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Contact: Teri Stoddard

Verizon Video Teaches Children to Fear Fathers, SAVE Charges

Washington, DC/November 29, 2011 — A domestic violence video produced by the Verizon Foundation distorts the facts, plays on emotions, and serves to alarm and frighten young children. Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), an advocate for domestic violence victims, has communicated with Verizon executives about the numerous factual errors, but the company refuses to correct its dangerous misinformation.

Titled “Monsters,” the video revels in powerful yet destructive stereotypes: fathers as abusers, wives as victims, and young boys as future abusers. “The child who lives with domestic violence… is afraid of the monster just down the hall,” a girl’s voiceover intones, while frightening images of a hunchbacked monster-dad flit across the screen: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/52044-verizon-foundation-national-domestic-hotline-video-launch-monsters.

Verizon’s aim in making the video — to help victims caught in abusive relationships — was noble. But the corporation is condoning the cycle of violence, since half of all partner abuse is mutual. An exhaustive California State University review of scholarship determined that levels of partner aggression are the same, if not higher, among females: http://csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.

This past Sunday a Philadelphia woman struck her boyfriend with her car when he attempted to escape the vehicle. The man was crushed by the impact and pronounced dead at the scene: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/angry_girlfriend_kills_beau_with_xRacWhxDNQjqDrY4fVQMHL#ixzz1f3B7TotP.

And a recent Washington Post article documented growing levels of aggressive behavior among women on campuses and in schools: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/violent-incidents-involving-female-students-surge-on-campuses-in-schools/2011/11/11/gIQAOsMJJN_story.html.

The compelling — but unfounded — stereotype of an abuser population of men may prevent half of domestic violence victims from reporting their abuse, and half its perpetrators from receiving the intervention they need.

“This video is particularly disturbing since the use of animation makes it appealing to children. It smears adult men as the only abusers in a household, when the fact is women are as likely to abuse their partners as men,” explains SAVE spokesman Philip W. Cook. “This video is dangerously harmful to children and to families.”

SAVE has documented that domestic violence misinformation is widespread and undermines the credibility and effectiveness of legitimate abuse-reduction programs: http://www.saveservices.org/downloads/SAVE-DV-Educational-Programs.

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Wendy McElroy, 301-801-0608, wmcelroy@saveservices.org

ACADEMIA REBELS AGAINST THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT FOR MEN

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 / U.S. Newswire / — Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is calling on the U.S. Department of Education to rescind a controversial directive. The new DED rule forces persons to abandon their due process rights to get an education. Such persons are considered “guilty until proven innocent” whenever an on-campus sexual accusation occurs.

On April 4, the DED Office of Civil Rights instructed every university that accepts federal funds to use a “preponderance (51%) of evidence” standard in evaluating allegations of sexual offense, including rape. An accuser only needs to ‘tip the scales’ for a professor or student to be found “guilty.”

But the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is now objecting. The group wants sexual accusations to be judged by a higher standard than traffic courts use for parking tickets.

On June 27, Gregory Scholtz, AAUP’s Director of the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance wrote to DED to protest the “lower standard of proof” that threatens “academic freedom and tenure.”

Then on August 18, AAUP’s Chair of the Committee on Women expressed concern about the “potential for accusations, even false ones, to ruin a faculty member’s career.” Backlash from two separate units of the AAUP is remarkable. Their recognition of false accusations is extraordinary.

“People lie for many reasons including revenge and shame; people also make mistakes. This is why courts presume an accused to be innocent and place the burden of proof on the accuser,” explains SAVE spokesman Phil Cook. “Hard evidence and due process are all the more important in sexual cases that often devolve to ‘he said, she said.’”

As a result of the DED directive, campuses are already beginning to reverse the presumption of innocence. Based on questionable data, men are assumed to be predators and women are said to “never lie” about issues like rape. By lowering the standards of justice, the OCR is encouraging false accusations.

SAVE applauds the AAUP for its courage in demanding the OCR rescind its April 4th mandate. SAVE urges college student parents to contact the Department of Education to demand for due process for all.

The SAVE letter to the Department of Education can be seen here: http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/OCRLetter.pdf. SAVE is a national victim advocacy organization working for evidence-based solutions to domestic violence.