University Professor Convicted of Raping Disabled Man

[Ultimate Paragon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/magazine/the-strange-case-of-anna-stubblefield.html?_r=0

What I found even more disgusting was some of the commenters trying to defend her.

[Sigmaleph]

Are you assuming that she was lying and she knew all along that D.J. could not consent?

Because if she wasn't, if she really believed that facilitated communication works, I don't think putting her in prison accomplishes anything. Forbidding her from ever interacting with non-verbal people again, I would be 100% in favour. Putting her in prison for a decade or four, though...

[mellenORL]

I have trouble with the idea that Stubblefield was using FC in the 2010's, when FC had been thoroughly debunked in the '90's. A person with her level of education, and who was a professional scholar, surely would have been aware of that? And then details such as DJ typing with her "help" that he did not like Gospel music and that he allegedly preferred a fairly sophisticated, wine snob label like Fat Bastard? She needs to go away for a good while. There is no particular reason to give her a pass for being possibly self-deluded; intelligent people commit crimes, too.

[Sigmaleph]

I have trouble with the idea that Stubblefield was using FC in the 2010's, when FC had been thoroughly debunked in the '90's. A person with her level of education, and who was a professional scholar, surely would have been aware of that?

She was aware. She apparently disagreed and thought FC was valid. Mistakenly, but she wouldn't be the first person to hold a belief long after being debunked.

And then details such as DJ typing with her "help" that he did not like Gospel music and that he allegedly preferred a fairly sophisticated, wine snob label like Fat Bastard? She needs to go away for a good while. There is no particular reason to give her a pass for being possibly self-deluded; intelligent people commit crimes, too.

If she was self-deluded, what exactly does putting her in prison accomplish that keeping her away from disabled people doesn't? It's not like she's at a high risk of raping anyone else.

If she wasn't self-deluded, if she knew what she was doing, then put her in jail and let her rot. But I don't think that was the case.

[ironbite]

Ok so I can't read that article at all.  Someone sum it up.

Ironbite-someone who I'm not having on ignore.

[Sigmaleph]

Ok so I can't read that article at all.  Someone sum it up.

Ironbite-someone who I'm not having on ignore.

Anna Stubblefield was working with DJ, a disabled man who could not communicate in any reliable way. She used a technique called facilitated communication to supposedly help him type out words on a keyboard and communicate with people. Facilitated communication is a heavily criticised technique and the general consensus is that the person "helping" is actually subconsciously writing out what they want themselves, but there are people that still use it.

Stubblefield claims that over time working with DJ they fell in love with each other. Stubblefield raped DJ while thinking, or claiming to think, that he had consented via FC. She announced their "relationship" to his family, who were sceptical. They tested FC to see if DJ could say something he would know and Stubblefield did not, it failed.

She was declared guilty of rape on the grounds that she either knew or should have known that DJ could not consent.

[ironbite]

Was that so hard there article writer?  You're not Hemmingway.  Just give me the facts.

Ironbite-also there's a star with this bitch's name on it.  Let's introduce the two of them via galaxy cannon.

[Lt. Fred]

How come so many social workers are so fucked up? Just reading the wiki article on FC, and there's like 10 different families in different countries that had BS allegations against them fabricated by a social worker working with FC. Add to that the various other rape scandals in the 80s, and clearly there's a fair proportion of the social worker community in several countries with an overactive imagination and a willingness to use others as toys while exercising it.

[mellenORL]

Good point that I've thought about too when cases like these make it into the press. Potential abusers and people with power tripping tendencies or an inflated sense that their intellect = moral right, seem to gravitate to fields, even if not consciously, that put them in control of the young, powerless or impaired. Sort of a lite version of the pedophile priest trope.