In a report published in 2003 in the Florida State University Law Review, Professor Linda Kelly from the Indiana University Law School states, “Men and women commit violence at similar rates.” Kelly’s research, which cites various in-depth studies from over three decades of legal scholarship, found that “women match, and often exceed, husbands in the frequency with which they engage in violent behavior,” and “wives were found to engage in more severe acts of violence than husbands.” In 1975, for example, 3.8 percent of husbands and 4.6 percent of wives engaged in “severe violence,” defined as “kicking, biting or hitting with a fist; hitting or trying to hit with something; beating up; and threatening with or using a knife or gun.” Kelly identifies another disturbing trend: since the 1970s, the incidence of male violence “has declined steadily”; female violence “has remained virtually the same.”
Feminist “theory” has not only infested the justice system, but it has also elevated its leftist lunacy to the level of disinterested scholarship and is now ubiquitous in this country’s major universities. In 2006, Crystal Gail Magnum, a prostitute and drug abuser, falsely accused three Duke University men’s lacrosse players of beating and gang-raping her in their fraternity house. The district attorney, in line with Kelly’s research, withheld exonerating DNA evidence from the judge for over one year. But before the case even entered the courtroom, 88 Duke professors, including 72 percent of the women’s studies department and 80 percent of the black studies department, published a letter in The (Duke) Chronicle citing anonymous reports of “racism,” “sexism” and “terror” on Duke’s campus. Even after the charges were dropped, the three men were ostracized, given failing grades and eventually driven from the university.
The relevance of Kelly’s study to the Magnum case became apparent when, on February 18, 2010, Durham police received a disturbing 911 call from Magnum’s nine-year-old daughter. Ms. Magnum now stands charged with identity theft, communicating threats, damage to property, resisting an officer, misdemeanor child abuse, arson and attempted murder. Kelly’s study, which states that punishing female batterers protects not only men, but also women and children, was not only near-prophetic but a bold call to action.
—Mike Durakiewicz is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at michal.m.durakiewicz@vanderbilt.edu.
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