A settlement was just reached that allowed five University of Minnesota football players to play football. They could play away games, but not home games, and missed the game against Rutgers. What did they do to be barred from playing in their home stadium?

After a student said she was sexually assaulted by four University of Minnesota football players last month, the police and prosecutors investigated but declined to bring charges. The athletes were allowed to resume playing.

Yet they and two other players have missed one game, and five of them may miss more because of a restraining order issued by a court that prohibits the players from being near not only the student’s apartment but also her place of employment — the football stadium where the team plays its home games.

The female student who made the allegation had a job at the stadium. And since she was there, they couldn’t be.

In court documents, the woman’s lawyer argued that the order provided her with a modicum of safety from the men, at least one of whom, she said, has harassed her in the aftermath of what happened.

“My client has been through a traumatic experience,” the lawyer, Amy Isenor, told reporters after the hearing. The woman, who attended the hearing, declined to comment.

In court documents, she asked for the orders because she said she did not feel safe in her apartment or on campus.

That a restraining order is issued during the pendency of a prosecution for a sexual assault is neither unusual nor troubling. But here, there was no prosecution. The District Attorney declined to do so.

None of the five were arrested or charged.

“There is insufficient admissible evidence for prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either force was used, or that the victim was physically helpless as defined by law in a sexual encounter,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement earlier this month.

The explanation, to the extent reported, would seem to suggest something untoward happened, though it doesn’t say that at all. An ungenerous quote to be sure, but that’s all the New York Times deigned to feed us. What it does say is that the prosecution lacked the evidence to prove the elements of a crime occurred, and therefore there would be no prosecution.* That presumption of innocence we honor so well in the breach was still intact. As if anybody cared.

Legal experts said that while the case represented a new approach from an accuser on a campus unsatisfied with the outcome of a criminal investigation, such restraining orders are commonplace among people who feel threatened.

This is a true, yet false, assertion. No, not just the “legal experts” silliness, which consists of two “victims'” lawyers, but that restraining orders are “commonplace among people who feel threatened.” That there is an objective reason to believe that they are threatened, not just their feelz, is one criterion, but there is a second that the “experts” neglect to mention: prosecution.

It is hardly common for judges to issue restraining orders for free-floating claims of scared feelings.** Nor should it be. You can’t march down to your local courthouse, tell a judge that somebody makes you feel threatened and get an order against them.  And a judge has no jurisdiction over random individuals who are the targets of people who feel scared.

But they’re not random? To the law they are. Unless and until they are arrested and prosecuted, they maintain both the presumption of innocence and the constitutional right to be left alone.

But what about the “victim”? First, she is not a victim. For that matter, she’s not a “survivor” either, though she would most assuredly be deemed a survivor by the forces of female tears and weakness, for the only criterion for being named a “survivor” is to claim the mantle of victimhood. Then you will become the center of attention and all the other deeply passionate women and their neutered allies will whisper sweet sympathy in your ear.

Why be so mean, so dismissive, toward a woman who may have suffered sexual assault? Because it’s not good enough, not by a mile. These young men are athletes, which was once a good thing but in the context of an allegation of a sexual assault, damn near proof of a crime because of the contrived lie that athletes are privileged and precisely the sort of toxic males who believe they are entitled to rape and assault women. Playing sports is a condemnation in itself.

But not only are these five young men athletes, but black athletes. If they were shot by a cop, there would be protests by outraged SJWs shutting down the campus. But if accused of sexual assault, they are deemed guilty by the very same SJWs. The race of the woman is unmentioned. What she alleges they did is unmentioned, despite the meaningless vagary of sexual assault in the campus lexicon. There was a time people spoke with words that conveyed meaning. Nowadays, conclusory phrases like “sexual assault” are all that’s needed.

Do these five young black men deserve to be able to go about their lives, their sports, without the taint of a vague accusation that fails to amount to a crime? Not anymore.

The restraining order, issued without connection to a prosecution, has now been vacated, as the lawyers have reached a “settlement.”

All five players agreed to stay 20 feet away from the woman, and they must have no contact with her until she graduates.

The woman works at TCF Bank Stadium on game days, and the restraining orders kept Ray Buford, KiAnte Hardin, Tamarion Johnson, Dior Johnson and Carlton Djam from playing in home games. The dismissal clears the way for them to play at the stadium, if the university approves.

The woman remains unnamed. The players, innocent because they’ve never been proven otherwise, are named so that the taint of the accusation is clearly directed, will get to play (if the university approved!).  Not that they wanted to ever be within 20 feet of this woman again, but the young men will carry this taint, and this limitation on their freedom, small though it might be, for no better reason than a woman made an accusation, that a woman had a feeling.

*No prosecution means two things: there is no vetting of the allegations against the male students, and no opportunity for the male students to dispute those allegations, to make their case that they did not commit sexual assault.

**Edited to add: Minnesota law provides for an ex parte temporary domestic abuse and harassment restraining order for a period of two years upon an adequate showing to a judge. If an order is signed and served, the respondents can seek a hearing within 45 days of its issuance.