So I’m sitting in Business Associations class Wednesday night pretending to listen to the professor talk about tort liability (just kidding, I was really paying attention!) and I get a Facebook message from a like-minded law school classmate. The message says that the law school’s Federalist Society is having an event the next day called, “Presumed Guilty? Rape, Feminism, and False Accusations” with conservative journalist Cathy Young.

Now I had seen the flyer for the event which had the title, “Presumption of Guilt: Is Our Legal System Unfair to Men?” but it said nothing about rape and had a man with a baby on it (See above). So I contacted students who are on the executive board of the Federalist Society to ask them if the program was about rape or about something else. They confirmed that it was about rape.

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you know that sexual assault and victim blaming is my passion. I write about it a lot and I am also a survivor myself. So the idea that my own law school would hold such an event about the so-called problem of false rape accusations was troubling to me and I decided to attend. To listen and learn, if given the opportunity to ask a question, and of course live-tweet.

I arrived in a purple sweater to show solidarity with my fellow survivors and advocates. The school’s Women’s Law Forum organized themselves swiftly to distribute purple ribbons to everyone who attended the event, although not everyone chose to wear a ribbon for reasons I don’t really understand. Read More »