At the end of its post, The College Fix makes a brutal point that compels repeating:
Had Yovino reported the incident to Sacred Heart administrators rather than police, the male students – both punished by the university after they were charged – would have likely been branded as rapists for the rest of their lives.
It was fortuitous that Nikki Yovino chose to falsely accuse two male Sacred Heart students of raping her to police rather than some Title IX admin at Sacred Heart University. Yovino lied, and it was a nasty, ugly lie. Had she lied only to her college, nobody would have cared. Nobody would have ever questioned her claim. But she lied to the police instead, until she finally admitted it was a lie,
The 19-year-old Long Island woman — who claimed she was raped by two Sacred Heart University football players, then admitted months later to police that she lied to impress a prospective boyfriend, then claimed on the witness stand she was forced to have sex without her consent.
Yovino was sentenced for her lie, and the two victims had an opportunity to address her.
Malik St. Hilaire had been content to remain in the background during the year-and-a-half the case has been pending in the Golden Hill Street courthouse. He didn’t want his name to get out, to be pursued by the media the case had attracted.
He chose to come forward to give a victim impact statement at Yovino’s sentencing.
“I went from being a college student to sitting at home being expelled with no way to clear my name,” St. Hilaire told the judge, as Yovino smirked just a few feet away. “I just hope she knows what she has done to me, my life will never be the same. I did nothing wrong, but everything has been altered because of this.”
The second victim decided not to come out, to have his name associated with Yovino’s rape accusations, but issued a statement through St. Hilaire’s lawyer.
The last almost two years have been definitely my most difficult of my life,” the statement read. “The roller coaster of emotions; fear, anger, sadness, embarrassment, depression, anxiety and the list goes on. She accused me of what I believe to be a horrendous, horrific crime out of her own selfish concerns. I lost my scholarship, my dream of continuing to play football and now I am in debt $30,000 and I’m simply trying to get ahead as best as I can.”
The Yovino case is hardly proof that every accusation is false. It is, however, a microcosmic demonstration of why the narrative diminishing, trivializing, dismissing the excuses for a failed Title IX system is dangerous and flawed. Here, a white woman who engaged in consensual sex destroyed the lives of two young black men.
It’s not that the woman’s life doesn’t matter, but that the two men’s lives matter as well. It’s not that the woman’s accusation should not be believed, but that it shouldn’t be above scrutiny. False accusations happen. False accusations ruin lives. False accusations are not only deemed “impossible” in the scheme of campus Title IX adjudications, but even the consideration of such a thing would be politically untenable. No one but a rape-apologizing misogynist can doubt a “survivor.” And what’s the big deal anyway, since the impact on the accused is so trivial that it’s unworthy of concern. St. Hillaire begs to differ. So too does his friend.
Yovino agreed to plead guilty to two counts of second-degree falsely reporting an incident and one count of interfering with police, all misdemeanors, as the case was about to go to trial. She has already served three months in prison and likely faces another three months before she is eligible for release.
The contrast between the charges, and the sentence, for Yovino and the reaction to the sentence imposed on Brock Turner is also worthy of consideration. Her false rape accusation was hugely destructive. Does it compare to the impact on Turner’s victim? It’s hard, if not impossible to make any valid comparison, but both did severe damage. Is there anyone screaming about the sentence imposed on Yovino? Is there anyone outraged that there were only misdemeanors to be charged?
The point isn’t to claim one is worse than the other, that one harm is greater than another. Rather, the point is that there is harm either way, and yet only one side of the equation, the accuser of rape, is shown any serious concern based upon a narrative that denies reality, has crafted a litany of excuses to immunize itself from meaningful scrutiny and trivializes the risk and the suffering of those harmed in the process.
Tell Malik St. Hillaire that he should be willing to have his life destroyed for the sake of “survivors.” Tell his unnamed co-victim. Tell Nikki Yovino that she got off easy. Or we can just reduce the harm a false accusation causes people for the sake of “believing the victim,” because that’s important enough to some that they can shrug off the collateral damage in the name of their cause.
Had this been limited to Title IX at Sacred Heart, Nikki Yovino would be the hero of this story instead of the false accuser being sentenced. And nobody would give it a second thought, except the two guys whose lives were destroyed by the false accusation. And you would be fine with that, for the sake of “believe the victim.”
“The 19-year-old Long Island woman — who claimed she was raped by two Sacred Heart University football players, then admitted months later to police that she lied to impress a prospective boyfriend …”
This young woman has a heart of stone, rolling her eyes during the victim’s statement at sentencing, conclusively demonstrating she also has a brain of stone.
Chat up some college kids these days and you would be shocked at the depth of indoctrination. They are true believers, and fail to grasp why the harm done these two guys matters at all in comparison to the trauma suffered by women. Beyond that, nothing.
Does the “depth of indoctrination” also explain why being a rape victim is impressive to a prospective boyfriend?
No one is more adored these days than a victim. It’s the new badge of courage.
Yes. You don’t have to be smart or talented to be accepted and revered by the Sisterhood of Victimhood. It’s the millennial version of the Mean Girls, without the popularity or cheerleading uniforms.
IIRC it wasn’t so much to impress but when he heard of her behavior he all the sudden wasn’t interested – so she lied to not unimpress the potential boyfriend. I wish I could better phrase the not unimpress bit but I am drawing a vast blank right now.
Are you trying to say that getting raped was better than admitting a white co-ed did the dirty with two black guys?
No? I was trying to say it she lied to avoid the social consequences of her actions and the rape narrative allowed her to do what she wanted and not have to take responsibility reputation wise. But tying to parse your reply I am starting to think I missed some sarcasm in skink’s reply. I apologize for the dumb comment – read too quickly and without caffeine.
Are they indoctrinated not to pass judgment on uncivilized conduct? A threesome in a bathroom, yuck! They all acted like dogs in heat. And Nikki was a consensual, nasty slut.
In this legal environment the consequences were foreseeable to the young men and could have been much worse. Hopefully they all learned that self-restraint is good. Or at least an option.
“In this legal environment the consequences were foreseeable to the young men and could have been much worse.” sounds an awful lot like “young women shouldn’t get blackout drunk at frat parties”. Both are accurate. One gets you labeled a sexist shitlord unworthy of participation in public discourse.
As for “uncivilized conduct”, well… Hannibal is not so much “ad portis” as “teaching the mandatory diversity courses”.
I restrained myself.
We dropped off our daughter at collage for her freshman year last week. During the opening ceremony where they welcomed everybody to school one of the officials literally called every male member of the student body a rapist, the specific comment was “boys, don’t rape”. One of the upper class-men girl student leaders started her spiel by listing her pronouns. There were fridge magnets in the rooms on both of the desks asking “Are you a victim?” With a whole list of things I didn’t bother reading to tell them how they were victims every time someone said or did something they didn’t like. I am seriously afraid of how she’s going to turn out going to this school, no way would I be comfortable sending a son there if we had one.
You will never have grandchildren. This is why.
Enrolling at some universities has become equivalent to joining a cult.
Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon found out I was losing my mind
It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind
make it a double..
It’s kind of surprising that her name is being printed at all, even after her admission that she made the whole thing up.
Three Dog Night was not one of my favorites.
With your oh-so-obvious affection for puppys, i thought they might be one of your old favs. Hmm…
If i told you the name of the band was in reference to a south-east Asian feast, rather than a sub-zero night for Nanook, would you give them a second chance?
Right after I’m convinced that Karen Carpenter was a better drummer than Ginger Baker, sure.
(I was going to link Joy to the World here, but I wouldn’t do that to anyone.)
LMAO…not joining that debate..you’ll have to find some “girl power SJW” to take that one up.
Awww…come on Jeremiah.
( Never been to Spain used to get the drunks groovin’ pretty good for me, FWIW)
They had like one good hit, but mostly sounded like three dogs in the night.
It’s not our fault that one is the loneliest number.
Raymond Donovan.
“Where do I go to get my reputation back? Who do I go to see about that?”
That’s the FYTW office.
Where is the petition to recall Judge Holden for giving her too lenient of a sentence? Where are the armed protestors waiting outside her parents’ house for her eventual return?