Being a heterosexual male on an American college campus is a dangerous combination these days. In too many cases, as we’ve reported, innocent male students have ended up accused of rape or sexual assault because administrators automatically believe the alleged victim without bothering to look for evidence. And with overzealous activists policing the campus themselves, the problem is only compounding as Brown University recently found out.
According to The College Fix, Brown Survivors Speak is an anonymous activist group that has been compiling its own list of alleged rapists for the last three years. The list, said to be inspired by a similar “rape list” that started on bathroom stalls in the 1990s, is used to out male students accused of sexual assault. Yet, there is no vetting process and recently, the group has been accused of targeting minorities and was “made aware” that at least one person on their list “could not have committed sexual violence on this campus.”
However, the group refuses to accept any responsibility as The Fix notes:
[T]he group redoubled its efforts, publishing names it had collected anonymously through a Google Form on the group’s Facebook page late last year…
The student’s name was “falsely submitted” to its form, the group wrote in a March 9 post on its Facebook page, which has since been deactivated… The hoax is the work of a “rape apologist,” Brown Survivors claimed.
Before the group went dark, it promised to do a better job at vetting future lists of the accused:
Brown Survivors Speak wrote in its since-deleted post that it would be changing its “approach to ‘outing’ aggressors.”
The group will now vet submissions through the accuser’s non-Brown email address so that members of the group could “be in contact with them.” Brown Survivors wrote that this would “strongly discourage rape apologists from trying to discredit or falsely accuse people through the form,” without explaining how.
Multiple names on the list also allege the survivors group “unfairly targets minorities who lack resources to defend themselves.” One said, “I was shocked when I found out my name was on it.” He said he is tagged with a “moral stain” despite the accusation being “unsubstantiated.”
For now, Brown Survivors Speak has deactivated its Facebook page and messages to the group’s pseudonymous profile, Marie Turner, have gone unanswered.
