<p>And I have the perspective have having already graduated and seen my fair share of scandals, both while there and afterwards, and how trying to be unduly “compassionate” all too often led to the situation becoming worse.</p>
<p>We have two people whose individual behaviors, irrespective of the other’s, were horrible. Yes, one was criminal and the other not, but that does not exonerate the other.</p>
<p>But here we are now, being told that since this poor girl was raped, that everything she did wrong related to the issue is forgotten. Where is the equivalent treatment for a male midshipman? What does a male midshipman have to have done to him so that a whole bunch of things he’s done wrong are forgotten?</p>
<p>I have three serious problems with this entire incident:</p>
<p>1) A rape. Completely indefensible.</p>
<p>2) A person who knowingly mislead the bartender(s) at a bar, drank underage, and to such an excess that she didn’t realize what was happening.</p>
<p>3) A double standard that, while perhaps well-intentioned, simply serves to shield one bad behavior under the guise of another.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I have no pity. This was a chain of events that has ended up in this mess. If either of them had behaved differently, then the chain would very likely have been broken. I hold them fully accountable for what THEY did irrespective of the other. The difference would come in the punishment, where I would either expell her or put her on restriction until she made O-3, and would put HIM in the gas chamber.</p>
<p>ALL of this is predicated, of course, on the assumption (dangerous) that the facts are clear. If she turns out to be lying, or it turns out she was stone-cold sober and HE is lying, then the equation shifts. Either way, enough facts have been published to indicate that neither of these two were thinking straight that night.</p>