This story starts back in January of this year. The month started on a fantastic note. Zoe Kats, a star tennis player's boyfriend, Matt Boermeester, a starter on the football team had hit a game winning field goal against Pen State in the Rose Bowl. Then things got a bit less rosy. Someone saw some kind of incident. Eventually it got back to the Title IX office; they launched an investigation and they suspended him from the team in February, until there investigation had concluded. Evidently this investigation ended in June and last Sunday they announced that Matt was no longer in the school because a Title IX infraction involving sexual assault. No, I have many questions about Matt and what happened to him? That's for another post. Today I am going to concentrate on Zoe.
After the school's announcement Zoe went to twitter and declared that she was the woman in question, that nothing happened, and that Matt had never abused her in any fashion. She described her humiliating and frustrating encounters with the Title IV office officials. They asked her if she had been abused on several occasions. When she said no they said they realized that she was battered but was just too afraid of Matt to admit it. She was told that she could not contact with her boyfriend or things would not go well for him. They even threatened her if she spoke out about the incident to defend her boyfriend!
She had guts and spoke out anyway, although she still fears what the Title IX office could do to her. Title IV was not passed to instill fear in, harass and threaten young women who they claim are the victim of partner violence; it's outrageous! The university sticks to their investigation and cite several witnesses, but it really doesn't matter how many witness they found in this case. Zoe's lawyer said the couple was involved with horse play, but we don't know what that means exactly. Let's say you have a couple, and a third party says something abusive happened. She claims that everything that happened was consensual and that no abuse took place. He said the same thing.
The investigation should have stopped right there. What we have here is an issue of consent. No one really can know whether or not this was consensual except for the two parties involved and they both agreed that it was. No third party can possibly no that it wasn't so case closed period. It seems that USC does not understand consent and that is sad.
Here is the crazy part. Many are saying that we have to believe the victim no matter what. I guess that means we have to believe the victim no matter what! Unless what she says does not fit into the narrative-then we dismiss what she says, and we even threaten her if she trys to tell the truth about us. This sure is looking out for women's rights.
And for all of those who say that the men's rights movement is nothing because they have all the rights, tell that to Matt. His male privilege saved him here, didn't it? He has almost no chance of finishing his educated or playing in the NFL over a little consensual horse play. Really? This is nuts! At least if what we have heard about this is true. Here are a couple good articles about it.
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/31/usc-kicker-matt-boermeester-left-school-after-title-ix-investigation-finding/
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/08/01/star-athlete-felt-harassed-threatened-by-college-after-insisting-her-boyfriend-didnt-abuse-her/
What do you think about this story? What are your thoughts on what supposedly went down? Do you think it's true? False? Tell me more in the comments below!