Over at Minding the Campus, Brooklyn College Professor KC Johnson highlights a shocking c-ville (Charlottesville, Va.)
interview with Wendy Murphy, discredited media pundit and adjunct professor of law at New England Law.
Johnson takes issue with the interviewer’s dereliction of duty, failing to note Murphy’s history of "repeatedly [making] false statements of fact about the [Duke lacrosse] case … coupled with myriad unsubstantiated claims and bizarre interpretations of law" with respect to the Duke lacrosse scandal in which Duke lacrosse players were falsely accused of rape and later exonerated.
Johnson also highlights this shockingly incorrect statement of law by Murphy, commenting on the April 4, 2011 "Dear Colleague Letter" and the "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof:
[In one case, d]espite finding [an accuser’s testimony] "credible and compelling," a panel ruled in favor of the accused, said Murphy. And that’s a problem."The preponderance standard is simple," Murphy said. "When [an accuser’s] accusations are deemed credible, and [a defendant’s] denials are not described with the same glowing terminology, [the accuser] wins."
As Johnson notes, Murphy is essentially arguing that "a failure to convict amounts to an OCR violation." Johnson writes that "[f]or the OCR even to consider [Murphy’s] absurd claim would be highly problematic."
