Durham University
For several years I was on the board of Dunelm USA, the committee run by Durham University alumni in the US.
When I read the news about accusations against incoming freshman for “Rape culture” Facebook messages in September 2020, I immediately called a local contact for the university.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-54078937
While I wasn’t sure of the veracity of the claims broadcast by the BBC, published in The Daily Mail, The Times, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, Airmail and other news organizations and Glossy magazines, I sensed that this might be a set up by Title IX activists from the US who had infiltrated the UK’s school and university system.
I alerted my Durham contact to what I thought might be going on.
Two weeks later I received a thank you: Durham police had investigated.
Only one freshman had done anything to warrant having his place rescinded. Had I not made that call I wonder if several others might have never made it to freshers’ week due to the media and social media being promulgated about the “Posh lads” about to arrive at an “Elite” university.
Title IX is an act that was introduced in the US in 1972 to prevent sex discrimination on campus. It consists of 37 words which have had the most profound influence on education – for the greater good and sometimes leading to civil rights atrocities – the framing of innocent (mostly male) students, teachers and professors.
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Title IX’s origins lay in an effort to address the paucity of options for women’s sports. Tennis icon Billie Jean King was a huge advocate for Title IX. Women’s sports on campus have flourished since then.
Nevertheless, in the last couple of decades Title IX has been weaponized by feminist activists working across the department of education, the department of justice, the department of defence and the FBI. These have formed strategic partnerships with police departments, campus administrators, PR specialists and “Non-profits” with charitable status claiming to address an epidemic of male upon female sexual assault on campus.
The allegations published in September 2020 about the incoming freshmen at Durham University had a familiar ring. They echoed ones made a couple of months earlier against male students at St Andrews University in Scotland – a popular choice for American students who wish to go to university overseas.
Just a month earlier, US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (a Trump appointee) had introduced new Title IX regulations after consideration of 124,000 comments from the public and interested parties.
The new regulations which replaced those introduced by Vice President Joe Biden on April 4, 2011 (and which did not go through the regulatory process) were seen by many from all sides of the political spectrum as being fairer to all parties, accuser and accused.
New Title IX regulations carefully balance the rights of all students
These new regulations, however, didn’t cover incidents that might happen overseas during a school year or semester abroad. There was a lot of push back from the Obama/Biden Department of Education and their affiliates who’d taken a dig at Betsy DeVos via Amber Heard’s Washington Post December 2018 #MeToo Op-ed, which was central to the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard defamation trial in Fairfax, Virginia.
“I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change…
We have an opening now to bolster and build institutions protective of women. For starters, Congress can reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act. First passed in 1994, the act is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to fight domestic violence and sexual assault. It creates support systems for people who report abuse, and provides funding for rape crisis centers, legal assistance programs and other critical services. It improves responses by law enforcement, and it prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ survivors. Funding for the act expired in September and has only been temporarily extended.
We should continue to fight sexual assault on college campuses, while simultaneously insisting on fair processes for adjudicating complaints. Last month, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposed changes to Title IX rules governing the treatment of sexual harassment and assault in schools. While some changes would make the process for handling complaints fairer, others would weaken protections for sexual assault survivors. For example, the new rules would require schools to investigate only the most extreme complaints, and then only when they are made to designated officials. Women on campuses already have trouble coming forward about sexual violence — why would we allow institutions to scale back supports?
I write this as a woman who had to change my phone number weekly because I was getting death threats. For months, I rarely left my apartment, and when I did, I was pursued by camera drones and photographers on foot, on motorcycles and in cars. Tabloid outlets that posted pictures of me spun them in a negative light. I felt as though I was on trial in the court of public opinion —…”
Amber Heard never went to college or university. So, what did she know about Title IX or sexual assault on campus? To my mind, she was a celebrity puppet whose association with Johnny Depp brought clickbait and whose physical attributes rendered her a perfect ambassador for L’Oreal and its global brands portfolio: https://www.loreal.com/en/our-global-brands-portfolio/ – useful for keeping Teen Vogue, Glamour Magazine, People Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair and other glossy magazines in print through advertising product placement. Amber Heard was an ‘Influencer’ who young women on campus might look up to as a role model.
Discovery from the Washington Post Op-Ed revealed that Amber Heard was solicited by the ACLU who actually created the Op-ed for her. It was timed to coincide with the call to renew the Violence Against Women Act and the release of Warner Brothers’ Aquaman in which Amber Heard stars. Shortly after it was published, Johnny Depp was cancelled from Fantastic Beasts, a Warner Brothers film based on a book by J.K. Rowling. He was also cancelled from a $22.5 million deal for Pirates of the Caribbean.
Amber Heard’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan (on the board of Times Up and the National Women’s Law Center) abruptly quit her legal team. No explanation was given.
Amber Heard Loses ‘Time’s Up’ Attorney Roberta Kaplan In Johnny Depp Case
However, it appears that Anthony D Romero, the Executive Director of the ACLU was also on the board of the National Women’s Law Center where Roberta Kaplan was a prominent member. The ACLU and an organization called “Know Your IX” sued Betsy DeVos over the new Title IX regulations. The organization that has long been revered for standing up for civil rights, the ACLU, suddenly lost the plot altogether:
Since Johnny Depp’s win in the defamation trial in Virginia, there have been online petitions asking for his trial in the UK against The Sun newspaper to be revisited. The “Wifebeater” headline which appeared in The Sun in 2018 was, I believe, a political move, timed to coincide with several other events in 2018 to help the Democratic Party renew The Violence Against Women Act which, via grants from the Department of Justice, has released $9 billion over the years since 1994 for police, prosecution and victim’s rights advocacy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10767463/DAN-WOOTTON-Johnny-Depp-not-victim-cancel-culture.html
Were the journalists in Britain given a narrative carefully timed to smear incoming “Posh” students at an “Elite” university? I believe so. Were the journalists also given a narrative for St Andrews University earlier in the summer designed to interfere with the new Title IX regulations going into effect which would leave incidents involving US students at UK universities out of the Title IX jurisdiction? My gut says yes.
And, was there a strategic plan behind all this which was brought to the UK by the US activists? I, also, believe so.
There are organizations which work in both the US and the UK which are worthy of scrutiny, especially when you consider data protection laws alongside the partnerships these charities have with US Government Affairs PR firms and social media giants such as Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, YouTube and Google.
Just recently Anita Dunn, who had been Obama’s Director of Communications before joining a well-known public relations company SKDK specializing in the Democratic Party, has had to divest of her shares in Google for conflicts of interest.
Google has partnerships with Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and major print and broadcast media organizations. A rumour about Facebook posts from incoming freshmen at Durham University can strategically become the first item in a Google search about the university, ruining not only the reputation of the males involved but also the “Elite” institution itself. I believe that is the goal. Clickbait material drives traffic for online major brand advertisers like L’Oreal, Uber, Lyft and others. The more sensationalist and negative the news, the more traffic for the server and the advertiser.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-adviser-anita-dunn-forced-divest-multimillion-dollar-investment-portfolio-avoid-conflicts
Anita Dunn’s PR firm represents UNWomen for whom Emma Watson became an ambassador in 2014 for the #HeForShe campaign. The following article, created with the help of SKDK, presents a Gordian knot intertwining UNWomen with the White House, Social Media and agenda to influence the “Harry Potter” generation.
He, She, Us: Emma Watson, the White House, and Efforts to Change the Culture on Women’s Rights
Earlier in 2014, Dr Charlotte Proudman, once known as Charlotte Bailye from Keele University, used LinkedIn to contact Alexander Carter-Silk. Suddenly Proudman shot to fame and has become an outspoken feminist ever since.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2015/09/11/the-guilty-secrets-of-man-hating-feminazi-charlotte-proudman/
Proudman is a follower and admirer of Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber whose online vitriol against men and some women is far-reaching and has led to death threats for her targets. Professor Michele Dauber helped draft an unregulated federal directive for Title IX (“Dear Colleague” or “DCL”) which then Vice President Joe Biden introduced on April 4, 2011 at the University of New Hampshire.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-a-20-page-letter-changed-the-way-higher-education-handles-sexual-assault/
The non-partisan organization The FIRE issued the following rebuttal to the “Dear Colleague” Title IX 2011 letter:
It wasn’t until September 2017 that the unregulated directive was rescinded by Betsy DeVos paving the way for the 2020 regulations currently in effect, requiring due process.
The University of New Hampshire had received funds from the Department of Justice during this period to develop “Bystander” and “Know Your Power” training to combat sexual assault. These are now marketed under a company called Soteria Solutions which has sold its services in the UK to Bath University and possibly elsewhere.
https://www.soteriasolutions.org/
The problem is that the “Bystander” training and “Know Your Power” were developed by feminists and consequentially ignored violence by females upon males. The 2015 trial of New Hampshire vs Owen Labrie (18) was used to support the case for “Bystander” training. I see the arguments presented by Sharyn Potter from the University of New Hampshire as absurd, which would never stand up to scrutiny. Yet, this training has been sold around the world and nobody has looked into its deeply sexist and potentially catastrophic flaws.
Given the recent revelations about Dr Breslow, trustee for the trans charity Mermaids, supported by Emma Watson, ambassador for UN Women, it might be time for UK schools and universities to question the training programs they receive from the US, including those coming from Soteria Solutions and the University of New Hampshire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63137873
End Violence Against Women International is an organization that trains police in “Start by Believing” and “Trauma informed” investigations used both in the US and UK. It’s flawed – so much so that the US Department of Justice has ceased funding this training.
The following post is a rebuttal to Amber Heard’s #MeToo Op-Ed. Everyone must stand up for the civil rights of all students, including males, in schools, colleges and universities.
Claire Best heads Claire Best & Associates, an international talent agency representing some of the most respected names in the entertainment industry for film, television, and commercials that was established in 2010. She had 16 years of experience in the agency business as an owner, C.E.O. and C.O.O. before Claire Best & Associates. Prior to becoming an agent in 2002, Claire was a production executive at New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features where she oversaw the production of many well-known domestic and international feature films from 1996-2001. Claire has also produced and executive produced a number of award winning and critically acclaimed features, shorts, and documentaries. She is a voting member of B.A.F.T.A. and the Television Academy (see: clairebest.net).
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Dear Ms Best.
I write the Mr. Manners articles on this website. You wrote an interesting article.
You asked if anything was incorrect. You asserted that Title IX was originally done to address the lack of women in sports. I do not think that is correct. Clearly as you illustrated though,Title IX is feminist driven. This has been true from the start. At the time of its implementation a worthy goal would have been to get more male teachers in primary schools.
I noticed that you are in the entertainment industry. I have written a number of screenplays and a couple of plays. All well received by my writing group which includes a prominent film critic. I would be very happy to send any are all of them to you.
Thank you