiny.

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"Don’t reward law-breaking office"

Letter here.

'Civil-rights commissioners rightly objected to President Obama’s proposed budget increase for the lawbreakers at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work (“Civil rights commissioners: Rein in education admin. on ‘unlawful’ bullying, sexual assault policies,” Web, March 4).

As the commissioners note, the Office for Civil Rights has “made up” violations “out of thin air.” It has issued a flood of new rules that drive up schools’ expenses. It has done so without even codifying those rules, and without complying with the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to give notice of proposed rules and invite the public to comment on them before issuing them.

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"A Better World, Run by Women"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Research has found that women are superior to men in most ways that will count in the future, and it isn’t just a matter of culture or upbringing—although both play their roles. It is also biology and the aspects of thought and feeling shaped by biology. It is because of chromosomes, genes, hormones and brain circuits.

And no, by this I don’t mean what was meant by patronizing men who proclaimed the superiority of women in the benighted past—that women are lofty, spiritual creatures who must be left out of the bustle and fray of competitive life, business, politics and war, so that they can instill character in the next generation. I mean something like the opposite of that.

All wars are boyish. People point to Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir as evidence that women, too, can be warlike. But these women were perched atop all-male hierarchies confronting other hypermasculine political pyramids, and they were masculinized as they fought their way to the top.

There is every reason to think that a future national hierarchy staffed and led by women who no longer have to imitate men, dealing with other nations similarly transformed, would be less likely to go to war. But that’s not all. Sex scandals, financial corruption and violence are all overwhelmingly male.
...
As women come to hold more power and public authority, will they become just like men? I don’t think so. Show me a male brain, and I will show you a bulging amygdala—the brain’s center of fear and violence—densely dotted with testosterone receptors. Women lack the biological tripwires that lead men to react to small threats with exaggerated violence and to sexual temptation with recklessness.
...

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State board of education upholds boy’s suspension in pastry gun case

Story here. Excerpt:

'The Maryland State Board of Education upheld the suspension of a boy who chewed his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun, saying the punishment was warranted because of the disruption and other previous misconduct.

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Tom Hanks tells the Internet to "back off" with the manspreading flack

Story here. Excerpt:

'Tom Hanks is defending himself against "the Internet" after he took some heat for "manspreading," or taking up multiple seats on the subway.

Hanks got a lot of flak for a January photo that caught him casually taking up two seats on a No. 1 train right in the midst of the MTA's awareness campaign to combat the manspreading trend.

"I have an argument with the Internet because there I am on the subway and someone says, 'Oh, Hanks is doing the manspread. He's taking up too much space on the subway,'" the 58-year-old actor told Jill Martin Tuesday during a halftime interview at the Knicks game on MSG Network. "I want to say, 'Hey Internet, that subway car was half empty.' I'm not a guy who's going to take up space. There were like 14 seats that were free. So all I was, was relaxing on the train ride uptown. So hey Internet: back off."'

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Is Campus Rape Really An Epidemic?

Article here. Excerpt:

'“The Hunting Ground” presents one side of this fraught debate, and a very powerful and disturbing one at that. It features interviews with dozens of young women, and a few men, who recount horrifying details of their sexual assaults and subsequent lack of concern from school and law enforcement authorities.

It does not feature testimony or representation from the victims’ alleged attackers, or any voice dissenting from the narrative focus that campus rape has become something of an epidemic, which is either being overlooked or appallingly dealt with by authorities.
...
But there’s another side to these stories that “The Hunting Ground” consistently neglects: that of the alleged perpetrators. Instead, the film interviews activists, professors, and psychologists who reinforce the idea that women are prey for serial student rapists.

Diane Rosenfeld, a professor at Harvard Law School, makes the crude analogy that if young men had a “1 in 4 or 5 chance” of being killed in a drive-by shooting at college, their parents likely wouldn’t send them.

The movie also presents alarmist statistics without noting that many of them, like the 1 in 5 number cited by the Obama administration and analogized by Rosenfeld, have been widely disputed. Even New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who is pushing legislation to fine schools for underreporting rape, recently removed the statistic from her website.

In “The Hunting Ground,” students don’t even benefit from bringing lawyers into university disciplinary proceedings. “The message is clear: It’s ‘Don’t proceed through these disciplinary hearings,’” says lawyer and activist Colby Bruno, who represented a female student at Harvard in the film. “No matter what you do, you’re not going to win.”

Indeed, the movie never strays from its colleges-are-corrupt script.

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'Hunting Ground' Updated

Article here. Excerpt:

'The filmmakers behind “The Hunting Ground” -- a searing new documentary about how colleges mishandle cases of campus sexual assault -- have removed a statement featured in an earlier print of the film that claimed leaders at 35 institutions declined to be interviewed.

When the documentary premiered to rave reviews at the Sundance film festival in January, it concluded with the claim that the "presidents or chancellors of UNC, Harvard, Notre Dame, Florida State, Berkeley, Occidental and more than 35 other schools all declined to be interviewed for this film." Some critics,including at The New York Times, interpreted the phrase to mean that no senior college officials agreed to appear in the documentary.

As college leaders are often criticized for not speaking out about sexual assault, the statement served as a final damning detail in a documentary that is filled with them. But that particular detail -- or at least how it has been interpreted -- is not entirely accurate.'

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Public School Teaches Only White Men Capable Of Racism, Sexism

Story here. Excerpt:

'An image reportedly taken from a school textbook is making its rounds through social media this week for its declaration that minorities cannot be racist, and that women are incapable of sexism. The book in question is being identified as Is Everyone Equal, one of a series of books designed to expose kids to multiculturalism. Scroll down for an image of the offending page.

The passage at the center of this brewing controversy takes an inflexible position regarding which individuals are not allowed to be defined as sexists or racists. As it turns out, the textbook’s authors apparently believe anyone outside of white males are automatically innocent.

According to the book:

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Female UFC fighter refuses to fight a man, not wanting to help show a man hitting a woman

Article here. Excerpt:

'Even though Ronda Rousey says she could beat a man in her own weight class under the right circumstances, she will never be involved in a coed fight.

"It's not a reality," Rousey said to Doug Gottlieb when asked about fighting a man. "They're not gonna do anything like that. Fights are chaotic. Anything can happen. And there's no setting in which we should condone a man hitting a woman."

After Rousey defeated Cat Zingano in 14 seconds, many voiced their curiosity to see how well the bantamweight champion would do against a male. UFC president Dana White even made a joke about Rousey fighting a man after Zingano's beatdown. However, Rousey will have no part of it.

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NASCAR explains why Kurt Busch is still suspended

Article here. Excerpt:

A NASCAR spokesman further clarified why Kurt Busch remains indefinitely suspended during an appearance Friday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

The Delaware Attorney General's office declined to charge Busch Thursday morning for domestic assault citing "insufficient" evidence. Patricia Driscoll, Busch's ex-girlfriend, alleges Busch grabbed her and slammed her head against the wall three times in an incident last September in his motor home at Dover International Speedway.

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The other side of the campus sexual assault equation

Article here. Excerpt:

'A recent documentary (I use the term liberally) called the "Hunting Ground" purports to be a "startling expose of sexual assault on U.S. campuses, institutional cover-ups and the brutal social toll on victims and their families."

But the film, with the help of depressing and dramatic music, exposes only a one-sided view of the issue designed to tug at the heartstrings and make all sexual assault accusations look credible when not all are.

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The Children of the Prison Boom

Article here. Excerpt:

'The United States imprisons more people than any other country. This is true whether you measure by percentage of the population or by sheer, raw numbers. If the phrase mass incarceration applies anywhere, it applies in the good ol’ U. S. of A.

It wasn’t always this way. Rates of incarceration began rising as a result of President Reagan’s “war on drugs” in the 1980s (marijuana, for example), whereby the number of people imprisoned for non-violent crimes began climbing at an alarming rate. Today, about one-in-31 adults are in prison. his is a human rights crisis for the people that are incarcerated, but its impact also echoes through the job sector, communities, families, and the hearts of children. One-in-28 school-age children—2.7 million—have a parent in prison.

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SAVE: Joshua Strange, Falsely-Accused of Campus Rape, and His Mother Tell Their Story

Press release here. Excerpt:

'In a compelling video testimonial, former Auburn University student Joshua Strange and his mother Allison recount their ordeal arising from false accusations of rape and physical assault.

The video reveals that when the criminal justice system weighed in on the rape allegation, a grand jury handed up a “no bill,” indicating an absence of probable cause.

Despite that finding, Joshua Strange was expelled by Auburn University on November 7, 2011 and is barred from ever returning. His college transcript reflects these allegations and the subsequent student disciplinary committee ruling of expulsion.

The video can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/ewEwnliupZ8

The numerous contradictions and inconsistencies from Joshua Strange’s accuser have never been questioned, nor has she been held accountable for the false accusations, SAVE notes.'

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