College wrestling coaches typically do not send young men the message that they’re at risk of becoming helpless victims. But C.D. Mock, the head wrestling coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has mounted a very public campaign to do just that.
In a combative blog he began publishing in December, Mr. Mock argues that men at colleges throughout the nation are threatened by what he sees as having damaged his son, Corey: campus judicial proceedings triggered by allegations of rape or sexual assault that, he says, trample the rights of the accused.
Mr. Mock’s blog has brought unwanted attention to his employer, one of dozens of colleges that have faced pressure from activists and the federal government over their handling of sexual-assault cases. Chapel Hill revamped its sexual-assault policies last year, after coming under scrutiny from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights based on complaints that it had underreported sexual-assault cases to the federal government and created a hostile environment for students who said they were victims. A new documentary on campus sexual assault, The Hunting Ground, looks at Chapel Hill students’ efforts to seek federal intervention.
Mr. Mock’s blogging arose as some advocates for men have increasingly argued that colleges are violating the due-process rights of those accused of sexual assault.
“I’m not looking to be an activist or spokesperson on this,” Mr. Mock said in an interview on Wednesday. “That is way over my head. My focus right now is on being a father and looking out for my family.”
His first post gave a detailed account of Corey’s side of an encounter that led to the son’s being found responsible for sexual assault by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he remains a senior pending an appeal of the university’s disciplinary ruling.
The post warned young men that a college “will do everything in its power to prosecute you and kick you out of school, regardless of the evidence,” because administrators are aware that, especially given the high cost of legal representation, “there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.” It said that colleges are “scared to death” of losing federal funds for inadequately responding to sexual-assault accusations, and therefore “crucify young men who are accused.”
In a series of inflammatory posts published since then, Mr. Mock has lashed out at “the sexual-grievance industry,” dismissed widely circulated statistics on campus sexual assault as exaggerated, and characterized many young women at colleges as sexual aggressors who later lie about being sexually victimized. The blog, Falsely Accused of Sexual Assault in College, also has protested that colleges define sexual assault in a manner that reflects the thinking of “old, single hags who hate men and have nothing to do but lobby politicians.”
Weighing Claims
Chuck Cantrell, a spokesman for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, declined on Wednesday to comment on either the blog or Corey Mock’s case, saying, “We don’t discuss cases that are still in litigation.”
A campus hearing officer actually cleared Corey Mock in August, based on her conclusion that the university had failed to offer a preponderance of evidence proving his accuser’s assertions that she had been too incapacitated by alcohol or some unknown drug to consent to sex and that Corey Mock knew it. His accuser and the university petitioned the hearing officer to reconsider, however, and the officer reversed her decision, citing an absence of evidence showing the woman had given “unmistakable affirmative consent.”
In a ruling issued in December, the university’s chancellor, Steven R. Angle, affirmed the decision. He said the evidence presented showed that both students were intoxicated and that Mr. Mock had oral sex and intercourse with her without her consent, at one point covering her mouth while she tried to cry out in pain. (The woman who accused him has since left the university and could not be located by The Chronicle for comment.)
Officials at Chapel Hill declined on Wednesday to comment on C.D. Mock’s blogging or advocacy, but provided a written statement in which a spokesman, Rick White, distanced the campus from Mr. Mock’s views. “We respect the rights of all of our faculty, staff, or students in exercising their First Amendment rights,” the statement said, adding that “Coach Mock was expressing his views as an individual and not in any official capacity on behalf of the university.”
In an editorial published last month, however, the campus’s student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, accused the university of hypocrisy for upholding Mr. Mock’s right to voice his own opinions on a blog and yet having a policy that restricts what student-athletes can say via social media. The editorial said Mr. Mock blogs “with language that veers dangerously toward victim-blaming” and has made “the conversation surrounding sexual assault more intimidating for survivors.”
Silvia Tomášková, chairwoman of Chapel Hill’s department of women’s and gender studies, on Wednesday said she believes Mr. Mock’s blog has blurred the line between his own views as a private citizen and his employer’s position on sexual assault.
Drawing Attention
Beyond the campus, Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men, an advocacy group that argues men are being victimized by widespread false accusations of sexual crimes, said Mr. Mock’s blog shows “a great deal of courage.” He asked, “What is wrong with the true victim speaking out and saying, ‘Wait a minute?’”
Mr. Mock said he had received praise for his blog from “tons of people,” including parents whose sons have faced similar accusations. At the same time, however, he acknowledged that the blog also had made him the target of attacks that have made his life difficult.
Among the blog’s critics is Laura L. Dunn, executive director of SurvJustice, a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to survivors of campus sexual violence. She said she respects arguments for due process for people accused of sexual assault, but Mr. Mock’s use of inflammatory and demeaning language in reference to women, as well as his assertions that many women with flaws in their accounts of sexual assault are lying, places him among “people who have an underlying agenda based in sexism and misogyny.”
The feminist blog Jezebel published an article on Mr. Mock headlined “College Wrestling Coach Pens Batshit Blog on Son’s Rape Case.” It called the blog “an enormous mess and also just a generally bad idea.”
Mr. Mock has expressed regret in his blog for one of his most inflammatory statements, his reference to many women on the other side of the debate as “old hags.” On Wednesday, however, he said he regretted the statement “half-heartedly” because it served its intended purpose of drawing attention to his blog.
“Let’s face it. The world is what it is. People respond to sensationalism,” he said. “You are going to get more attention from being sensational than you are from being nice.”
Protective Instinct
Mr. Mock, a Chapel Hill graduate who has been a wrestling coach there since 2000, created his blog after an in-depth article on his son’s case appeared in December in the online sports publication Vice Sports, generating follow-up coverage elsewhere.
“My son was being called a rapist, and all of the articles were being written from the perspective of the alleged victim,” he said. His blog, he said, is intended to provide a place where people can get his son’s side of the story.
The blog accused the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga of railroading his son, partly by retroactively applying a verbal-consent standard in judging an incident that occurred before the policy’s adoption. Because the woman who brought the complaint let Vice Sports use her name, Mr. Mock’s blog uses it in giving explicit accounts of what his son said had transpired on the night in question.
“My focus is on clearing my son’s name,” he said, although on his blog he also says, “I don’t want to ever read about this happening to another young man again.”
Mr. Mock said he planned to sue the University of Tennessee if his son lost his appeal and was expelled. He added, however, that neither complete exoneration nor a hefty legal settlement would enable his son, who had been a nationally ranked wrestler, to recover from the damage done from being indefinitely suspended from Chattanooga’s Division I team. “Wrestling is our life,” he said.
For his part, Corey Mock said on Wednesday that he is “100 percent behind” the blog and his father’s other efforts. “I am honored,” he said, “to have a dad like that who would back a son the way that he has.”
Peter Schmidt writes about affirmative action, academic labor, and issues related to academic freedom. Contact him at peter.schmidt@chronicle.com.
