Vanderbilt gang-rape defense points to campus culture
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Version 0 of 1. NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Defense attorneys for the former Vanderbilt University football players whose own cellphones show they participated in a dorm-room sex assault have placed blame on the elite Southern university, saying their clients’ judgment was warped by a campus culture where drunken sex was common. The graphic evidence and testimony presented in court is all the more shocking because it shows that several others were at least partly aware that an unconscious woman was being taken advantage of or had enough evidence to show that something had happened to her, and did nothing to help her or report it. That bystanders’ failure to act falls well short of the university culture Vanderbilt officials say they were trying to create on campus long before the morning of June 23, 2013. It also hints at the enormous scale of the challenge facing colleges nationwide as they try to establish campuses where students are safe, everyone understands the rules and entire communities work together to make sure such crimes do not occur. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education issued its most specific guidance yet for how schools should handle sexual assault complaints, and colleges including Vanderbilt updated their policies. Meanwhile, college women increasingly took matters into their own hands, networking with each other and supporting a national campaign to file Title IX complaints claiming their schools were mishandling cases. After these gang-rape charges were filed in 2013, Vanderbilt became one of dozens of universities that were subject to more intense investigation. The first to be tried are former wide receiver Cory Batey and star recruit Brandon Vandenburg, whose dorm room became the scene of the alleged crimes. Also charged with aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery are Brandon Banks, who played defensive back, and Jaborian McKenzie, a former receiver for the Commodores. All have pleaded not guilty. Defense attorney Worrick Robinson sought on Friday to prove a point he made as the trial opened: that Batey had been a promising young player before he “walked into a culture that changed the rest of his life.” “Is there anything in their culture that might influence the way they act or the way they think or the way they make decisions?” Robinson asked his expert James Walker, a neuropsychologist who said Batey claimed to have had between 14 and 22 drinks that night. “Yes, at that age, peer pressure is critical,” Walker responded, “because you’re just going out on your own, you’re not fully an adult, you’re not fully a child. . . . You tend to take on the behavior of people around you.” Closing arguments are expected Monday. — Associated Press |