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Harper Lee’s focus was justice, not the feelings of those being cross-examined in court. A harsh interrogation of the accused was necessary to establish defendant Tom Robinson’s objective innocence. But he was foredoomed by his society’s entrenched racist beliefs about black men. Cultural belief systems generally trump the law. And a society’s moral compass rarely triumphs over the greater magnetic pull of a moral panic.

Today almost any (white) man accused of rape on a university campus is presumed guilty because campuses are imbued by moral panic over “rape culture.” A latter-day Atticus Finch would have his pick of men falsely accused of rape and denied due process. Or who had been targeted for punishment for the crimes of other men because — well, apparently because they’re men too.

As a case in point, you may recall that in 2014, when two players from the University of Ottawa hockey team were charged with one count of sexual assault each while partying during a trip to Thunder Bay, the whole team was suspended and the rest of their season cancelled. Twenty-four team members, who had nothing to do with the incriminating sexual incidents, are seeking a combined $6 million for damage to their reputations.

The U of Ottawa sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, but an Ontario court has just found that the suit’s claims that the school was negligent are admissible for trial, and also found the decision to suspend the hockey team was outside the university’s broad discretion to manage academic affairs.