Sigh:
Three weeks into the 2014 school year, Lewis, who was still on crutches and needed surgery, says she met Ahmad Ali Bradshaw, a West Point quarterback who was best friends with her roommate.
One night, as Lewis later told West Point investigators, she came back to her room after a shower. Bradshaw was there and, she claimed, he raped her.
Bradshaw denied having any sexual contact with Lewis at all, according to an internal investigation report obtained by The Daily Beast. Bradshaw also chose to not render an official statement and invoked his right to remain silent.
West Point’s internal investigation concluded that a consensual sexual relationship between the cadets had occurred, and a second investigation, by the Army Criminal Investigation Division and the Staff Judge Advocate, found there was “insufficient evidence” to charge Bradshaw with sexual assault.
Bradshaw declined to comment on the allegations when contacted by a Daily Beast reporter, and West Point denied an interview with Bradshaw, saying in an email that it was a “really busy time given the classroom environment and the upcoming Army Navy activities.”
Read the whole thing. I wonder if this has caught Gillibrand’s attention.
Big Ole Hound
Three years later in a military academy? Why the wait after the investigation? Maybe, but all these waay after the fact accusations are getting a lot of attention in today’s sexual climate.
Shalimar
If the relationship was consensual, why would he lie and say there was no relationship? And if you know he’s lying, why wouldn’t you assume he is lying about it not being rape too?
Amaranthine RBG
It’s really not a coincidence that there’s a lot of overlap between football teams and rape culture.
Emma Anne
Aren’t West Point cadets not supposed to lie? If the relationship was consensual (it wasn’t) and Bradshaw lied and said there was no contact, he should be out on his ass.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Shalimar:
Also, I thought the service academies were supposedly so strict on the honor thing that lying alone would get you bounced.
Emma Anne
@Big Ole Hound:
What? I am entirely not getting your point here.
Shalimar
@Steeplejack (phone): According to the article, he also has a plagiarism charge among other honor code violations. Obviously they are not strict on quarterbacks.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Alternate theory (I was at USAFA, so I’ve had some interaction with the honor code and disciplinary regimes at the military academies post gender mix) – she could well have been in a jam herself, too, over the sex in barracks thing, and had gotten caught. Maybe had some grade or discipline based restrictions hanging over her head, too, and this was her way of bailing herself out. His initial denial was his.
You’d be surprised what a 19 – 21 year old will rationalize to get out of a minor jam.
Josie
West Point seems to agree with many other universities that an individual’s ability to win football (or basketball) games supercedes any other qualities.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Steeplejack (phone):
That reallly does depend on an analysis of the gravity of the conduct to the utility to mission – and football wins are part of the mission.
oatler.
Honor was a big word in the Antebellum South.
mai naem mobile
Why? Because West Point is in Gillibrands state? Nah, she’s more concerned about Minnesotas senator.
Omnes Omnibus
@oatler.: Meaning?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@mai naem mobile:
I haven’t looked to see where she was on TPP, but somehow, I think she hit the trifecta of stupid.
Mike in NC
Recently read an article about football team recruiters from West Point (and the other service academies). The most common question they received from potential players was “What’s West Point?”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
The more I think about it, the more stupid it is – things didn’t go to shit until the chickenshit roommate dropped the dime on the girl having sex. That sort of idiocy wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) have been on the honor books, but regular discipline at best rating some tours on the first offense.
Instead, we get an overwrought allegation of rape from a panicky, desperate late adolescent.
Ladyraxterinok
OT re latest CA fires: Will fact Murdoch property is affected mean T will loosen up fed $$ for CA fire damageTHIS time??
I find it despicable there’s so little pundit discussion of this. (Bad conspiracy theory #10678 – T denies fed aid to CA fires to damage its ability to operate effectively as a democratic force against his vileness. See also new tax plans abd plans vs sanctuary cities.)
B.B.A.
Blackstone said, “better a hundred guilty man go free than a single innocent man be convicted.”
Bismarck reversed it: “better a hundred innocent men be convicted than a single guilty man go free.”
I’m naturally closer to Blackstone than to Bismarck, but the sheer magnitude of sexual abuse in this country and the difficulty of prosecuting it under normal circumstances has convinced me that Bismarck was right in that particular narrow setting. That said, right now I think we’re heading towards convicting a hundred innocent people and letting a thousand guilty men go free, which isn’t good for anybody.
Shalimar
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Even if you believe she was lying, Bradshaw still has a violation for the sex in the dorm with another cadet and a violation for lying about it. Together with the plagiarism, how is he still there?
germy
I don’t know anything about their rules. Does westpoint have a rule against fraternizing between cadets? Is that why they both lied?
Ten Bears
Boycott “football”.
Shalimar
@germy: From the article:
mike in dc
Best practices would be that she contemporaneously reports the rape, a (military) police report is taken and someone compiles a rape kit. Then you go to a full investigation. If she reports it 3 years later, then we’re outside the realm of best practices. She could still be telling the truth, but now there’s no forensic evidence, no contemporary accounts. Did she tell anyone else at the time that she was raped?
Still, as Shalimar pointed out, there are multiple conduct code violations by Bradshaw. Why is he still in the Academy, let alone suiting up to play football?
aimai
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Really? Historically very, very, very, few women have ever cried “rape” and had it work out well for them–like: zero. The accusation that an important, football playing, guy raped you is not nearly as effective as admitting you are dating and having consensual sex with the guy–what woman would think that blaming your boyfriend for rape would be better than advancing a romeo and juliet defense?
Omnes Omnibus
@Shalimar: I didn’t attend one of the academies, but I do doubt that USMA has a zero tolerance policy for rule or honor code violations. I would expect that there is progressive discipline.
B.B.A.
@mike in dc: When you’re a star, they let you do it.
I need a shower just from typing that.
trollhattan
Jesus. Is it possible Ken Starr worked at both Baylor and the Point simultaneously? They have failed this young woman on every possible level. TBH I hold the military academies to a higher standard than other universities and this should be unacceptable everywhere.
aimai
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: OK, I see you misread the article and what it said about this girl. She and her roommate didn’t get a long but the accusation that the guy raped her did not come about because of her being reported for sexual activity–she reported the guy for raping her and
“Lewis then filed a formal report, a copy which was viewed by The Daily Beast.
To believe that she made this up is to project onto her situation something that is allllll about your expectations about hysterical teens/girls rather than indicated by the information in the article.
d58826
Who wrote this Museum speech that Trump is giving. Aside from sounding like he is half asleep it sounds like a name check list that you would hear at a Hollywood awards ceremony. No overarching theme, no vision for the future.
mike in dc
@aimai:
Okay, so she did report it contemporaneously. That’s very different. That makes the USMA look really bad here.
Corner Stone
@d58826: It was a photo-op. He didn’t give a shit if he was there or not.
Besides that, he and his best bud Roy Moore want to take America back to the times of slavery, so who cares about this crap?
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Having been through a military (NIS at the time now they are called NCIS) “investigation “ of an attempted sexual assault when I was 19 I believe her. They did everything they could to make the investigation go away so they could close the case until I just gave up and let them. It was that or let them ruin my career. And I will never trust the police if anything else were to happen to me I would not report it. Not going through that again
MomSense
Fuck. Could this year get any worse? My friend had a stroke and is in the hospital. She is only 51. Trying to figure out if I can visit with this cold. Gloves and mask?
She recently moved in with her Mom to take care of her after her mom was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia.
We are in the wrong timeline.
Steeplejack
@d58826:
Not Trump’s base. He doesn’t care. He’s phoning it in like the kid who never reads having to give a book report.
germy
in a column yesterday, Charles Pierce wrote about the Prince testimony transcript. But this sentence jumped out at me because it’s simply incorrect:
I’m pretty sure he inherited his fortune, as did his sister. He’s not a rags to riches story.
esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14392719/this-erik-prince-transcript-is-unbelievable/
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@MomSense so sorry about your friend. Maybe call the nurses station on her floor and ask them what they recommend although gloves and a mask would probably be ok. Hope they start PT with your friend soon. It sucks but in my mom in laws case it worked wonders
germy
@MomSense:
Maybe a phone call instead?
I had a relative who suffered a stroke. He contracted a respiratory illness and suffered because his stroke robbed him of his ability to clear his throat and cough properly, and so his congestion got really bad.
smintheus
@Emma Anne: The Academies have been disingenuous about their honor codes for many years. I taught in the early ’90s at the Naval Academy and saw for myself what older colleagues told me when I started, that the honor system was a joke and rarely involved serious sanctions – particularly not against athletes or other favored individuals. Much more likely, the Academy administration would accuse or punish faculty for bringing up honor code violations. I had to deal with aggressive payback for refusing to ignore honor violations.
It was also widely believed especially among women officers that intimidation and rape were astoundingly common and almost always brushed off by the administration.
MomSense
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
She said the occupational therapist and physical therapist are coming in this afternoon so that sounds hopeful.
@germy:
I’ll call the nurses station and see what they say. The last thing she needs is a respiratory infection.
bemused senior
I had a dear friend with cystic fibrosis and a lung transplant who was in the hospital pretty often. We found skyping to be a good way to visit without bringing germs. Maybe someone has a tablet or cheap laptop that could be wiped down to sanitize it and left with the nurses or a relative who is there with her much of the time this would allow you to see her, be with her, bring the outside world to her.
MomSense
@bemused senior:
That’s a great idea
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
The Sum of All Fears: NY Yankees acquire Giancarlo Stanton
Bernie was right after all – the system is rigged.
germy
Bluehill
Waiting for the December Doug Jones surprise
Omnes Omnibus
Looking at Bradshaw’s record as laid out in this article, I would not be/have been comfortable serving along side him.
trollhattan
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Dodgers are probably relieved, since the Giants were after him.
Emma Anne
@smintheus: Thanks. Horrified but not as surprised as I wish I was.
Adam L Silverman
@Big Ole Hound: She wasn’t the source. If you click over to the article you find this:
Adam L Silverman
@Shalimar: Violates The Point’s code of conduct for cadets to have sexual relations with each other, especially in cadet barracks on post.
Adam L Silverman
@Amaranthine RBG: No there isn’t. And football on a college campus and an increase in crime and violence in general on campus.
amygdala
@MomSense: I’m so sorry about your friend. Agree about calling the nurses station to see if/when you can visit. Keeping my fingers crossed you both make speedy, full recoveries.
Villago Delenda Est
@mai naem mobile: Seriously. She’s too busy admiring Al Franken’s scalp on her wall right now.
Adam L Silverman
@Emma Anne:@Steeplejack (phone): I wrote the strategic level report on culture and its relationship to sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape for the Army back in 2013 as part of the strategic level operational planning team/working group my boss convened to work on the problem set. He’d been tasked by the G1 of the Army (Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Personnel) to look at the issues from a strategic perspective. One of the major issues that kept coming up was getting beyond the he said/she said aspects of accusations when the physical and other evidence was not forthcoming in providing answers. By not forthcoming I mean the rape kit and/or other physical evidence shows sexual activity occurred, but it is inconclusive in regard to consensuality. In a zero defect military, even with relaxed standards because we’ve been at war since 2001, he said/she said becomes a point of failure in dealing with accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. If you can’t prove if one or more parties are lying and your other evidence isn’t helpful, then the institutional bias is to punt. I heard this multiple times from my uniformed colleagues.
Adam L Silverman
@mai naem mobile: No. It is because Senator Gillibrand has been all over the military sexual assault and rape issue as one of her issues to be resolved.
Adam L Silverman
@oatler.: West Point is in NY. A good 45 minutes to an hour north of NY City.
Adam L Silverman
@d58826: Stephen Miller who is traveling with him all the way to Mar a Lago. Since it’s Miller he just went to wikipedia for notable civil rights events and people. My guess is it is a word for word lift.
Shalimar
@aimai:
To me, the writing is poor but it does seem that she filed the formal report to clarify what really happened after the roommate reported her.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Jon Lovett calls him the C+ Santa Monica Fascist.
BellyCat
@Adam L Silverman: Serious question: So, how does a woman in the military, with positive DNA from a rape kit, prove she was raped if contrary “he said/she said” is given more credence by the military?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Whoever the senior officer is who leaked this stuff to The Daily Beast likely has sidetracked this cadet’s career.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: I think the + is being overly generous.
aimai
@Shalimar: Do you realize how fast that would have had to happen for her to be able to have a rape kit done? Are you asserting that her roommate told on her that night? I think it is sloppy writing but the interview with the girl refers to long standing hassles with her roommate over sexual issues/events with other persons (not Bradshaw who she claims not to have met before that night).
Adam L Silverman
@BellyCat: I don’t have an answer. I’m not a Staff Judge Advocate, nor was I ever really involved in any UCMJ stuff other than getting a briefing on what did and didn’t apply to me as a mobilized civilian on term orders. The leaders, including senior leaders, who are better on this issue take this conundrum seriously, but I’m not sure anyone has a better handle in it within the military as they do outside of it. We have far too much of the same problem in civilian law enforcement circles.
Shalimar
@aimai: I’m not asserting anything. I am saying those 2 sentences from the article are the only information I have, and the author does seem to be saying that filing the rape report was in response to the roommate reporting consensual sex first.
edit to add: I believe Lewis. I think Le Compte’s statement that young women make up rape lies for minor reasons is outrageous. I’m just interpreting those two lines as they seem to read.
B.B.A.
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh, just drop it already. Franken était coupable!
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I agree.
Emma Anne
@Adam L Silverman: I get that it is a tough problem when two people have had sex and one says it wasn’t consensual and the other says it was. But that isn’t what happened here. The only person shown to have been lying is Bradshaw.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
I take your point. But Bradshaw said there was no contact/relationship. The investigation determined that there had been a “consensual relationship.” (The story didn’t say how that conclusion was reached.) That is not “he said/she said”; it’s “he said/he lied.”
Yarrow
@MomSense: I’m so sorry about your friend. How terrible and so young.
I know you want to visit and help her, but unless it’s absolutely necessary I’d recommend staying home. Take care of yourself so you can help her later after this first urgent day. There’s not much your can do for her in the hospital. That’s why she’s there so the doctors and nurses can care for her. Also, even with the glove and mask it’s a risk that you could get someone else there sick. Maybe not your friend, but maybe someone even worse off. Plan to help your friend when she’s home and you’re past being contagious. It’ll probably be even more appreciated then.
BellyCat
@Adam L Silverman: The difficulty in establishing “truth” is obvious; however, dismissal of a rape claim merely because the accused denies it is a giant FU to the reporter.
Further proof there is no god: No post-coital light, even discretely installed, that glows one color for “YUM!” and another color for “HELL NO!”
IANAD, but is it possible that a rape would trigger some measurable fear/defensive response (from a blood test) that consensual sex would not? If so, this data, combined with a positive rape kit, would seem pretty hard to dispute.
Of course, I’m not overlooking the Institutional Convenience of dismissing a rape charge against favored parties, so the motivation to solve this definitively is possibly (ok, probably) just window-dressing.
Adam L Silverman
Full disclosure: I know the USMA Superintendent, but not well and largely from videoteleconferences. I am good friends with one of his former trusted colonels from previous assignments. I used to work with the guy’s wife. I’ve known the USMA Dean since 2003. She is a good friend and colleague. She is also the first woman to be promoted to deanship in the history of The Point. Previously she was the Chair of the Department of Social Science until the summer of 2016. I cannot imagine she is amused by the mess she inherited on this. And I have no particular insight into this or related cases as I’ve never held an assignment at The Point, though I have given three or four lectures there over the years.
Before I get into anything else, I want to be very clear: sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape within the military is a form of both (un)friendly fire and, using LTC (ret) Robert Bateman’s formulation, an insider threat against our own personnel and/or colleagues. The military is, however, part of the US. The sad reality is that it reflects American culture and society far more than it surpasses them. We have significant portions of Americans who, for religious or social or sub-cultural reasons, do not consider women to be fully autonomous human beings deserving of complete, equal rights and treatment. For many Americans woman, until they reach a certain age, are either in preparation to become pregnant and mothers, potentially pregnant and mothers, or are pregnant and/or mothers. As such they are not worthy of equal rights and protections because recognizing them empower women in ways that interfere with patriarchal traditions and preferences or privilege actually living, extant women over potential humans that may (or may not) be gestating in utero. If in 2017 we can’t get to consensus on this as Americans overall, expecting the military or Congress or any other US institution to be better is naive. It is also a sad reflection on the US and its socio-cultural development in the year 2017. And before anyone asks, I did raise and deal with these issues in the report I wrote on this topic for the Army.
As I wrote a couple of months back about the Profession of Arms, war is corrosive of the military – as both an institution and the personnel within it. We have been at war for over 16 years with no end in sight. We’ve seen standards for recruitment and retention relaxed and/or waived. We’ve seen personnel retained and promoted far beyond where they normally would have been, and without the required professional military education, because the military need the bodies to support what it has been tasked to do. And we’ve seen a degradation of the military’s institutions and structures. On the Army side this includes failures in operational unit readiness, mirrored by the Navy’s problems in the 7th Fleet. Within the generating Army we’ve seen a breakdown in the Army Force Generation cycle, which itself highlighted the stresses, tension, and dysfunction within and between US Army Forces Command, US Army Training and Doctrine Command, and US Army Training and Doctrine Command’s subordinate command the Combined Arms Center.
I think many of us would now assert that war is also corrosive of non military systems, structures, and institutions. And despite the vast majority of Americans not serving and not having any real connection to anyone who has because of the use of the All Volunteer Force and a heavy reliance on contractors, it is also corrosive on Americans. Just as it has been corrosive on America’s Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. In an America whose leadership has decided on undeclared war without end this is going to get worse.
Adam L Silverman
@Emma Anne: @Steeplejack: I’m not trying to argue or disagree with either of you. I don’t know any more about this than what is in the article. I’m a bit confused by how they could have found Bradshaw lied about having sex, but that it was still consensual. I don’t know what other evidence was reviewed. So I can’t explain anything more than I already have.
Adam L Silverman
@BellyCat: I’m not trying to argue with you. I don’t have any better answers here. I’m a social scientist, not a medical doctor or a biologist. Nor am I privy to any details or information that isn’t in the article about this.
BellyCat
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t suspect an argument from you (nor am I trying to create one!).
Your honesty and insight is greatly appreciated, as usual.
My comment about “Institutional Convenience” did not apply solely to the military, but rather, was meant to apply to any hierarchical system (and especially those who internally adjudicate serious issues — looking at you, too, universities).
Additionally, I tried to be careful about not assigning gender roles to rape since homosexual rape, while likely a minority of rape cases, is as troubling as heterosexual rape.
All in all, the cards are stacked against parties that have been egregiously violated and this depresses the shit out of me.
Adam L Silverman
@BellyCat: Tracking.
d58826
@Adam L Silverman:
definition please?
Adam L Silverman
@d58826: Here’s the policy:
apd.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/r525_29.pdf
Here’s a good rundown. They’re now calling it the Army Sustainable Readiness Model:
fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IN10679.pdf
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
The fact that she underwent a rape test really undercuts any notion that she was lying, IMO. Being willing to do that should put some extra weight on her side of the scales when the authorities are trying to determine if it was consensual or not.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: I completely agree with you, Mnem. I was an advocate in a local organization for women who were raped. If you were on call, you got the call any time of the day or night, and I have been with women who went ahead with the rape kit. That is a difficult thing for a woman to go through -I don’t see anyone going through that on a lark or as revenge against someone. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant.
d58826
@Adam L Silverman: thanks. I think:-)
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
I suppose I could see a very few people on the fringes of mental health doing it, but we’re talking about people with something like Munchausen’s Syndrome who are willing to do absolutely anything to keep up the facade, including undergoing unnecessary medical tests. Those people are few and far between, though.
SWMBO
@Mnemosyne: And these people would probably not get admitted to West Point.
Mart
The Stiller’s Big Ben also too a very likely rapist that was too big for football to fail for sexually assaulting women. I mean, priorities people.
bluefish
@d58826: Omarosa, I suspect. Seriously.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not an academy attendee, ever. But I suspect violations of the rules get demerits which you march off late at night. Violations of the honor code are binary, either you have honor or not. I can’t tell what’s up with this, but I’m rooting for Navy, as I’m a Navy veteran.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
Which cadet? Male star QB or female standard issue cadet? Male Army/Navy winner? Female GI? Why am I asking… Grrrrr
No One You Know
@BellyCat: Yes. It will trigger high blood pressure into a dangerous zone even if she is fit and healthy. and related panic responses. I don’t recall what those are now.