There are messages sent by our justice system powerful enough to send waves through society, ones that change lives for the better and can even redirect our culture in a way that is remembered through generations.
Many Supreme Court cases, including Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, etc, all changed our society in one foul sweep. And, personal beliefs or agreement aside, it's clear that the courts have a way of pushing us when we needed to be pushed and have a moral obligation to doing what is right and fair. Even lower county court trials can set dangerous precedents or show the strong hand of justice, and they often provide a small glimpse of a larger problem in America. Think of how the divisive trials of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown's cases drew so much attention; they seemed to be a symptom of a larger problem and gave faces to a battle people fight every day against different racial injustices. And no more than any other institution are there as many problems than in the blurred lines and big money world of college athletics. Nothing is more important than the courts sending powerful messages about what is right and wrong, because we know that leaving it up to the coaches and administrators to do it is, at best, incompetent, and at worst, sinister (Penn State).
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Our courts have the moral imperative to do what's right and seek justice. This last week, with the world watching, they failed spectacularly.
In a letter that was so bravely written (which you can read here), a 23 year old woman describes how she was raped unconsciously by an All-American Stanford swimmer in the back alley by a dumpster. Her attacker ran away after being caught by two people riding their bikes late at night. In a case, to the untrained eye, that seemed so open and shut, it was unfathomable how the judge gave the disgraced athlete only 6 months in jail. It was shocking and disheartening.
But the real tragedy lies in what comes in the future after this verdict. The judges statement saying how he chose a lighter sentence because a long one would "have a severe impact on him (the attacker)" showed how much the system protects those they deem more important. And in this case, it was the swimmers future career instead of the rape victims unending trauma.
The danger in this lies in how such a clearly heinous crime, with witnesses, DNA, crime scene evidence that damns the accused so thoroughly, was unable to get a sentence that punished the attacker enough. What happens in sexual assault cases where the evidence isn’t so strong? When the athlete is a quarterback at a top 25 school? When the girl is an 18-year-old involved with underage drinking, easily bullied into retracting a blurry story, and too scared to write the powerful letter written by the victim in this case? When the lines are truly blurred, where consent may or may not have been given, where the woman might be labeled as promiscuous and “wanting it”?
Then almost every single time the accused rapist will go on walking, making his school money and saving the career this judge so clearly cared about over anything else. The courts could look at the Stanford case and think that, even with all the evidence and the conviction of three counts of sexual assault, it really only warrants a measly 6 month prison sentence equivalent to a minor drug possession charge. And the women will go on, traumatized as horrifically as the Stanford victim, told that nothing really happened and that it was all a big misunderstanding.
To the court that decided this case, the administrators and coaches who sweep multiple sexual assaults and rapes under the rug, and the NCAA who can never get a tenuous grasp on how to punish these institutions and athletes, shame on you. You had a moral responsibility to move our society forward, to show that these obviously heinous crimes will never be tolerated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and you failed.
The prevailing rape culture of light sentences for heinous crimes will live on, and until those with the legal power start to destroy it with harsh punishments, it will linger on into the future.
