From TIME authored by Katie Reilly:
“How much did she have to drink? Why didn’t she wear a more modest outfit? Why did she and the man she later accused of raping her look “like two lovers” while walking together on campus? These are some of the questions that defense attorneys asked a Yale University student who brought a rape complaint against her classmate.
The questioning occurred during a rare criminal trial over a campus sexual assault case, and is all the more striking amid an ongoing national reckoning over women’s allegations of sexual misconduct against dozens of powerful men in industries ranging from politics to Hollywood. The court proceedings drew criticism from groups that support sexual assault victims, who said the defense attorneys’ questions were an assault survivor’s “worst victim-blaming nightmare.”
The trial also comes at a moment when the very definition of
consent and sexual assault is being debated on college campuses, pitting students who believe schools need to do more to support alleged victims against those who think schools need to do more to protect the rights of the accused. Much of the debate has focused on campus proceedings, particularly after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last year
rolled back Obama-era Title IX guidance that had instructed colleges to use a lower burden of proof when investigating sexual assault complaints. But the Yale University case shed light on what happens when such complaints are handled in a court of law, as they rarely are.”
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