Today's San Francisco Chronicle prints a profile of John Dwyer, the Boalt Hall dean who recently stepped down after being accused of sexual harassment by a former Boalt law student. It's an obvious placemarker, a way to keep the story alive in the absence of new developments, and it performs its task by printing two kinds of material: biographical information about Dwyer (twin emphases on his career history and his sexual history) and speculation (most notably by Dwyer's estranged brother, who is quoted as saying, when he heard Dwyer was in trouble, "I bet he's in trouble for sexual harassment").

The Chronicle paints a portrait of a brilliant workaholic who was also an accomplished lady's man, emphasizing both his many professional achievements and the many notches in his belt (Dwyer has been married and divorced three times, he was a known flirt, women law students flocked to him). All well and good, though the article proceeds from the premise that Dwyer did what he was accused of doing (why else include gossip about his interpersonal style and reprint his brother's nasty surmise?) rather than investigating the accusation itself. It's true that Dwyer has not responded to requests for interviews, and that does make it hard to present both sides of the story. But it's equally true that the media could be doing more than it has to investigate the nature and veracity of the accusations levelled against him.

This is to me the most frustrating aspect of the Boalt situation: the media's willingness to credit a vastly damaging series of allegations made by an anonymous accuser via an openly hostile lawyer who has publicly announced that her goal is to use the media to ensure that Dwyer never works again. This is neither serious nor credible journalism.

What would be serious and credible: outing the accuser. It would not be hard to do, as a great deal of information about her has made it into the papers at this point. We know she was a 2002 Boalt graduate, that while at Boalt she was active in the Berkeley Law Foundation, that now she works in a public interest law firm in San Francisco, and, most importantly, that she wrote her thesis under the guidance of Boalt law professor Linda Hamilton Krieger, whose willingness to talk to the press about her role in the affair has obligingly narrowed the field of possible accusers down to a very small number of women indeed. All we need now is a list of 2002 women Boalt grads who did their theses with Krieger. Find out who among them is now working at a public interest firm in SF, and you've got your girl (or, worst case scenario, your short list).

Why do I think it's important to out the accuser? Because that's the only way to elevate innuendo to news. Who is this woman? What's her story? What does she have to say for herself, when lawyers and professors aren't speaking for her? What are her motives? If this story is newsworthy--and papers around the world have decided that it is--then surely it's important to know whose story it is. In behaving like a moral sniper--taking ruinous public shots at Dwyer while hiding behind the veil of victimhood--the accuser is operating from within an indefensible double standard (one whose ugliness is most clear when one reflects that in expecting her desire for anonymity to be honored, she is counting on Dwyer to be too much of a gentleman to name her). A self-respecting press would not unquestioningly protect her, but would seek instead to get the whole, messy story and report it as such.

Ah, but therein lies the rub: reporting the whole messy story would most likely change the story. The issue would cease to be what a predator Dwyer is, and how remiss Berkeley's harassment procedures are. The issue would instead become one of institutional malpractice: reporting the whole, messy story would most likely involve acknowledging how loaded and problematic the concept of sexual harassment is, how open to abuse it is, how damaging false accusations are, and how much incentive there is to make false or frivolous accusations. It would involve noting that no matter what happened between Dwyer and the student one December night in 2000, what has happened since has followed what is by now a very familiar, very oversimplified, very vindictive script. But who wants to read that story? Or write it, for that matter? It's so much more fun to repeat rumors about where Dwyer put his fingers.

UPDATE: the San Jose Mercury News is also running a story on the Boalt case today. It sticks to the issues a bit better than the Chronicle piece does, but still concludes with a ringing endorsement of the alleged "victim" (and of victimization):

The Boalt Hall Women's Association and the Berkeley Women's Law Journal says Dwyer's resignation is a signal that ``sexual harassment and assault in the law school environment have gone unaddressed for too long.'' The group urges sexual-harassment sensitivity training for all faculty and staff members.

``She didn't feel that she could come forward while she was a student here,'' said Alisa Nave, president of the Boalt Hall Women's Association. ``And that's what needs to change.''

UPDATE UPDATE: A woman reader writes:

If Dwyer's such a stud, doesn't it seem unlikely he'd be groping someone passed out, even if he's drunk? This sounds like Anita Hill all over again. The victim is saintly, except when she wasn't. Does this woman have an alcohol problem? Has she done this before? She's an adult and I think it behooves her come out from behind the skirts of her lawyer. If she was under-age, I would be more sympathetic to her anonymity.