Once again last week, one of America's premier college towns drew attention for the wrong reason. Several days of national media coverage were followed by outrage, disappointment, and disbelief over the lenient sentence handed down by a Boulder, CO judge. Last week a now former Colorado University (CU) student convicted of raping an inebriated and helpless freshman CU student in 2014, was spared a lengthy jail term and given probation. And just as in the Stanford University case earlier this summer, the judge is drawing the ire of Coloradans complete with an online recall petition, which has drawn nearly 50,000 signers in the first 24 hours since posting.
Boulder, Colorado was recently rated the best college town in the nation for good reason. It's known for a foothills setting, vibrant startup business community and as home to Colorado's flagship university CU-Boulder. CU also boasts big-time college football's most recognizable mascot, Ralphie, a bison that leads Colorado Buffaloes on field before every football home game. Selection to serve as a Ralphie handler is a student honor and personal commitment, sex offenders need not apply. Except in 2013 one did.
In just the last couple of years, Boulder's justice system has dealt with several student sexual assault cases including two perpetrated by Air Force Academy cadets partying in Boulder. Although the Air Academy is located 90 miles from Boulder in Colo. Springs, Cadet Jack Warmolts drank in Boulder then assaulted a CU student when she was inebriated to the point of unconsciousness. AFA cadet Mark Ryerson was convicted of the same offense in Boulder just two years prior.
CU's 2013-2014 Ralphie handler Austin Wilkerson was convicted of a nearly identical crime and sentenced last week. In all three cases the young men claimed to friends their intent to take care of the inebriated women, then isolated them, committed sexual acts on their unconscious bodies, subsequently lied and covered-up until convicted of Class 3 felonies. Similar defenses were mounted for the perpetrators which were rejected by juries, re-traumatizing the victims in court before friends and families.
Both Wilkerson and Warmolts claimed their coed victims were too drunk to remember consenting, accompanied them willingly and were lying about the assaults to protect their reputations. Both young men also claimed they were so drunk they couldn't remember details, other than it was consensual.
It shouldn't require saying, but I will here. Thousands of American students drink to excess in college towns daily, weekly and yearly and some even pass out. Taking advantage of an unconscious/inebriated college coed is a sick, deviant and perverted sexual act and never an option. Period.
Yet, somehow our state laws, courts and judges are failing the victims, while seeming to care more for the impact at sentencing on the perpetrators. The Colorado Attorney General and two prominent District Attorneys are criticizing the recent sentence also drawing attention of Colorado state legislators.
Into this mess comes the National Rifle Association - those Second Amendment people - as GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump calls them. "Wayne and Chris are such great Americans," says Trump, "they endorsed me early!"
Trump's Second Amendment people and the NRA have another idea for addressing college campus sexual assault -- arm the women and allow concealed guns on campuses. Perhaps a few dead rapists will solve this pesky rape sentencing problem?
Of course national studies on the defensive use of guns overwhelmingly oppose this as the best option since a gun is much more likely to be used against a woman than against a perpetrator. Guns are used defensively to stop a crime, any crime, less than 1 per cent of the time.
In a remarkable coincidence however, the NRA's public spokesperson in paid 2016 political advertising is yet another Colorado college sex assault victim. Univ. of Northern Colorado student Kimberly Corban experienced a 2007 traumatic assault -- not after a night of partying -- but when a stalker broke into her off campus apartment while she was sleeping. Corban publicly advocates against regulation of concealed guns and claims in NRA sponsored advertising that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wants to leave young women "defenseless".
"Your right to own a gun for self-defense is at risk in this election, Hillary Clinton will take away your rights," says Corban appearing in national NRA pro-Trump ads.
Let me just stipulate: purchasing or keeping a gun for self-defense is not at issue in this campaign. Regulating where that gun can be carried and mandating a criminal background check for potential buyers is at issue, there is nothing secret or hidden in that agenda. No one advocates the disarming of women, prevention of women from buying guns or confiscation of legally owned guns from women.
So why does the NRA play on the fears of young women and their parents, via the exploitation of a young assault victim to mislead voters? No one will find any reference to "taking away the right to self-defense" in candidate Clinton's pronouncements or written positions. Yet, that doesn't stop the NRA, who a New York Times editorial recently referred to as "the virtual marketing partner" of the gun industry, and their spokesperson Corban from lying about candidate Clinton's stand on gun violence prevention.
Campus sexual assault and appropriate prosecution/punishment of perpetrators has been a national challenge taken up by the Obama Administration and non-governmental advocacy groups for several years. Progress is being made via the proper adjudication as specified by Title IX of the Federal Code. Yet state level sentencing reform is also correctly under scrutiny.
Let's encourage the NRA to step out of this issue unless they have something more effective to offer than selling guns as a solution.