I don’t know why people don’t report sexual assaults when the police are so totally awesome and sensitive.
Back in April, a law student at the University of Michigan who was doing sex work to put herself through school was hired by Yaron Eliav, a professor there. She agreed to let him spank her, but then without her consent, he whacked her in the head twice, hard enough to give her temporary vision problems.
Not only did the police decline to go forward with charges, they charged the victim with a misdemeanor for the sex work.
The rarity of how the case began – with a law student showing up at the police department’s front desk to report she was assaulted while committing a crime herself – was not lost on investigators.
“Perhaps she should have cracked a legal textbook before coming in to the police station to talk about this,” Ann Arbor Detective Sgt. Richard Kinsey said.
He’s a joker, that Sgt. Kinsey.
And his joke is extra super funny because it’s not like any real sexual assault victims are ever doing anything illegal when they are assaulted. Real victims are good girls. As we all know, we can all protect ourselves from sexual violence if we’re careful enough because bad things only happen to bad girls who do unladylike things… Of course if a bad girl ever claims she was sexually assaulted, she must be lying, because only good girls can be sexually assaulted. Bad girls were obviously asking for it.
So if you’re a bad girl, you can’t be sexually assaulted, because you deserved it, slut.
And if you were really a good girl, you couldn’t have been sexually assaulted, because that’s impossible, silly. You must be a secret bad girl who was asking for it, slut.
By the transitive property, the abysmally low conviction rate for sexual offenses is totally reasonable.
This will do a great job of keeping all those false reports by bad girls from clogging up our system. Thank you Ann Arbor police!
As for the school, they’ve initiated some sort of internal disciplinary procedure, and I hope they remember that they may be liable for any future sexual assaults Eliav commits on campus.
Gary Beckman, chairman of U-M’s Near Eastern Studies Department, declined to comment Tuesday and referred questions to U-M spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham.
Cunningham said Eliav is the subject of an internal university investigation, but she couldn’t provide additional details.
“We take this matter very seriously,” Cunningham said.
I hope they mean that.
Via Yes Means Yes.
This made me laugh a little. Not the story, obviously (which I had already seen), but your commentary. But then I feel kind of bad about laughing. Because this is serious.
Maybe I just prefer dark humor while just a little bit drunk. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is good post.
Eliav’s actions are consistent with the sexual mores and practices of his home country, Israel. See “UM Prof. Yaron Eliav & Sexual Slavery in Israel” at zionistsout.blogspot.com
Well, the University of Michigan and the local Ann Arbor press are protecting the identity of the student alleged sex worker but when it comesto Prof Eliav as the alleged john there is no such proection and as a result the anti-Semites use this case for fodder in the promulgation of their agenda. And they can assume what they want about the unidentified student sex worker. Right now they are assuming she is not Jewish, For my take on this case and similar cases,see my blog- http://dankprofessor.wordpress.com
Hi PeaceMonger-
I took a look at your post and appreciate the information you have to share about sex trafficking in Israel.
I’m uncomfortable with the sweeping connection you make between those stats and Professor Eliav’s behavior, though. As the story demonstrates, there are also lots of Americans with screwed up understandings of prostitution and sexual assault. I don’t think we should be assuming his behavior is something he brought from elsewhere or that because sex trafficking is a problem in Israel, as it is here, that abusing women is “consistent with the sexual mores and practices” of an entire nation.
Thanks Cara!
Dankprofessor, Eliav has admitted to the allegations by the sex worker, so he is not an “alleged” john, or an “alleged” assailant. He simply isn’t being criminally charged, because Ann Arbor police are not doing their job.
As for the Antisemitism that people may express, that is unfortunately something that tends to happen whenever a member of a marginalized group is accused of sexual violence. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about any sexual assault that is committed by a member of a marginalized group–it just means we have to talk about other forms of oppression as well.
[...] things currently stand in this country (and elsewhere in the world), this is what often happens if sex workers attempt to report the violence done to them: Back in April, a law student at the University of Michigan who was doing sex work to put herself [...]
[...] misdemeanor offenses relating to the transaction itself, and one local (non-campus) cop made an extremely offensive public comment ridiculing the woman who had been beaten for going to the [...]
I wish you hadn’t run this story. It doesn’t make anybody “safer” to add to the feeling frenzy on this story. You are just making 2L more vulnerable to exposure. But I guess this will help Jessica Valenti sell more books, and that’s the important thing…
Hi law student too,
Actually, I do think it makes a lot of people safer to bring it to public attention when police don’t take attacks on sex workers seriously, and I also think U Mich should have a spotlight on them, to make sure they take any risk this professor may be to community members very seriously.
Eliav sexually harassed me and I know of several others who have been harassed or assaulted by him. I assume (given the press coverage) that this man enjoys ongoing access to women colleagues and students and given that he’s gotten away with it again, I can’t imagine that his behavior will change.
Hi Sophie,
It’s up to you, but I know there is an internal disciplinary proceeding going on right now regarding Eliav’s behavior. If you made a formal complaint, particularly if it was with the other people you mention, the school would probably take it into consideration as they’re looking at this case.