Two things can be true at the same time

I’ve reached the age where remembering the Duke lacrosse case apparently qualifies me as the historian in the room.

I brought it up on the show because of this awful case involving Cornell, and I looked over at Karolos.

Nothing.

He had no idea what I was talking about.

There are moments in life when you suddenly realize you’ve become the guy explaining ancient history to younger people. Duke lacrosse is now apparently ancient history.

But I remember it.

I remember the accusations. I remember the media frenzy. I remember faculty members condemning those young men. I remember how quickly an allegation became a narrative and the narrative became a verdict.

And then the case fell apart.

The prosecutor was ultimately held accountable, and the accused players had spent months with their names and reputations dragged through the mud.

That history doesn’t tell us what happened at Cornell.

It tells us something about ourselves.

We are terrible at holding two thoughts in our heads at the same time.

The Cornell allegations are ugly. A young woman says she was sexually assaulted after becoming heavily intoxicated with alcohol and drugs. There are questions about what evidence investigators had, what was omitted from materials sent to prosecutors, what text messages mean and why the district attorney’s office did not interview her at the time.

Now the case is back in the spotlight, politicians are talking, television lawyers are talking, advocates are talking and everybody seems to be choosing a side.

I’m not ready to.

Because two things can be true at the same time.

A woman can make a terrible decision about how much she drinks or what drugs she takes and still be the victim of a sexual assault.

Going to a fraternity party is not consent.

Drinking isn’t consent.

Taking drugs isn’t blanket consent.

Going upstairs with somebody isn’t permission for anything and everything that may happen afterward.

A person can consent to one thing and refuse another.

That should not be difficult to understand.

But here’s the other truth.

An accusation isn’t a conviction.

Men accused of a horrific crime do not lose their right to due process because the accusation is horrific. They don’t become guilty because a politician holds a press conference. They don’t become guilty because television hosts are appalled. And they don’t become guilty because thousands of people on social media have already decided what happened.

That should not be difficult to understand either.

Yet somehow we’ve created a culture where saying one of those things is interpreted as denying the other.

I don’t accept that choice.

One commentator discussing the Cornell case warned supporters of the woman to remain “unwavering” because information would inevitably emerge about her—pictures, messages, stories—and people would use it to question her account.

My immediate reaction on the show was simple:

Do the guys need support, too?

I wasn’t being cute.

They might be guilty. They might be innocent. Evidence might ultimately establish that some people bear responsibility and others don’t.

I don’t know.

Neither do most of the people yelling about it.

That’s why we have investigations.

That’s why evidence matters.

That’s why due process matters.

And that’s why the Duke case came back into my head.

The lesson from Duke wasn’t that women lie.

The lesson wasn’t that sexual-assault allegations shouldn’t be believed or investigated.

The lesson was that certainty is dangerous when it arrives before the evidence.

There’s another part of this conversation that bothers me, too.

At the end of the show I found myself wondering what college-age women actually think about all this.

Not television hosts speaking for them. Not politicians speaking for them. Not a 70-something-year-old radio host speaking for them.

Them.

What are parents telling their daughters today?

What are they telling their sons?

We had alcohol when I was young. We had drugs. Believe me, my generation did not invent sobriety. There were plenty of opportunities to make spectacularly stupid decisions.

But somebody also told us that decisions have consequences.

That doesn’t mean a victim is responsible for somebody else’s crime. It means human beings still have a responsibility to protect themselves when they can.

Those ideas are not enemies.

Teach your daughter to watch her drink and never leave her alone with people she doesn’t trust.

Teach your son that an intoxicated woman is not an opportunity.

Teach both of them that consent matters.

Teach both of them that accusations matter.

Teach both of them that evidence matters.

Maybe instead of picking which half of that paragraph we’re permitted to say, adults ought to start saying all of it.

Meanwhile, I tried discussing some of these serious questions with my younger colleagues.

Karolos had other problems.

His fantasy football roster was falling apart.

He and Philip are playing each other this weekend, apparently, and Karolos’ players had the audacity to start getting injured on Friday. He was stressed. He had replacements to find.

I asked what was weighing on him.

He referred to Philip as “a certain individual.”

Philip was sitting right there.

“Hello. I’m right here.”

This is what passes for workplace tension around here.

So while America wrestles with consent, due process and whether we’ve learned anything from scandals of the past, Karolos is staring into the abyss because his fantasy lineup is questionable.

Perhaps that’s healthy.

Because the serious issue isn’t going anywhere.

We should take allegations of sexual assault seriously.

We should take the presumption of innocence seriously.

We should teach young women to protect themselves without pretending that bad decisions excuse crimes committed against them.

And we should teach young men about responsibility without pretending an accusation itself proves guilt.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Sometimes four or five can.

And if you’re old enough to remember Duke lacrosse without somebody explaining it to you, congratulations.

Apparently we’re the historians now.

— Bo