Duke lacrosse: two years later

Liestoppers notes that 24 March marks the anniversary of the start of the Durham hoax.

Two years ago - The Hoax/Frame went public

On March 24 2006 the Duke Lacrosse Hoax/Frame exploded into the local media with the interview of Durham PD Cpl David Addison on local TV and in the News-Observer & Herald-Sun, both local newspapers. Today we are running a re-post of our Nov 13, 2006 Blog article which explained how the Hoax was promoted from a local story to a National media frenzy.

I ran across two other items that suggest that the issues raised by the case go beyond Durham and Duke

This article predates the lacrosse case:

When Is It RAPE?

What is striking is that some activists are willing to defend false accusations of rape as a legitimate tool for payback:

This line of reasoning has led some women, especially radicalized victims, to justify flinging around the term rape as a political weapon, referring to everything from violent sexual assaults to inappropriate innuendos. Ginny, a college senior who was really raped when she was 16, suggests that false accusations of rape can serve a useful purpose. "Penetration is not the only form of violation," she explains. In her view, rape is a subjective term, one that women must use to draw attention to other, nonviolent, even nonsexual forms of oppression. "If a woman did falsely accuse a man of rape, she may have had reasons to," Ginny says. "Maybe she wasn't raped, but he clearly violated her in some way."

Catherine Comins, assistant dean of student life at Vassar, also sees some value in this loose use of "rape." She says angry victims of various forms of sexual intimidation cry rape to regain their sense of power. "To use the word carefully would be to be careful for the sake of the violator, and the survivors don't care a hoot about him." Comins argues that men who are unjustly accused can sometimes gain from the experience. "They have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration."

Clearly, for a sub-species of pot-bangers, truth is irrelevant.

This news story is current:

Woman pleads guilty to false rape report

A 22-year-old former Woodinville woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to making a false rape accusation against a local college professor last June.

Katherine M. Clifton lied to police and and falsified official documents. Martha Stewart got five months in prison for that. This loony woman will serve eight days in jail. Incidentally, that sentence is one day shorter than the time her victim served after he was arrested because of her lies.