These are pictures of parts of Mr. Shapiro's July 14, 2016 article, called "He said it was consensual. She said she blacked out. U-Va. had to decide: Was it assault?"
That's how the article starts. It's only later in the article that Mr. Shapiro writes that the testimony that Ms. Lind was "found alone in a stranger's bathroom...naked and in a drunken stupor" was supplied not by Ms. Lind, and is not part of her account of what happened, but is by a wrestler whom the article never suggests might have been a participant in a gang rape of Ms. Lind.
How did she get leaves in her hair, if all the wrestler did was walk her home?
Every corroboration discussed in the article is from someone who was, or who said that he or she was, at the party and who was also not a friend of Ms. Lind's. That's not to say that they disliked her before they felt they had to take sides; it is, though, typical of this reporter to discount what the victims of sexual assault say while treating as fact everything that anyone says to remove blame from the perpetrators. Why is the Washington Post continuing to let him report about sexual assault, particularly at the University of Virginia? Has nobody considered the possibility that he has a conflict of interest because he went to a private high school in Virginia and also to Virginia Tech? He's not even a crime reporter! Has the Washington Post had even one woman who's trained to do investigative reporting about sexual assault write about sexual assault?
Also; why are there so many sexual assaults at the University of Virginia, and why was Mr. Shapiro enabled by the editors of the Washington Post to use yet another failure of the University of Virginia's administration to maintain a safe school environment to try to promote Mr. Shapiro's biased, inaccurate and destructive reporting about Rolling Stone?
For this article, both the school and Mr. Shapiro seem to have relied on the testimony of the men who, because they are bigger than Ms. Lind, were not as mentally incapacitated as she was; that whatever was in the drugged alcohol did not affect the person who seems to be the only student who was investigated for sexual assault the way that it affected Ms. Lind because she is a much smaller female is also not discussed by Mr. Shapiro.
Mr. Shapiro has already demonstrated, in previous articles about sexual assault at the University of Virginia, that he has a tendency to withhold and distort information. For this article, he writes that the Washington Post got an entire taped conversation among Ms. Lind, the person who was investigated and acquitted by the school, and, according to Mr. Shapiro "two students (who) recorded the conversation in an effort to showcase their own innocence and to protect themselves from any possible allegations of misconduct."
Is it guaranteed that the Washington Post got a copy of the entire recording? What does the entire recording say, and which parts of what the Washington Post heard did the Post decide not to report?
That's a picture of part of Mr. Shapiro's reporting of the taped conversation.
Everything else that is reported by Mr. Shapiro, and the school, as if it were both what the male student said and fact, is specific about the student's supposed memories of that night, and are all designed to make Ms. Lind seem she was at least part of a consensual encounter if not also that she led him into it and encouraged him to continue to have sex with her when other people were trying to get into the bathroom.
I don't know what the most disturbing thing about the article is, but one of the most disturbing things is that the University of Virginia's decision sends the message that, if you get someone drunk or drugged enough that she can't remember what happened, your testimony will be accepted as the truth.
All of that being said, it doesn't seem to me that this incident is as clear as the incident reported by Rolling Stone was. It seems possible that this encounter started in as consensual a way as could be considering that both students were drinking. I'm trying not to moralize about that; as a practical concern, it's a risk to be physical with someone whom you don't know. At the least, you risk having a misunderstanding. When one or both of you have been drinking, it's even more of a risk that one or both of you will do something that you regret.
What isn't said in the article by Mr. Shapiro is whether or not anyone discussed the possibility that Ms. Lind was taken advantage of by other people after the student who was later investigated by the school had left the bathroom.
Mr. Shapiro; have you taken even one women's studies or sociology class in your life? If not, do you think that you should?
This is the address for the article:
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, July 21, 2016 @ 4:25 a.m.
