The Steubenville rape case has drawn national attention for the many issues it has forced us to (uncomfortably) explore, including the cultural idolization of football, social-media public perception, and the acceptability of egregious teenage behavior and gender roles, among others.
All of a sudden, the story ballooned on national media outlets, and the identities of the two high-school students accused, Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were plastered on the front page of every online news source.
Television networks ran extended pieces, analyzing the two boys’ backgrounds. And all over Facebook and Twitter, Mays and Richmond instantly became known names, newly fashioned symbols of the sexist, women-objectifying, criminal-rapist persona.
You could click on any major online news network’s headline for the “Steubenville Rape Case,” and invariably find the faces of the two teenagers staring back, fully exposed to the entire nation’s transfixed viewers.
But the pressing question should be: Why were their identities revealed at all?
Why were the country’s viewers allowed to know the names of two juveniles who were subsequently scrutinized and acerbically berated all across social media and online forums?
In a country that values the protection of minors and legally recognizes minors as not possessing the same degree of self-responsibility as adults, the caustic exposure of these students was and is entirely inappropriate.
Regardless of the wrongness of their actions, allowing the entire nation to inevitably turn these two wayward youngsters into public piñatas of sexism and the football hyper-ego reflects a serious flaw in judgment.
Mays and Richmond were initially identified in the New York Times story that broke the coverage on the incident, which occurred in August of last year. The trial was then declared open to the media Jan. 30, meaning that media outlets could videotape and broadcast the trial as well as the identities of those involved (with the exception of the rape victim), allowing the media to provide direct video coverage of the accused boys.
Judge Thomas Lipp ruled that the trial would be open to the media in order to enable proper public scrutiny of the controversial case, which would ideally ensure that the proceedings would be fair and not subject to bias.
However, declaring an open-media trial is far from the correct action for ensuring trial integrity. No matter what occurs in the case, we should keep very clearly in mind that these two boys, ages 16 and 17, are minors. The judicial system is obliged to maintain their anonymity, because they are not yet adults. Selecting another juvenile-court judge or some other special adjustment would have been a better choice in maintaining trial fairness than to expose Mays and Richmond the way Lipp’s decision did.
With the declaration of an open-media case, coverage of the incident snowballed into a firestorm. Within a period of a few days, the vast majority of Americans were able to recognize the accused boys’ faces as “the Steubenville rapists.” It is safe to say that their identities are forever connected to the severe mistakes they committed — wherever they go, they will be known as dirty rapists because of the media coverage to which they were subjected. Even this seems too hefty a price for these young men, as minors, to pay.
I make no pretense of defending Mays and Richmond; their actions clearly constitute undeniably wrong sexual assault. But, however we view them, we are obliged to remain true to our own values, to recognize that they are still minors — that they still merit protection from the harsh spotlight of national news and don’t deserve to have their faces broadcast throughout the country. Let us denounce their crime and recognize the need to change our cultural perceptions of rape, but, at the same time, not get so carried away as to compromise our commitment to protecting minors from scarring public castigation.
Kevin Hwang is a senior at Athens High School who is taking classes at Ohio University and a columnist for The Post. Should the teenagers’ names have been released? Email Kevin at kh319910@ohiou.edu.
