‘Hunting Ground’ Filmmakers to Harvard Law Profs: Criticizing Our Film Could Create a ‘Hostile Climate’

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last month, a group of 19 Harvard Law School professors issued a press release denouncing the film The Hunting Ground as “propaganda” and condemning its “unfair and misleading portrayal” of the case of Harvard Law student Brandon Winston. Winston was dismissed from the law school for an alleged sexual assault, but later reinstated after faculty reversed the decision.
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In a statement emailed to The Harvard Crimson and reported yesterday, Hunting Ground director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering suggest that the professors’ criticism of the film may constitute actionable sex discrimination in violation of Title IX:

`“The Harvard Law professors’ letter is irresponsible and raises an important question about whether the very public bias these professors have shown in favor of an assailant contributes to a hostile climate at Harvard Law,” Dick and Ziering wrote.`

To say this assertion is ludicrous is an understatement. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth taking seriously. After all, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently opened a Title IX investigation into the University of Mary Washington (UMW) in Virginia in part because students alleged that a letter from the university president defending UMW against allegations of discrimination constituted “retaliation” in violation of Title IX. Similarly, Northwestern University investigated Professor Laura Kipnis earlier this year for alleged Title IX violations after she wrote an essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education about what she called the “sexual panic” on campus.'