I am a proud feminist. I relished the opportunity to spend two years earning a graduate degree at an east coast women’s college, and I spent several years of my life coaching and teaching young women. I am frustrated by the inequities women still face in 2010, and I am angered by the number of women and girls who are victimized and abused each year.
I say all this to preface what I’m about to write.
In 2002, Jordan Holm, a Northfield, Minn., native who grew up wrestling with my brothers, got into serious trouble. He was straight-A student, a full scholarship athlete at the University of Northern Iowa, and a young man who placed great importance on his family and his faith. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a young woman who he’d never met accused him of performing non-consensual oral sex on her at a college party. Believing that justice would be served, he never imagined that his word—and the lack of physical evidence—wouldn’t count for anything. In 2003, a judge found him guilty of sexual assault, and he was sent to prison. Boom—end of college.
Jordan could have been freed years sooner had he been willing to go through a sex offender treatment program, but this would have meant admitting guilt—something Jordan was not, and is not, willing to do. So this past spring, Jordan was finally released at age 28.
As an outsider looking in, my heart has broken for the Holm family throughout this ordeal. I can’t know for certain what happened at that party eight years ago. Jordan’s account of what happened is nothing like the account of the young woman who accused him. This isn’t a case where the two parties argued over whether the sex act was consensual or not. No—they argued over whether it happened at all. In the end, it was a “he said, she said” case in which the character of the two parties was not taken into account.
Many people who I respect—including my dad—have stood behind Jordan since Day One. I have known his family for roughly twenty years, and I really can’t fathom the idea that Jordan is guilty of this crime—a crime which is truly disgusting. I am proud that our justice system penalizes those who are convicted of such crimes in a very serious manner, but after watching this case for the last eight years, I worry about the potential for the wrong people to get dragged into that hell. People have been wrongfully accused of all manner of crimes since the beginning of time. It’s not like this is a new phenomenon.
As a sister, daughter, wife, mother, and auntie to five little boys, the possibility that a young man could wrongfully end up behind bars scares the hell out of me. Of course I want any person who violates a woman to be punished, and of course I want to believe every woman who says she’s been victimized. But this case hits way too close to home—this could have been one of my brothers—and when I look at the details of the case, they don’t add up.
Not only did Jordan spend the last seven years in prison, but he must also register as a sex offender for the next ten years. This young man’s life has been irreversibly altered, but what’s truly inspiring to me is that through it all, he maintained not only his innocence, but also his faith and his dignity. And, just days after being released from prison, Jordan entered and won a regional wrestling championship. Some have called him an Olympic hopeful for 2012, and he very recently moved out west to train and pursue that dream.
Jordan’s situation has weighed on my heart lately, and I wanted to help in some small way, but as I thought about sharing this story, I couldn’t help but wonder if others might see me as a bad feminist for questioning the word of a fellow woman. Jordan’s accuser has her own story, and at the very least, she had one really rough weekend eight years ago. In fact, she’d been thrown out of a bar just before the alleged incident. According to Jordan’s website, “The woman was thrown out of a bar earlier that same day for causing a scene and throwing punches at her boyfriend. She was upset because her boyfriend hadn’t become jealous of her open flirting with an ex-boyfriend who was also at the bar. Her boyfriend was allowed to stay. (Transcript 26-27, 222-224)”
Jordan and his family are still fighting to get him exonerated. If you’d like to learn more about Jordan and his case, visit the website that his family created, FreeJordan.org. This topic is understandably hard for many people, but as my dad says, “[it's] pretty touchy stuff, but people need to stand up if they believe in things.”
*****
I later wrote three follow-up posts based on an interview with Jordan, starting with “Talking Truth with Jordan Holm.”
I Want to Know
- Can you even imagine if this happened to your brother, father, son, boyfriend, or husband?
- How can we ever know what really happened in a “he said, she said” (or he-he or she-she, for that matter) case?
- Do feminists have a responsibility to assume that a woman’s word is always trustworthy when it comes to abuse or assault?
Something does have to be said about bringing the trustworthiness of women into question when concerned with sexual assault cases. In the last decade we have seen Kobe Bryant be accused and later see his accuser to be proved unreliable, the Duke LaCrosse program forever tarnished because of some accusations that were later admitted to be lies, and when I hear about this it just pains as a man to see this, oddly enough it deals with someone in athletics.
I cannot imagine how it would feel to face people when they know what you’ve been accused of or even convicted of dealing with sexual assault, you would suspect everyone of judging you by just seeing the slightest mannerisms toward you. If it were me I would just become a home body and leave my house as little possible because leaving would mean facing and being in a world.
Its sad though that women can make accusations against a man and society automatically takes the side of the woman because of how bad of a picture it paints against them. In a country where our court system is setup to be innocent until proven guilty, it seems the opposite is true and the only thing that proves someone is innocent is by the accuser shown to be a liar, which one would think to make her out to be worse than a sexual assaulter because she is trying to pass off a story that would ruin someones life, and for what? Because someone on a subconscious doesn’t get enough attention? Thats just sick if thats the sad world we live in today.
As a man I fear if the day comes that I am in the wrong place at the wrong time and get accused like Jordan has. I fully support him in being exonerated because it seems in following stories in the media men are getting accused too much of sexual assault when what happens is seeming to be less and less true as time goes on.
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I don’t think I can say it better than the previous commenter did, but here is my two cents…
When my brother was in high school, he played football and his team won the NJ State championships every year. There was a boy on his team who was very good looking and charming…a natural flirt. He was also an amazing athlete and was on track to play professional football someday. He was about to go to UPenn on a full scholarship.
At a party one night, a girl he didn’t know accused him of sexually assaulting her. Everyone was shocked…this was a good kid from a good family and he just didn’t seem the type. He hadn’t been drinking the night in question.
Long story short…it turned out that the girl made advances on him and while he did “fool around” with her, it was innocent kissing and a little touching. No clothing was removed. When she pushed for more he said no and eventually left the room. She accused him of raping her.
It was a huge mess and a huge scandal and in the end the girl admitted that she made up the whole thing. It didn’t matter…the boy’s reputation was ruined. He did manage to keep his scholarship, though it was in jeopardy, but sadly, the rumors followed him to college. There was always a lingering doubt as to what the truth was.
There are too many women today who use sexual assault accusations to get revenge or attention or money. I think it’s our responsibility as feminists to ask the hard questions and make sure that a woman throwing around these kinds of charges is telling the truth. I think it’s our responsibility to weed out the liars in order to protect those women who are telling the truth.
I feel bad for your friend as it seems he got a bad deal. The girl in question clearly has a lot of problems, but that doesn’t make what she did ok in any way. I hope that Jordan is able to be exonerated and that his Olympic dreams come true.
Oh, Emma. This is a tough one. I feel for you and for your friend but I have to disagree with the sentiment (not yours) that women are running wild falsely accusing men of sex crimes. As a prosecutor, I can say that sexual assaults are some of the hardest cases to prove. Despite what is depicted on TV or the stories that garner a lot of media attention, the vast majority of sexual assault cases are of the “he said, she said” variety. Because of this, convictions for these sorts of crimes are incredibly difficult to get. There are sex offenders who walk among us free to offend again because “she said” simply didn’t mean much to a jury.
The justice system is not perfect. But it is the best we have. And more often than not, when it fails, it fails victims NOT offenders. As for Jordan, it sounds as though he and his supporters truly believe the justice system failed him every step of the way. Such catastrophic failures do happen and there is simply no way to make whole a person whose life has been destroyed for no reason at all. Despite these rare instances (rarity is no consolation, I know), I cannot and will not condemn a system designed to protect both the innocent and the victimized.
It sounds like Jordan has an incredible support system and a bright future despite everything he has been through. He is definitely lucky to have people who have stood by him through everything.
As for whether feminists need to automatically side with women on issues of sexual assault, I wholeheartedly disagree. Supporting a false allegation is just as harmful as questioning a legitimate one. But how do we know one from the other? Unfortunately, there are some questions that just don’t have answers.
Rachel,
I speak respectfully to you, but have to sharply admonish you to follow the constitution of the United States when in doubt. Especially, if you are a prosecutor.
A “he said” or “she said” should never be enough to convict a person of some sort of crime without evidence supporting guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”… that means that some may walk in spite of the fact that they are indeed guilty of the crime they were accused of committing.
No person should ever be prosecuted for any reason w/o evidence or sufficient witnesses proving that they are indeed guilty.
Maybe I misunderstood something in your comments:
“There are sex offenders who walk among us free to offend again because “she said” simply didn’t mean much to a jury.”
If it was merely a ‘she said’ without evidence then I agree that they should be able to go free if that is the only basis of ‘evidence’… please tell me I misunderstood because I would hope that we go on more than that to actually prosecute anybody.
This case grips my soul and chills my blood to the core knowing how bad a judge screwed up (having read the court documents) I am appalled and angry… having served my country in the Navy I am saddened how something so obvious can be so messed up due to politics and pc.
Paul – Most prosecutors wouldn’t try a case on “she said” alone, but witness testimony IS evidence – the kind of evidence to be weighed by a jury to decide whether to convict someone of a crime or not. The “CSI effect” on juries has been a real problem in our justice system where people expect to find DNA everywhere proving exactly who the bad guy is and how he did it. The fact remains that there is seldom physical evidence (DNA) of a sexual assault. And there is virtually nothing, aside from broken bones, that can prove a sex act was non-consensual.
I agree that no person should ever be prosecuted for any reason without evidence or sufficient witnesses proving that they are indeed guilty. The prosecutors in this case and the judge clearly BELIEVED the victim’s testimony which IS evidence sufficient to establish guilt. Perhaps the judge got it wrong. Without reading the entire transcript or having been there myself, I’m not going to speculate. I will say it seems odd that Jordan waived his right to a jury. I’d be interested in why his attorney’s suggested that route. It seems it would have been heavily in his favor to try this as a jury trial rather than a court trial.
Rachel, thank you for your response.
“The prosecutors in this case and the judge clearly BELIEVED the victim’s testimony which IS evidence sufficient to establish guilt.”
I’m not sure how we would interpret ‘sufficient to establish guilt.’ If you mean a judge and prosecutors decide guilt on ‘she said’ testimony… I am incredulous, beside myself on how something this heinous could actually go on in our courts… if you are indeed correct I am shocked as to how far we have strayed from the principles of ‘reasonable doubt’ and ‘innocent until proven guilty.’
If the judge & prosecutor did, like it seems, decide this case based on no evidence other than her ‘testimony’ then this system is broken down enough to cause great concern. It would seem that we have more and more Duke type University prosecutors willing to play with others lives to maintain some conviction record.
IMHO this case should never have been prosecuted and the judge did in fact act on political pressure…
God help us.
I’ll just fill in a bit as it might help and then let the discussion go on.
At the final hearing the judge actually said words to the affect that Jordan had everything going for him, and so, more to lose, and so, he must be the liar and then guilty.
Also, his coach hooked him up with an attorney friend, but not a criminal defense type. EVERYone felt that the case was so poor that they counseled him to go in front of a judge because they thought it was a given that he’d be freed. It all happened in a really bad context and there was a lot of emotion surrounding an earlier case in which a very bad guy beat a very bad charge inappropriately.
Important discussion!
I just want to thank everyone who has commented on this so far. I knew this was going to hit some nerves when I wrote it, but I do think it’s an important discussion to have! It’s great to hear everyone’s perspectives, and I like the dialogue we have going here.
Part of me thinks that “she said” testimony should absolutely be sufficient in a court of law. 99.9% of the time, women are not making these allegations lightly (or falsely). BUT, in the rare case in which someone DOES make a false allegation, the accused is in a terrible situation (particularly if they don’t get good legal advice). Not sure how to reconcile that. One lesson here is that finding strong legal representation is really, really important.
I agree w/ Rachel that cases like this are definitely the exception, and I’m sure it’s true that many guilty people do get off the hook, all the time. I imagine there are many, many frustrations involved in practicing law!
Being a feminist doesn’t mean you automatically support women. In fact being a feminist has nothing to do with women- a common misconception. Being a feminist means you are a person regardless of gender, that believes in standing up for at risk populations. Some of these populations include minorities, those that could be taken advantage of, and people who lack voice or choice.
By definition, feminists should have or would have had to consider BOTH of the testimony of these two individuals. Jordan appears to be the individual that lacked a voice, because his voiced was suppressed by the voice of someone else- who was also at risk based on her lack of capacity (due to alcohol.)
There shouldn’t be an “automatic assumption” because a woman said so – because we’re feminists we should be able to look beyond that and try and understand the situation.
A similar incident occurred my senior year of college, between a man and woman on the college cross country team. While they both agreed that a sexual encounter had taken place, the woman announced she had been raped (2 years after the event) and the man claimed it was consensual. I struggled with many of the same questions that you are, Emma. Should I believe the woman who I had once been close friends with? Hadn’t I grown up in an environment that stressed believing all women’s claims of sexual assault? Or should I believe the man who was one of my best friends at the time, who I couldn’t imagine assaulting anyone? I finally had to accept that I would never know what had happened and that both parties truly believed in the veracity of their claims. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to decide what punishment (if any) should be meted out.
Just a follow up, based on Paul’s concerns. When a case is tried to a judge instead of a jury, the judge alone is the fact-finder. The same standards of presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt apply – it’s just the judge who determines whether the evidence (sometimes ONLY testimony) is sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the crime charged. The prosecutors in this case believed the victim was telling the truth and pursued the case accordingly. The judge ultimately found the victim to be more credible than the defendant. Again – was the judge right? I don’t know. But the means by which the judge reached his/her opinion are those set forth by our system.
As for rampant prosecutors concerned only with conviction rates, I sincerely hope you can rethink this position. Prosecutors in every jurisdiction in every state in the nation try cases every day. The ones you actually hear about are those that make the news for being exceptional or, unfortunately, infamous. Mike Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke LaCrosse case, WITHHELD exculpatory evidence. He was disbarred as well he should have been. This is atypical behavior and NOT representative of how a prosecutor conducts him/herself. To say there are “more and more prosecutors willing to play with others’ lives to maintain a conviction record” is a herculean leap of assumption based on the bad behavior of a few misguided egoists.
I cannot pretend that I am a seasoned veteran in the courtroom. I am a young attorney and have many years and many lessons ahead. But when I got hired, one thing was made crystal clear to me – with great power comes great responsibility. The State has the power to charge individuals with a crime. That power should never be taken lightly. I am told that it is as much my duty to NOT charge a case without merit as it is TO charge a case. I can’t name a single colleague who would pursue a case he or she believed was untrue simply because he/she thought a jury would convict. That is unconscionable behavior.
I read the appellate decision and the comments from Jordan’s brothers and all I can say is this case is heartwrenching. I will not say the court made the wrong decision at the appellate level, but it certainly seems like Jordan received poor advice from his original attorney. Also – I hate to make an unfair judgment based on my limited understanding of the circumstances, but it does seem like a higher premium was placed on the future of Jordan’s wrestling career than on his liberty. It just doesn’t make sense to me that a jury was waived, the family was instructed not to talk about it, and Jordan’s own wishes were not considered. Sadly, it seems like one of the biggest injustices here was forwarded by Jordan’s own attorney.
What an incredibly sad story, Emma. I will say this: One common denominator in most of these stories is alcohol or some other altered state of being. I’ve gotten myself into situations in which I didn’t feel entirely comfortable, or worse felt outrightly threatened, that likely would not have happened without alcohol. I’m not advocating that we should try to control access to alcohol – in fact, that’s generally had the opposite effect on the college population. But I do think teaching both young men and women about the potential aftermath of drinking way too much (as well as ironically, lowering the drinking age, so it’s not such a taboo to be abused in college), would help a lot. I’m not entirely sure what the answer is, but I want for my daughter to grow up in a culture that doesn’t make such a big deal out of drinking, so she learns to drink responsibly – and socially – and understands the risks of drinking to the point of getting black-out drunk (not saying that’s the exact case here). I just think both men and women put themselves in bad situations, where the truth is blurred and memories are hazy, that they might not otherwise when drinking is involved. And don’t get me wrong – I love my wine and beer.
This is a highly emotionally charged topic but that’s what makes it a great blog post. I’ve heard statistics from reputable sources (like the US Dept of Justice) that differ from saying only 2% of accusations are false, to 1 in 4 rape accusers are lying.
I think Erin is correct in that counseling our young folks to stay out of bad situations and away from abusing alcohol and drugs is the right answer. And I applaud Jordan for sticking to his truth – it sounds as though he will still have a productive life after all this.
I agree with Shana that there are “too many women” seeking revenge but that’s only because to me, one woman doing it is too many women. I don’t think it’s an epidemic. And I also know that just because Kobe Bryant didn’t go to jail, doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. (Remember OJ?)
Let’s remain sensitive to the fact, when we argue these points, that according to an October MPR report quoting the Dept. of Justice statistic that only one in 20 sexual assaults ever get reported. There are a lot of people unjustly suffering from this crime – including Jordan. Let’s work to eliminate rape in the first place. Go to Rainn.org if you’d like more info.
Thanks so much for your perspective Rachel!
I think the single biggest dis-service among many was provided by his legal folks early on. And later, with new people involved, they went expressly against Jordan’s wishes and made things look worse than they should have as well.
I’m sort of fond of the idea that doctors and lawyers (or really anyone) say they “practice” their professions for a reason – they don’t have it right yet!
Erin, I agree all the way. Alcohol was definitely an issue in this case and far too many others. I’ve been preachy about watching out for each other when imbibing for decades. It’s possible to see who will be in a bad way pretty early on in these sorts of situations, and friends need to step up! People need to be accountable for their own behavior too, but be practical and keep an eye out for friends who could be in trouble. In this case – for both parties!
It’s sickening that we have to worry that there are people who will take advantage, but it’s not as pretty a world as it can be all the time. There’s no doubt that there are really bad people who will use impairment against others.
The overwhelming risk of losing everything I have ever known, including my freedom, is the one weight on my mind when I re-consider getting into teaching. I remember the Jordan, Minnesota sex scandals in the early 1980s and how Kathleen Morris and her office “found” sex cases in every shadow. I remember losing a lot of faith in the judicial system as every day uncovered more and more children who were “abused.” The number of cases seems disproportionate to the population and seemed incredulous. Apparently, it was.
And just when you think we’ve reached some parity between the sexes, women start doing this: http://www.dogwalkblog.com/tough-talking-female-politicians-are-not-tough-they-are-bullies.html Only a select few, but women in positions of leadership signal to others that it is ok. Makes men not want to reach out a hand for anything.
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Dear DogWalkBlog,
I get it, but man up? Woman up!
Some of you out there will know that among the “S–t that Emma’s Dad Says” is WOMANLY and I use it for anything tough women do that, if they were a man, would be called manly. Marathon – womanly. Tough debate – womanly. Child birth – off any chart, but womanly. Let’s see any guy pull that off, no matter how manly.
As a graduate of a woman’s college as well, I understand why you would be struggling over this issue. In this case, at least according to the information that you provided us, it seems that this was a miscarriage of justice and that is unfortunate. My heart breaks for that man and the youth that he lost.
That said, it is also unfortunate that the system seems unable to find that just area in between punishing women who are victims of sexual crimes, and apparently being overly zealous about punishing men accused of such crimes without physical evidence. It is sad really. I wish I had a solution. As you said earlier, most of the women who come forward as victims are telling the truth.
I think I agree with a poster above who said that feminism is not an automatic gender alliance, at least it shouldn’t be. The need for feminism stems from inequalities of the sexes, which would imply that without the inequalities we would all be humanists (I know, I’m inventing a term) instead of feminists. The important thing here is to support the rights of all people, male or female.
Emma, you’ve raised a really difficult issue here, and I’ve found myself sitting and thinking about it. Yes, I can imagine such a charge being made against someone close to me–by a male OR a female, by the way. And it’s possible to imagine that a court could find a complainant sympathetic, even without corroborating evidence. I don’t know an answer, except to teach people to avoid risky situations. And part of me wonders about the sentences meted out these days. Drunk drivers who kill people get off easier than Jordan did, it seems. Much to think about….
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Thanks for weighing in on this. It was one of my favorite posts ever because it got so many people thinking!
[...] Was Justice Really Served? [...]
I’ve noticed a lot of the discussion in this forum has been about the credibility of witness testimony so I think it’s worth noting that in Jordan’s case, according to the only DNA expert to testify – a reputable expert with doctorates from Harvard and Johns Hopkins, the physical evidence was in fact conclusive to show that the accusation “did not happen.” (Transcript 306-307, 331-332, 345-346, 349, 352, 355) The State, with all of its resources and funding, could not find an expert who thought differently of the physical, scientific facts in Jordan’s case. This seems overlooked, perhaps because it’s hard to imagine, but it is not accurate to classify the dispute in Jordan’s case as merely “he said, she said.” In my view this is very revealing of the zealotry of the State to convict.
Many feel that at that time the State was propelled to seek conviction amid the wake of an ongoing uproar that was the result of an especially minimal sentence (probation) being issued to another student-athlete in the same courtroom after he plead guilty to charges of sexual assault. Whether this played a significant role or not in the State’s decision to prosecute, the entirety of evidence does reveal that the State’s argument for conviction hinged fully upon their ability to frame the case in terms of “he said, she said.” What does this say of a) the decision to prosecute or b) the condition of our society that the State was confident “she said” would overpower the “he said” of the DNA expert and the “he said” of Jordan to the point of conviction? Sadly, Jordan’s counsel did not anticipate this and did not present a speck of character evidence on Jordan’s behalf. This is true despite a mountain of evidence of his good name and virtually nothing to contradict it but this sudden accusation.
Therefore, the Court’s willingness, or rather, the sole fact finder’s creative insistence to reason that “this case boils down to the application of the credibility instruction,” (or he said, she said) is an egregious misrepresentation of the facts that merely declares the Court’s decision was based on very loose speculation of who Jordan is. Perhaps the ongoing outrage in the community over the “special treatment” of student-athletes and the negative stereotype that was formed helped the judge to minimize the giant leap he made in assuming Jordan was disrespectful of women in the worst kind of way. That he acted without moral conviction or concern for those around him, AKA, a “typical” student-athlete. Provided our beloved standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, this should result in outrage. The evidence that says Jordan is otherwise truly is mountainous. And yet the judge concluded: “[An] important factor to consider is the interest in the trial and the motives of [the accuser] and the Defendant. Without question, the Defendant has more interest in the trial and motive to be untruthful than does [the accuser]. Parenthetically, the more a Defendant has to lose in reputation, future, or penalty, the greater the motive to be untruthful…[The accuser’s] motive to lie, albeit real, would be substantially less than the Defendant’s…Without a firm reason to believe that [the accuser] was lying…the verdict in this case cannot be not guilty.” (Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Verdict, 14-15)
Thanks for this, John (Note: John is one of Jordan’s older brothers, which is why he knows this case so well). I am really interested in the role of the other student-athlete case. As a former college coach and instructor who had athletes from many different teams in class, this saddens me greatly. 99.9% of the college athletes out there are hardworking, ethical people, but there are the select few who see themselves as larger than life, beyond the rules, and I think it’s pretty clear that this happens at the professional sports level as well. I don’t think they realize how much damage they are doing to our society and to our kids who idolize them. And, Jordan’s case is a sobering look at the potential for the legal process to overlook the human element. Who are the unique individuals facing (or making) charges? It seems to me that this should count for something.
Now we are getting somewhere. This all happened in Iowa City, Iowa, home of the Hawkeyes, where every thing and everyone is black and gold. The predecessor case was a Hawkeye basketball player and it’s just a fact that student-athletes have always gotten away with a lot in pretty much every Big Ten city.
In this case, there was a bunch of community uproar over the light sentence the b-ball guy got. It’s maybe not fair, and it’s my opinion only, but I believe a lot of it was because the guy was black. On the heels of that, Jordan came along. Wow! A Division One scholarship wrestler could be prosecuted, and luckily for the prosecution and the judge, they could throw the book at him and be fine with the good old boys, because, hold your breath – he wasn’t a Hawkeye – but instead from the University of Northern Iowa. So, they did.
There was crummy counsel, a weird judge, bad advice from others, all sorts of problems, but at the end of the day he was a scapegoat, again in my opinion.
The other guy, the real bad guy later on did some time for followup stuff, but never had to register even though he was an actual predator, and was recently still messing around in the lower pro leagues trying to get to the bigs.
[...] be continued in a final post this week… (This post follows “Was Justice Really Served?” and “Talking Truth with Jordan [...]
[...] prison. Last week, I met up with Minnesota native Jordan Holm, who I first introduced here in “Was Justice Really Served?,” which has been the most-read post in this blog’s short history. When I wrote that piece, the [...]
[...] Emma is a Minnesota writer who gives her unique perspective after interviewing Jordan. Click here to see the full [...]
“I couldn’t help but wonder if others might see me as a bad feminist for questioning the word of a fellow woman.”
So you are willing to ignore your own feelings after thinking over the situation and coming to your own conclusion, because you are so wound up in being a feminist that you don’t want to disappoint the “movement”. This just in, there are both bad men and women out there. Don’t let the need to feel a part of something make your decisions for you.
Other than that, good article.
I happened to meet Jordan last night at core fitness in Iowa city. Other than informally chatting about exercise in the sauna, I had no idea about the context of his return to the mat. In fact, I barely remembered his full name because I am not so much a wrestling fan and we had never spoken before. In any event, since I live here in IC and the Olympic trials are here, I decided to look Jordan up in case I could make it down to carver (the arena) or have someone to route for this summer. And I am literally still stunned since looking him up at the end if my work day (almost 6 hours ago) with a newborn and 18 month old (both boys) at my side, just exasperated by what I have read and am reading.
Thank you, Jordan. It is all I can say for not even alluding to how dirty you were played by the Iowa court system. (that all this could be swirling around while our whole discussion was about only positive experiences–past, present, and future–is quite remarkable, especially given how i stumbled into his circumstances for being here, and Knowing absolutely nothing about this upon saying good luck and good nite).
There is injustice everywhere indeed, but grace never needed to beg such forgiveness. Grace, you have found your man, there is a chance for redemption here. Let this young man fulfill his destiny now, whatever that is…only get it right this time. He wrestles tomorrow. I won’t be there in person, but everything in my agnostic self prays for goodness to pin the horror down.
This gave me the chills, Ryan. I will make sure Jordan sees it. Sending good vibes to Iowa City today…
I was walking down the street last evening in Iowa City when someone across the way started shouting my name. Amazingly it was Jordan and we decided it must be some sort of sign. We talked for a few minutes, he was just out clearing his head, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as relaxed and ready. Turns out he really was ready, and as I write this we are waiting to see him in the finals tonight. He was the most outstanding of the Greco guys so far too. It’s an awesome story no matter what happens next.
The prosecutor, above (“Rachel”), defends the Holm outcome by reference to sentiment rather than the specifics of the case. Feminism destroys itself with such statements as “I have to disagree with the sentiment (not yours) that women are running wild falsely accusing men of sex crimes.” First of all, that’s utterly a straw man takedown, a pointless rebuttal of a position no one has taken here (and unworthy of rebuttal had it been). Second, she refutes nonexistent sentiment by appealing to sentimental nonsense. One may sum up her point of view succinctly: “Tough break for the kid. Too many men get off in these cases unconvicted. There’s never any reliable evidence, so it’s not fair to expect the court to seek evidence and testimony — other than the testimony of the accuser — that shows criminal behavior. Besides, as the judge noted, it was logical to believe her and not him, because he was a successful promising kid and she is just a loser with personal problems; all the incentive to lie belonged to him.” This is just a very dark world of bad thought and fled justice that Rachel advocates.
A major theme in current feminist thought is that because rape is such a serious crime, it’s okay if men are falsely accused and convicted from time to time. Clearly this informed the confidence (I would call it prosecutorial arrogance) that the Johnson County prosecutor brought to this man’s prosecution. In a case like this one, we see the relevance of political thought (accomplished men are more likely to be liars than accusatory females, even when the accusations are made by someone who had been drinking all day, thrown out of one bar for fighting, and then impeached by her own boyfriend who was *in the bed* in which the alleged assault occurred), and whose claims of assault were contradicted by physical evidence.
Here’s a good one for you: would he have been convicted had he been black? Not in a million years. The Johnson County DA’s office would not have stirred up the national firestorm that would have occurred had a black kid been convicted on the basis of an intoxicated victim, a sympathetic witness who impeached the accuser, and exculpatory physical evidence, and a judge who claimed to be able to read the defendant’s mind and rationally determine his motivations to tell, or not tell, the truth.
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