I wrote at length yesterday about the allegations of sexual harassment--now upgraded by an angry lawyer to sexual assault--that led the dean of Berkeley's law school, John Dwyer, to resign. Dwyer stepped down last week, saying that he no longer felt he could lead the school, acknowledging with regret a single encounter two years ago with a law student, stressing that no intercourse took place, and characterizing the encounter as "consensual." That word touched a nerve with the anonymous accuser--now a public interest lawyer--and her lawyer, who told the media that there was nothing consensual about the encounter and supported that claim with details about the nature and circumstances of the encounter (alcohol, unconsciousness, opportunism, and disagreement about the facts were all apparently involved).

I have been wondering what the goal of the accusation, made two years after the fact, truly is. And I have been wondering, too, what the lawyer hopes to gain by feeding the media prurient detail in order to discredit the dean's claim. The story is that the student did not file charges while she was still enrolled at Boalt because she wanted to preserve anonymity and feared retaliation. Okay--but what makes her think her identity is going to stay secret when her lawyer is encouraging the press to circulate graphic details of Dwyer's alleged assault? What is she really after? If she wanted justice, it would seem that she got it when Dwyer resigned in a cloud of repentant shame. If she wanted anonymity, it would seem that she would not use the media to press the point about whether the encounter was or was not "consensual." Dwyer is out of a job, he is humiliated, and somehow, miraculously, the identity of the accuser is still not public. And yet, she and her lawyer press on.

A clue to what they are after appears in Florida's Herald Tribune this morning. Here is the lawyer, Laura Stevens:

Stevens said Berkeley is obligated to "train and educate the whole community about this social phenomenon of sexual abuse and heighten people's interest in the subject in a positive way to prevent it, to create an environment that is likely to prevent it and likely to aid a victim in a positive way if it still does occur. That has not happened and that's what we want to have happen."

Next on the docket: a push for mandatory sensitivity training at Berkeley.

UPDATE: According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the accuser may sue if UC Berkeley "does not strengthen its policies and procedures to comply with state and federal laws." According to Laura Stevens, "Our goal is prevention, not punishment. ... The main thing she is seeking is compliance." Stevens added that Berkeley does not do its job when it comes to educating staff about sexual harassment. "Their policies and procedures on sexual harassment are minimal. They don't distribute them. They have failed utterly," Stevens said. "Nobody who works there has ever gotten any training. They never did what they were required to do."

So an outdated accusation by an unnamed accuser has not only ruined one man's career (to be accused of sexual harassment is to be guilty of it in today's touchy climate) but is now becoming a lever for forcing policy change at the University of California. That policy change will in turn carry a distinct political agenda, one that--we can bet--demonizes men as de facto victimizers and that infantilizes women as helpless victims.

There is a phenomenal book on how the sexual harassment industry has become an extraordinarily profitable, and enormously destructive, arm of the feminist movement, particularly on America's campuses. If you want to read more, check out Daphne Patai's stunning Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism.

UPDATE UPDATE: The story gets better the more it circulates. The London Independent is now--wrongly--reporting that Dwyer was accused of rape. It's hard not to imagine that this sort of hysterical inflation isn't just what the talkative lawyer is hoping the media will accomplish for her client.