About two months ago, during Homecoming Weekend, a male Ohio University student performed oral sex on a female student on Court Street. A crowd of people—those who, on any other weekend night, avoid eye contact while walking hurriedly by street performers and grilled cheese fundraisers—stopped, stared, gawked at the show.
Some, in this age of social media, pulled out their phones, hit record and pressed post.
The tweets and Instagram photos exploded with retweets and screen grabs. Ohio University students, infamous for their party school status and alcohol-inspired hashtags, rose to new heights of repugnancy with vulgar hashtags and blatant sexism.
Amid the social media flurry, the woman who was captured in the recordings of that night reported to Athens police that those images showed a rape, not a private act gone horribly public.
As police collected video recordings and conducted interviews, Ohio University officials and activists called for discussions about campus attitudes and invoked imperatives for changes in behavior—we did the same on this very page. A grand jury later decided there was not enough evidence to charge someone with a felony, and directors from the city law and police departments said no charges would be forthcoming.
“It was my opinion that (public indecency) did occur,” Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said in a previous Post article. “But I think that the public embarrassment of what has gone on is more than a misdemeanor charge could be.”
Whether the pair would see any charges then came down to the city law director’s office and the police department. Officials from both said no charges would be forthcoming.
Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said he was advised by Athens City Law Director Pat Lang and Blackburn to not pursue any charges because proving a crime would be difficult.
During the initial investigation, however, Pyle said the videos and images that circled internationally online aided investigators with additional evidence. Now, though, there seems to be a lack of it.
And what about the Ohio University student whose name and personal information were published by The Daily Beast for recording and sharing the sex act?
What about the poor woman falsely named as the student, her pictures plastered over the Internet? Pictures that somewhat resemble the woman who reported a rape if you squint enough?
They were publicly shamed.
But the only people that know the identities of the pair are close friends, family and a few university officials. That might not ever change.
Of course, prosecuting the pair with a misdemeanor isn’t going to make up for what happened to the others. But fair—in this case—isn’t necessarily fair.
Yet these two students have yet to see any consequences from the university or the government and might never face any legal repercussions.
The potential repercussions extend beyond those immediately involved.
We are by no means accusing the woman of falsely alleging rape, but this incident brought with it a discussion on the subject. Many on social media and in conversations made summary judgements about the alleged rape when it first broke, saying she was participating and that her allegation of rape was blatantly false. Those beliefs can easily foment a generalization that can affect those men and women who truly accuse their attackers but are met with doubt because of false accusations from others.
The statistic of false reports is small, but the effect—as illustrated by some people’s immediate assumption that this was a false report—is significant.
Forty-eight days later, we have effectively gone nowhere. As long as the national spotlight shined on us, we had a robust discussion, but we let that discourse dwindle as that spotlight faded. Two names indirectly involved in the incident were dragged through the mud, and theirs are what we will remember most from this case. We seem to be no better off now than we were then.
And that is the greatest public shame of all.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
