Hofstra Student Lies About Being Raped

Innocent and happy to be heading home.

This past Monday, while most of us were snoozing through lectures, four Hofstra students were arrested, slapped with a “rapist label” and thrown in a jail cell facing up to 25 years for gang raping a  freshman.

The next day my mom called me distraught.

“Please lock all your doors.”
“Do not go home alone or stay out really late.”
“If a guy is following you or you feel at all uncomfortable, call the police.”

In an instant all college guys were DANGER.

While most of us tend to bop around in our (seemingly) safe, little campus bubbles, this situation forced me to wake up and realize that this is a valid and substantiated fear. College girls all over the country have been taken advantage of on campus, from harassment to rape. This is a real concern for all of us.

Which is why this Hofstra freshman’s story was taken so seriously.
Too bad she made the whole thing up.

Yep, she admitted to officials last night that the sex had been consensual.

When I heard, I (as I’m sure most people were) was disgusted. Whenever this kind of case arises, the woman is always given the benefit of the doubt. These cases are not taken lightly at all, and while our justice system claims to base itself on the principle “innocent until proven guilty,” the minute a woman points the Rape finger at a man, he is done for.

The fact that this girl turned a very real danger into a joke is taking the validity away from future victims who come forward about being raped. Now instead of dealing with the problem as a legitimate one, victims are going to be second-guessed. “Was she really raped, or did she just wake up and decide her one night stand was not such a good idea?”

Being doubted or suspected of lying could continue to silence girls who are raped, which leaves the men who take advantage of them out there unpunished, able to take advantage of another girl.

And then there are the poor guys. Yes, they have been vindicated, but how can they simply return to their normal lives? They just spent three days in a jail cell with their picture plastered across the news as the latest poster boys of rape. They lost their jobs, they lost respect and now everything is supposed to go back to normal?

This girl is now being “investigated,” why, I do not know. If anything, she needs to be punished and ASAP. Did they “investigate” these four guys when she accused them? No, they threw them in a jail cell. Why is she still being given the benefit of the doubt?

Rape should not be taken lightly – it is not a term that should just be thrown around – and I am disgusted that this student, a woman, doesn’t agree.