Last fall, in the United States, a friend of mine was the target of a nasty letter, one that has not been shared with him, asserting all manner of improprieties. It was sent by a group of nurses and doctors at a local hospital to a Dean of Students at a major rural university in the United States. My friend only knows of the letter because the Dean of Students convened a Star Chamber to investigate, one of whose members is a friend of my friend. Otherwise, he would never have known.
The Dean of Students reacted by assuming the letter’s accusations were true and proceeded to launch a full scale investigation of my friend – again, without involving him – in accordance with the dictates of the now-official judicial process known as #Me Too.
If you have been following the news, then you know how Harvey Weinstein, no angel to begin with, got caught up in the dragnet of Me Too and is now bankrupt and facing criminal charges. My friend got caught up too.
The accusations of my friend were, on their face, troubling: The letter asserted that he trafficked in young women, engaged in pornography surfing, and abused his position as an adjunct member of the faculty of that university. They did not come close to the Weinstein laundry list, but no matter: That the letter was signed by medical doctors gave it heft and importance in this era of #MeToo.
The response, on its face, is troubling.
Gone is the notion of due process. Gone is the notion of being able to confront one’s accusers. Gone is presumption of innocence. Gone is what used to be known as a statute of limitations. Gone is any sense of balance. Gone is America as I knew it, in this era of Me Too.
Here’s the thing: the accusations spelled out in the letter simply weren’t true. Period.
But in today’s America, in this era of #MeToo, one can assert all manner of crimes without having to answer for their accuracy. The mere accusation is enough to ruin a life and a career.
Sexual abuse is wrong on so many levels. But so is salacious gossip and character assassination. Why two wrongs now make a right is beyond me.
But that is life in America in the Me Too era.
The matter has since dried up and blown away. The hot snapping coals of what was once a burning fire are now cold and quiet. But the damage to reputation lasts. No one had to answer for their baseless accusations. More importantly, no one had to report findings. It was all conducted behind a cloak of secrecy that Russia’s Putin would be proud of.
Wanna kill a person’s career? Wanna damage a presidency? Wanna permanently damage a reputation? Wanna dream up something that might have happened 50 years ago? Write a letter asserting sexual impropriety. Don’t call the cops. Just put it on Twitter and watch the world erupt.
A recent article put up by the AP reported what one prominent editor in America, Jann Wenner, had to say about it all. In an interview with The Associated Press, the Rolling Stone publisher said he feels that mere accusations of sexual impropriety are threatening careers, many times without corroboration, with people losing their jobs over some of the most harmless bullshit things.
Honestly, I do believe it’s a bit of a witch hunt. It’s difficult to get due process because there’s no real place to adjudicate it, to defend oneself, except in court, which takes forever.
There’s some truth to it, but it does not fit into anything illegal, immoral, or unethical. All you can say is no, not me too, and wait.
Life in the #MeToo era. Life in Amerika.
