USA: Mütter von Söhnen, die der Vergewaltigung bezichtigt wurden, begehren auf

"The phone call. The phone call," sighed Allison Strange. "There’s always that one call that you never expect to get."

On Sept. 6, 2011, the caller ID showed her son's cell phone, but the voice on the other end wasn't Josh. Her son had been arrested for rape.

Josh Strange avoided prosecution, but he did face the justice of Auburn University, where he was a sophomore. Under federal civil rights law, colleges and universities have to conduct their own investigations into sexual assault reports, separate from a criminal one. And after a 99-minute hearing, the discipline committee – chaired by a university librarian – reached its decision.

"Josh was as white as a piece of notebook paper, and just looked like he had been punched in the stomach," remembered Allison Strange, who was outside the hearing room. "I walked up and I looked, and Josh said, ‘Mom, I’m gone. They don’t want me here anymore. I can’t stay. They’ve expelled me.’"

In the aftermath, Allison and Josh Strange formed the group Families Advocating for Campus Equality that pushes for universities to get out of the business of adjudicating sexual assault cases. Allison Strange wants those cases to be left to the criminal justice system, and she says you only need to look at her son's case to understand why.

Hier geht es weiter mit dem Artikel auf Al-Jazeera.