February 18, 2016

"Montana quarterback receives $245K settlement for university’s ‘unfair and biased’ rape investigation."

This is the Missoula case that Jon Krakauer wrote a book about.
Missoula was labeled the “rape capital” of the country. Investigative reporter Jon Krakauer turned the town, and Johnson’s trial, into the centerpiece of a book on America’s college campus rape epidemic....

After a tear-filled [criminal] trial, during which Johnson decided to take the stand to defend himself, a jury took less than two hours to find him not guilty.

On Tuesday, the former quarterback’s comeback was complete when a court approved his $245,000 settlement agreement with the state. The agreement listed 11 claims made by Johnson, including violations of due process and his civil rights, along with sexual discrimination, negligence and destroying evidence, according to the AP.

41 comments:

YoungHegelian said...

"Oh, wonderful", I said sarcastically.

$245K is taken out of the hide of a university that really can't afford those sort of loses. Oh, no problem, the taxpayers & the students will make up the difference.

The Missoula administrative staff that were responsible for dragging an innocent man through this kangaroo court & costing the university $245K will emerge absolutely unscathed, just as will the US Dept of Education harpies driving these policies from the top.

Until the Fed. executive branch is in the hands of Republicans nothing will change. The local administrators will still want to be feminist fascists. They just won't have Federal dispensation as an excuse.

Birches said...

He deserves more.

Birches said...

But I'm glad yet another Krakauer book has been proven bunk. I hate Into the Wild with a great passion.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadisonMan said...

I agree with YoungHegelian. The money should be coming from the salaries of the University Bureaucrats and the US DOE Bureaucrats who were behind the push to trial.

n.n said...

Female chauvinism is losing mothers and fathers, and babies, too.

gerry said...

Krakauer has royalties. There's money to be had. Where are the lawyers?

Larry J said...

I hope he sues the "victim" and the author for libel. He deserves a lot more for what they did to him and his reputation.

traditionalguy said...

He sounds like a Presbyterian. Sue the Bastards.

Etienne said...

I'm really shocked that he only got $245k. I'm sure his lawyers will be renegotiating their cut. They had to be expecting millions.

Humperdink said...

Chump change.

Bob R said...

Education is expensive. Especially when you refuse to learn.

Birkel said...

I wonder if they've already asked the judge to set aside the jury verdict as to damages.

fivewheels said...

Once again, the men involved in these cases, none of whom were convicted or legitimately found guilty of anything, are named by the Washington Post. None of the accusers are named. Equality!

n.n said...

none of whom were convicted or legitimately found guilty of anything... None of the accusers are named. Equality!

A violation of equality, fraternity, legality, and [social?] justice for all.

Big Mike said...

My wife's immediate response was that $245K is not enough. She thinks perhaps a few million might better focus the university administration.

I think the name, address, Email, and cell phone number of the accuser needs to be published.

William said...

If the campus rape culture is so pervasive, why do so many of these cases turn out to be fraudulent?....., What is truly annoying is that as much as the media tries to suppress news of Rotherham and Cologne, they go out of their way to publicize cases that involve frat members or jocks.......Do you know offhand how many service members have died during the Obama administration? I don't. The news media don't keep a running tally of casualties like they did during the Bush years.

Bob Loblaw said...

There should be about two more zeroes on the settlement number. $255K is not enough that the university will think twice about doing the same thing to the next guy.

And yeah, if he can prove the accuser was lying he should get her stuff while she goes to jail.

Bob Loblaw said...

If the campus rape culture is so pervasive, why do so many of these cases turn out to be fraudulent?

I think when they say "rape culture" they mean the hoaxes. It's the only thing that makes sense.

mikee said...

As I have said before, if 1 in 5 females actually was sexually assaulted in college, parents carrying luparas would be following their daughters around campus and none would spend the nights or weekends there. Thanks, Hillary, for your War on Women political campaign. And to hell with you and yours.

Fabi said...

Hit 'em again, hit 'em again. Harder, harder!

Quaestor said...

I think the name, address, Email, and cell phone number of the accuser needs to be published.

Every law that mandates the anonymity of rape accusers needs to be overturned. Anonymous accusation is the hallmark of tyranny. The Inquisitional bonfire was fed its appalling provender by anonymous denunciation, as was Robespierre's guillotine.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dude1394 said...

He should sue the author as well.

Kirk Parker said...

"The money should be coming from the salaries of the University Bureaucrats and the US DOE Bureaucrats who were behind the push to trial."

Good grief, MadMan, when did you become such a bleeding heart? The evil idealogues who did this should be spending the rest of their lives in the general prison population.

Eric,

"if he can prove the accuser was lying he should get her stuff while she goes to jail."

Ewww. Would you really trust it had been adequately disinfected?

Sigivald said...

As Glenn Reynolds (IIRC) keeps pointing out, the sexual assault/rape rate on campuses is lower than it is off of them.

There never was an "epidemic".

David said...

More of this please, but with personal financial liability for the persons who are the wrongdoers as well as the "state." Otherwise not enough disincentive.

Bob Loblaw said...

Kirk,

By that I mean her money, her car, and anything else she owns of value.

Feminists want us to "take rape accusations seriously". I'm all for it. But part of that is being serious about false accusations. Accusing someone of rape before a court isn't like spreading a malicious rumor in high school, and women who make false accusations should be going to jail as long as their intended victims would have gone to jail.

David said...

Here's hoping the 245k is what the student gets and that the lawyer fees are covered separately. The story does not make that clear.

Quaestor said...

He should sue the author as well.

Johnson should sue for libel in a British court. Krakauer's lynch-mongering screed is sold in the UK, so he has all the standing required. British libel law is more just than ours regarding "public figures" and under UK law the loser pays the winner's legal expenses, which according to recent precedent, may include travel and living costs during the actual trial.

A UK jury might even be more sympathetic than an American one. It looks like the majority over there have turned the corner on this thoroughly evil "rape culture" hoax.

Why is it that we Americans fall for this kind of bullshit time and time again? Are we fundamentally a collection of hysterical ninnies who fall headlong for every sort of fraud and yellow journalism that comes our way? It appears that our women must shoulder a disproportionate share of the blame when witch hunters run amok. The majority of accusers in the Salem witch trials were women. The satanic child abuse panic was also instigated by women (egged on, it must be admitted, by venial and unscrupulous men like Phil Donahue) as was the related McMartin and Little Rascals Preschool child abuse prosecutions.

Quaestor said...

Oops. I must correct an error of fact. The Little Rascals case involved a day-care center, not a preschool.

Michael K said...

"Krakauer has royalties. There's money to be had. Where are the lawyers?"

I certainly hope he is going after Krakauer. The settlement with the U sounds too little.

iqvoice said...

Last paragraph of article:

After at least 80 alleged sexual assaults in three years on the campus, most of which were not prosecuted, the U.S. Department of Justice launched its own investigation.

You know what stands out right there? That they had to lump three years of statistics together to gin up the scary-sounding '80 alleged assaults'. According to Wikipedia, the university student population is just below 13,000 students. So assuming that 50% of the student population is female (probably more), and assuming all the assaults were male on female (probably not), that means the real annual rate of "alleged" sexual assaults against campus women is about 0.4%, or 1 per every 240 students.

Strange how that doesn't match up to the "1 out of 5" lie.

glenn said...

Funny how when the light of day shines in a real courtroom "facts" change.

Owen said...

Quaestor: "appalling provender" wins the thread. Awesome.

Agree also with the thought that false accusers should be put in the stocks of cyberspace. As miscreants were once physically shackled in the square while offal and obloquy were directed at them, so now their names and other details should be posted on a public website, printed in the Sunday NY Times, carved on a marble slab on the Mall in DC.

Incentives matter.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I was always sure Joe Montana was innocent from day one.

Douglas B. Levene said...

Colleges would rather pay a couple of hundred grand here and there to the victims of their kangaroo courts than risk losing federal booty. This seems to me to be precisely the kind of case where punitive damages would be appropriate - where actual damages are insufficient to cause the tortfeasor to reduce the harm it is causing. The Supreme Court has said punitive damages up to 10X actual damages are constitutionally OK - here that would be around $2-1/2 million, which might well be enough to get the mule's attention.

Quaestor said...

The "rape culture" hoax got me to thinking about similar episodes of judicial hysteria that our nation has inflicted on itself, specifically the utterly fictitious epidemic of child sexual abuse in day care centers and preschools. Most of us have heard of the notorious McMartin Preschool case, but there were at least eighteen others, some overseas. (Epidemics are like illegal immigrants, no respecters of borders.) One of the most atrocious was the astoundingly wicked prosecu -- no, persecution is the only word for it -- of the owners and employees of the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, North Carolina.

I found a very well done blog on the subject which I encourage all the Althouse community to visit. The site contains about eight hours of documentary video on the subject produced for the PBS series Frontline. This is rare footage that is no longer available through PBS in any form except transcription. These films are beautifully produced (the producer won the 2007 John Chancellor Award for her work) yet soul-wrenching. I may never quite recover from having watched them.

whitney said...

Jon krakauer is such a tool. Every other chapter in any of his books is actually about him. His books are painful to read. I hope this boy sues him

Rick said...

Big Mike said...
My wife's immediate response was that $245K is not enough. She thinks perhaps a few million might better focus the university administration.


No amount of money will matter. The appropriate response is to:

1. Appoint new DOE leadership and fire everyone associated with the fraudulent use of Title IX, and

2. Announce that no university which employs anyone who implemented the fraudulent interpretation may receive federal funds, and this includes both DOE staff from item one and campus Title IX administrators shown to have supported or enabled these efforts.

Jupiter said...

Quaestor said...

"Every law that mandates the anonymity of rape accusers needs to be overturned. Anonymous accusation is the hallmark of tyranny. The Inquisitional bonfire was fed its appalling provender by anonymous denunciation, as was Robespierre's guillotine."

Actually, I don't think there are any such laws, Quaestor. The refusal to name supposed victims of sexual crimes is a business policy of the "news" organizations.