By Kenny Smith
I was out drinking a while back with friends at a house party - the normal Saturday night for a social sophomore.
Playing beer pong, quarters, taking some shots of Burnett's vodka; I still have the taste in my mouth. I didn't have a beer pong partner, he was passing out on the couch, so I teamed up with a girl hanging around the table.
We won a few games, to my surprise, and we had some good drunk conversation while we were throwing the beers back.
All this took place over a few hours, and around 2 a.m. she was ready to head back to the dorms.
Her friends were still there, but I offered to walk her back as I still lived on campus as well and we both lived in the same dorm.
We were touchy-feely on the drunk, stumbling walk home. We got to my room and I invited her to hang out for a little while even though it was past inter-visitation. I had no problem with that, drunk hook-ups are a part of the norm on college campuses and it wasn't my first rodeo. We started making out and getting naked.
Half an hour later a knock was at the door. She hid in the closet while I answered the door.
Of course, it was an RA.
Three months later I was kicked out of school. That night her friends had started to worry about her because she left the party, so they had gone to Public Safety and reported that she was with me. I was charged with sexual assault and underage drinking and breaking intervisitation policy. She was charged with nothing, free and clear, clean hands, not a mark on her record because she had told them I sexually assaulted her.
We both had been drinking, we both wanted to fool around, and we were both at fault for breaking intervisitation policy. So why did I get kicked out of school? Well, it is explained on the front page of the Beacon in the March 6 issue. Her word against mine and the "victim" always wins.
This did not happen to me, it happened to a close friend of mine, a friend who was an Army ROTC cadet, a person just wanting to become an officer in the army and make a career of protecting our country.
A similar occurrence happened to another close friend of mine, although he did not get kicked out of school. Instead, he is banned from setting foot on school property, a school that he gave more than $100,000 to attend.
The self-righteous attitude of those in the Residence Life administration is so terribly ridiculous that I cannot understand how their policies are formed and much less approved.
I am all for preventing the sexual abuse of both men and women.
However, no one should have the incentive, and it is an incentive, to turn someone in for sexual abuse for the reason that the victim will not be punished for anything.
Consuming alcohol is obviously a way to put yourself at risk for an attack, and if you are a victim, then notify someone right away.
However, be ready to take responsibility for your own actions.
That's really all I am saying. You may be a victim, but you also may have caused it.
However harsh that is to say, it's the truth. In the real world, if you do some heroin and someone sexually assaults you, the perpetrator will be charged with sexual assault and you will be charged with possession and use of an illegal narcotic.
This university tries to protect us from all the harm in the world, sheltering us from real life.
However, by attempting to shelter us, they're actually giving us unrealistic expectations.
They're mothering us by forcing us to meet with our advisers to schedule classes, and they're writing policy that manufactures the idea that if something bad happens to us while we're breaking the law, everything will be fine.
Some advice in that vein, then: In the real world, make sure something bad happens to you if you plan on breaking the law.
So, as long as this policy is in place, I will be producing consent forms. E-mail me and I'll send you one. Don't go out on a weekend without it, or you might just become a victim of another one of the University of Portland's stupid policies.
?Kenny Smith is a senior ?history major
