The College Fix

Declaring the checks and balances in the legal system to be “appalling,” the president of Oregon State University said the school will re-open a sexual assault case from 1998 and “determine if there are any actions we can take now under OSU’s code of student conduct” against the accused former students, according to The Oregonian.

The impetus for Edward Ray’s probably-unprecedented move is a lengthy Oregonian article by a sports columnist, John Canzano. The previously unidentified accuser, Brenda Tracy, laid out a horrifying story about sexual assault by OSU football players for Canzano, who also went back to the police records from the investigation.

Tracy didn’t cooperate with police at the time – the accused players “pointed fingers at each other to various degrees,” Canzano wrote – but admits now “I wish I’d have pressed charges.”

The school said after the column was published it would launch an investigation into its own response in 1998, and revealed that its Office of Equity and Inclusion – which only learned of the allegations in August – “continues to reach out” to Tracy to provide services.

President Ray goes much further in his new statement, treating Tracy’s allegations as fact and looking for any scintilla of authority to retroactively punish the accused, now in their 30s:

There may be no formal course of action available to us but we must try. While legal minds could no doubt explain how it makes sense to have a statute of limitations for sexual assault crimes, I find that appalling. Hopefully, justice delayed is not justice entirely denied in this case. …

Ms. Tracy’s journey has been simultaneously heart-breaking and inspiring because of her own capacity to reclaim her sense of self-worth and pursue her education so that she can help others through her work as a nurse.

There is no statute of limitations on compassion or basic human decency.

Read Canzano’s full column in The Oregonian.

h/t greg

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