Good morning folks! How many appendages did you lose to frostbite on your way to work this morning? None? Good for you. I’m pretty sure the bottoms of my feet almost turned to actual ice yesterday, when I was evacuated from my burning office building.

Caption: Yes, I work here. And no, none of us crowded around the fire for warmth.

But! The polar vortex isn’t the only crazy thing happening this morning, unfortunately. More absurdity is happening out in Steubenville, Ohio, where convicted rapist Ma’lik Richmond was recently released from a juvenile detention facility.

In case you’ve already forgotten, Ma’lik was at the center of one of the most talked about rape cases of 2013. 16-year-old Ma’lik was a star player on Steubenville’s high school football team, Big Red, along with 17-year-old Trent Mays. The two boys were destined for big things — college ball, maybe the NFL — and they were all but worshiped in a town where football is described as a religion.

Then, one night, the two boys went to a party, where they met up with an extremely drunk young woman. A fellow high school student, this girl had allegedly been flirting with Mays via text message. Apparently, the two boys took her maybe-flirtatious text messages to mean that she was DTF, and they transported her from party to party with an all-male group of friends. Ridiculously drunk, the girl spent a fair amount of the night vomiting and lying around in an essentially comatose state. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t remember most of the night’s events.

But cell phone cameras and social media accounts have pretty long memories. Almost instantly, photos, videos, text messages, and tweets documented the night she couldn’t remember. There were photos of Mays and Richmond holding her limp body by the arms and legs, while her head hung slack. There were photos of her lying naked, face down on the floor, in a home she’d never visited before. (Incidentally, that’s how she woke up the next morning.) There were videos of her being vaginally penetrated with Richmond and Mays’ hands.  And all of this happened while she was way, way too drunk to consent.

Ultimately, Mays and Richmond were convicted of rape and sentenced to serve time in a juvenile detention facility, where they would be “rehabilitated.” Feminists around the world rejoiced, just a tiny bit, that these young men were actually being held accountable. Because, as we know by the gazillion other rape cases that go nowhere — it’s depressingly common for accused rapists to suffer absolutely no consequences for their actions.

So, yay for that not happening! Right?

Sort of. Obviously, children being sent to prison is never something to cheer about. Furthermore, the media’s obvious sympathy for the rapists, and lack of empathy for the victim, was infuriating. Take this clip as an example — CNN spent six minutes lamenting the fact that promising, rapist lives were ruined, and barely mentioned how the victim’s life was affected.

So, the Steubenville rape case has been pretty maddening for everyone who doesn’t hate women. And the horror continues! When Ma’lik was released from juvenile detention this weekend — which isn’t necessarily surprising or irritating, honestly — he/his attorney/his attorney’s PR agency released a statement.

Oh, the agony of reading this statement.

You can read the full text here, but here’s the most important snippet:

“The past sixteen months have been extremely challenging for Ma’Lik and his extended family. At sixteen years old, Ma’Lik and his family endured hardness beyond imagination for any adult yet alone child. He has persevered the hardness and made the most of yet another unfortunate set of circumstances in his life.”

It goes on to ramble about how Ma’lik would like privacy from the media so he can be a normal teenager, hang out with his family, and move on with his life. It also makes ZERO MENTION of the victim. Not one time.

UGGGHHHHH

This is the worst non-apology ever.

Why? Let’s start with simple mechanics. Whoever wrote this train wreck of a press release can’t write to save their goddamn lives. “Hardness?” He persevered against “hardness?” I can’t. I cannot. “Hardness” is not a word that is acceptable to use, basically ever. Just for future reference. Also, SO MANY COMMAS ARE MISSING OMGGGG.

But let’s not get too carried away — obviously the content is what’s most important here. The fact that Ma’lik and everyone around him is so focused on whining about how hard his life has been as a result of this rape is seriously deranged. How difficult do you think the victim’s life has been?  What kind of “hardness” (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist) has she had to persevere against? A whole fuck of a lot, I’m betting.

It’s clear that Ma’lik — or at least the people who are speaking for him — has gone through his “rehabilitation” process without actually taking responsibility for his actions. He’s emerged without apologizing for the immeasurable harm he inflicted on his victim. He’s still solely focused on how this whole ordeal affects him.

Folks, I don’t know about you, but I’m totally sick of this rape culture that pours sympathy on rapists while blaming, shaming, and ignoring victims.

That’s some seriously anti-feminist, anti-woman, pro-violence douche-y-ness.

So let’s put a stop to that, shall we? Thanks a ton.

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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of  [marsmettnn tallahaassee via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Steubenville Rapist is Released and Issues Grammatically Incorrect Non-Apology appeared first on Law Street.

After a young woman in North Andover, Massachusetts named Erin Cox was punished for picking up an intoxicated friend from a party, her story is receiving national attention. Formerly the varsity volleyball captain, she has been stripped of her captainship and suspended for five games.

The story of what happened that night shows that Cox is a strong, independent, and compassionate young woman. On a weekend evening early in October, she received a text from a friend who was at a party and intoxicated. Being a good friend, Cox decided to go pick her up. However she arrived there at the same time as the police, who had come to break up the rowdy underage party. About a dozen students were arrested, and another dozen or so were warned that they could be summoned to court for drinking underage.

Cox was one of the students who received that warning, despite the fact that she had just arrived and had not been drinking. In fact, a police officer at the scene who performed sobriety tests vouched for Cox’s claim that she had not had even a sip of alcohol.

Cox explained in an interview with the Boston Herald that she truly felt as though she was doing the right thing. “But I wasn’t drinking,” she told me. “And I felt like going to get her was the right thing to do. Saving her from getting in the car when she was intoxicated and hurt herself or getting in the car with someone else who was drinking. I’d give her a ride home.”

After the police reported the party break-up to the school, many students faced various punishments for breaking the school’s zero tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol. Cox was one of them. The school has claimed that simply because she was at the party when the police arrived, regardless of her purpose or sobriety, that she was in the wrong. They also claim that being a student athlete, moreover a student athlete with a leadership position, is a privilege that can be revoked for inappropriate behavior. Cox’s family is standing behind her, stating that they’re proud of their daughter’s attempt to be a good friend and responsible young adult. Her mother attempted to sue the school district, but was told that the district court did not have the appropriate jurisdiction. They are now expected to move onto a federal claim.

I have a few different issues with the punishment of Erin Cox. First, this sends a horrible message to students. Seniors in high school are taught to weight their worth on what they plan on doing after graduation. For some, the attempt to get into a college of their choice becomes all-consuming. The message that North Andover High School sent to its students preached selfishness—essentially Cox’s punishment indicated that helping your friends is not worth it because it may get you in trouble. That’s not the lesson that young people should be learning as they go out into college or the real world. High school isn’t just about algebra and AP Tests; it’s about teaching you how to be a decent human being. Furthermore, the school implicitly told Cox that she should have let her friend drive drunk, or get into a car with someone who had been drinking. Did that friend make a mistake? Yes. Did that mean she was unworthy of Cox’s help? Absolutely not.

This news story reminded me of another instance in which young high school athletes were present at a crazy, unruly party rife with underage drinking. The Steubenville case took the nation by storm, and raised important questions about appropriate behavior in teens. But Cox’s story is the flipside.

Let’s compare the two situations: Here, a young woman in Massachusetts who serves as the captain of her volleyball team is caught by the police, sober, picking up a drunk friend from a party. Her captain title is stripped, and she is suspended for five games. In Steubenville, two young men who are on the football team in non-leadership capacities are drunken underage at a party and sexually assault another teenager. Multiple partygoers take pictures, talk about the incident on social media, and harass this young woman. As recent grand jury indictments show, the high school these young men attend help them cover up the whole thing.

Now my comparison probably falls into the category of apples and oranges, but it is fair to ask: why the enormous disparity in the way these two incidents were treated? I’m not sure. It could be because of different policies at the schools. It could be because high school volleyball in Massachusetts is probably lucky to draw a 10^th of the crowd as high school football in Ohio. It could be because Ma’Lik Richmond and Trent Mays were young men, but Erin Cox was a young woman. There are any number of reasons to explain why these two stories are so divergent, but none of them are particularly comforting. High schools are supposed to teach their students to be adults who are capable of acting appropriately, making good decisions, and determining right from wrong. Then these institutions of education are supposed to hold their students accountable to these standards. In my book, Stuebenville and North Andover, different as the cases may be, both failed.

[Huffington Post]

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Featured image courtesy of [bankbryan via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post High School Student Punished for Being a Good Friend appeared first on Law Street.

It’s been a busy few days for rape culture, folks.

This past weekend, the Kansas City Star published a long and revealing feature detailing the story of the Colemans—a family who moved to Maryville, MO following a personal tragedy, only to be driven away months later when their daughter, Daisy, accused a prominent football player of rape. Their house has since been burned to the ground.

That’s right. The rape victim and her family were driven out of town—not the rapist. Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the rape accusations, all of the charges were dropped, and Daisy’s attacker got off scot-free. He’s currently studying at the University of Central Missouri.

The story went viral. News outlets across the country jumped on it, Anonymous picked it up on Twitter, sparking the hashtag movements #OpMaryville and #Justice4Daisy, and a demonstration is scheduled to happen on October 22 at 10 a.m. outside of the Maryville Courthouse. (Are you in Missouri? You should go.)

But, as awful as this story is, it’s not the first time a similar case has hit the Twittersphere. It’s been less than a year since the infamous Steubenville case—and while Maryville headlines have only just appeared, the actual rape occurred earlier in 2012 than Steubenville.

So let’s take a few minutes, and forget about the government shutdown and the debt-ceiling crisis. Let’s take a minute and redirect our focus. Because every time a political brouhaha like this happens, we all tend to get obsessed with the crazies who are throwing a tantrum in the capitol—and we forget that there are a hell of a lot more of them wreaking havoc right here, in our daily lives.

So what happened in Maryville, and why do we care? You should really read that Kansas City Star article—it’s incredibly well written. But, if you don’t have time to read nearly 5,000 words, here’s a quick summary.

Melinda Coleman lived in Albany, NY with her husband and four children. They had three boys and one girl, named Daisy. Then, tragically, Dad died in a car accident. Looking for a fresh start, Melinda moved with the children to Maryville, MO at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year. At first, everything went well.

Then, one night, Daisy and a childhood friend from Albany went to a party with a group of older boys—senior year football players, to be exact. Once there, they were both raped, while some of the boys took videos. Afterwards, they were returned home, where Daisy was left out in the front yard, drunk and literally freezing, overnight.

There was plenty of evidence to support the rape charges—depositions from the two girls and a number of partygoers, rape kits, and confiscated iPhone videos. But Matthew Barnett, Daisy’s accused, was a Maryville fixture. He was popular, star of the football team, and his grandfather was a former representative in the state legislature.

Simply put, the Barnetts were one of a few key families in Maryville—influential and untouchable—and the Colemans were recent transplants, outsiders. Add that to the frighteningly commonplace practice of victim blaming in sexual assault cases, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for charge-dropping.

And that’s exactly what happened. All of the charges were dropped, allowing Barnett to go on living his life, while Daisy and her family were left to deal with the horror of their own. Melinda was unceremoniously fired from her job. Daisy and her siblings were tormented, harassed, and threatened with physical violence. Ultimately, Melinda decided to move the family back to Albany.

In a not-so-convincing coincidence, their house—empty and up for sale—burned down shortly after. The charred remains have yet to be cleaned up.

But why do we care? This kind of bullshit happens all the time. How is this any different?

It’s not. And that’s exactly why it’s so important.

1 out of every 6 women in the U.S. has been a victim of attempted or completed rape. Every 2 seconds, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. Victims of sexual assault are more likely to suffer from depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, to abuse drugs and alcohol, and to contemplate suicide. And that’s only accounting for the victims themselves—their families and loved ones can be severely affected as well.

Sexual assault is a very, very big problem, devastating the lives of millions of people in this country alone.

But 97 percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail. Matthew Barnett is just one of millions.

To say that this is unacceptable would be the understatement of the year. As a nation that likes to pat itself on the back as the leader of the free world and the harbinger of human rights, this is incredibly disheartening.

After all, if the land of the free and the home of the brave doesn’t take this shit seriously, then who the hell does? Virtually no one, that’s who.

How does our legal system only hold 3 percent of rapists accountable for their actions? How is this the kind of reality that our justice system supports and creates?

I’ll tell you how.

Patriarchy. That’s how.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, patriarchy is basically the opposite of feminism.

If we accept Rebecca West’s statement that feminism is the radical notion that women are people, then we can understand patriarchy as the douche-y notion that women are not people.

Or at least, not people who are valued as highly as men.

Patriarchy is what’s at work when women get paid 77 cents to a man’s dollar, or when men offer us their seat on the subway, because ugh my weak lady legs can’t support my body for three stops.

Patriarchy is what’s at work when the Supreme Court can rule in favor of a woman’s right to choose, and more than 40 years later, Roe v. Wade is still legally imperiled by gazillions of restrictions across the nation.

Patriarchy is what’s happening when women work a double, triple, or quadruple shift, and no one raises an eyebrow. It’s what’s happening when the Hate Crime Statistics Act doesn’t include gender-based crimes, because violence against women is so commonplace that to track those numbers would be way too hard, so let’s not even bother trying.

And—say it with me now—patriarchy is what’s happening when a 14-year-old girl named Daisy can get raped, on videotape, by a 17 year-old-boy, and her attacker does not go to jail. Instead, she’s verbally abused, run out of town, and her house gets burnt to the ground. Meanwhile, her rapist happily attends college and writes disgusting Tweets about women and their sexuality.

Gross.

This shit is awful, and it’s got to be changed.

So come on, good lawyer folks. Get on that.

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Featured image courtesy of [Mike via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Why Your Rapist (Probably) Isn’t Going to Jail appeared first on Law Street.

The nightmare of the Steubenville Rape Case isn’t quite over for the small Ohio town. On October 7, 2013, another arrest was made in the case, this time of a 53-year-old man named William Rhinaman. Rhinaman is the director of technology at Steubenville High School. He has been indicted for tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, obstructing official business, and perjury.

Rhinaman was not the only adult in Steubenville to lie, refuse to talk, or tamper with evidence. As Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine told CNN, sixteen different adults refused to talk to investigators. A grand jury, formed on March 17, will determine if any of these others committed indictable crimes. They are mostly looking at whether any employees failed to report a rape they knew had occurred. Rhinaman was the first to face charges, but more may be to come.

AG Mike DeWine will not elaborate on what exactly Rhinaman covered up or what perjured statements he provided, but he did state that the charges are directly related to Rhinaman’s job as an Internet Technology employee. The indictment claims that Rhinaman’s involvement in the case began with the night that the rape occurred—August 11, 2012.

Immediately after being arrested, Rhinamen was held in a local jail without bond. He had a hearing on Wednesday, October 9 in which he was let out on a $25,000 personal recognizance bond.

The Steubenville case took the nation by storm. It was unthinkable—everyone who saw the news footage was horrified that two young men could sexually abuse a 16 year old girl, and that dozens of their peers could stand by and watch it happen. But in a lot of ways the media was more shocked by the way in which the rape was discovered. All of these young people who were present at the party in which the rape occurred took pictures, tweeted about it, texted about it, and generally communicated through social media.

The screen shots that some bloggers managed to grab of the blatant online conversations that these young people had were horrifying. But what is most horrifying is that they thought this was acceptable. Now the world discovers that not only did these teenagers feel this was acceptable, but also that the other adults in their lives perpetrated this despicable cover up. If any of these 16 adults who are being investigated by the grand jury did in fact help a group of young adults cover up the sexual abuse of another, they deserve to face the full force of the law.

[CNN]

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Featured image courtesy of [John Perry via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Steubenville Continues appeared first on Law Street.