Over the last decade Australian universities have been bullied into establishing kangaroo courts to investigate and adjudicate sexual assault. This followed a long campaign by feminist activists claiming there was a “rape crisis” on our campuses, following a similar campaign in the USA which led to the Obama administration requiring all publicly-funded universities to set up tribunals to determine such matters. Read more here. 

What’s behind the feminist’s scare campaign?

What really concerns Bettina is the motive behind the activists’ campaign. These feminists are unhappy about the fact that juries rarely convict in “he-said, she-said” date rape cases when they don’t know whom to believe. Their aim is to get more rape convictions by persuading universities to get involved in adjudicating sexual assault cases using lower standards of proof and by failing to offer the accused normal legal protections – as has happened in America.

In the US, Joe Biden was one of the key players in this move. At the time the tribunals he openly declared he was using the campuses for social engineering of feminist policies. “We need a fundamental change in our culture. And the quickest way to change culture is to change it on the campuses of America,” he said.

In Australia, the activists persuaded our university regulator, TEQSA, to lean on the universities to take similar action. TEQSA issued a Guidance Note which told the universities that they needed to handle these matters and across the country regulations were introduced for determining these criminal cases using an appallingly biased system using the lowest level of proof, the “balance of probabilities”, and totally failing to protect the legal rights of the accused.

Support for students facing unfair treatment. 

Bettina’s first involvement in these cases began two years ago when she was approached to help an Adelaide PhD student facing investigation by an Adelaide University committee over a fake rape accusation. Watch how she managed to ward off that committee.

Since then she has been involved in a string of similar stories, bringing in lawyers to help young men in these circumstances. 

Here’s videos and blogs she has put together to tell their stories: 

Here’s a student at a NSW rural university – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRnyaRE9bzQ&t=383s

A student at the University of New England – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hItQ9Hd7rD4&t=1s

Here’s a blog about doctor studying at a Sydney university who was wrongly accused and eventually received compensation from the university – https://bettinaarndt.substack.com/p/the-dreadful-toll-of-campus-injustice

And another about a Melbourne university case involving a tutor falsely accused. https://bettinaarndt.substack.com/p/hung-out-to-dry

Fake rape crisis tour

To draw public attention to what was happening here, Bettina started to write and speak out about the whole manufactured rape crisis campaign and the resulting kangaroo courts.  

She was the only journalist in mainstream media to point out that the 2017 Human Rights Commission survey which set out to find evidence for the “rape crisis” revealed remarkably good news about our campuses, with only tiny numbers of students reporting sexual assault, even when that was defined in the broadest possible terms i.e. including a stranger touching a student on a train to the university.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics has shown universities are 100 times safer for young women than the rest of the community.

In 2018 –19 Bettina toured the country, speaking to student groups at universities across Australia, seeking to promote honest discussion about this issue and expose the reasons why activists are promoting such untruths about student safety. 

Here is her video outlining the major events which happened on her tour. 

Her first campus talk took place at La Trobe University in September 2018, after initially being banned by university administrators who claimed it clashed with the values of the university. After some negotiation, the university revised their decision and event went ahead, despite noisy protesters doing their best to drown out Bettina’s talk.

Riot squad called in at Sydney University

At her second talk, at the University of Sydney, demonstrators took things to a different level. The student group which sponsored her talk were required to pay nearly $500 for security guards to obtain a venue and then these guards were overwhelmed by unruly protesters who blocked the corridor leading to the venue preventing most of the audience from attending the event. Members of the audience were threatened, physically jostled, some even flung against walls by the aggressive crowd prior to the riot squad being called in by security to control the protesters before Bettina’s talk could go ahead.

Formal complaint to the University

Bettina made a formal complaint to the University against protest organisers. See Bettina’s video naming the key protesters and spelling out the ways they breached the University’s codes of conduct and bullying and harassment policies. Here she reveals some amazing stories about past activities of the key troublemakers.

University of Sydney takes action against protest organisers

Following 8 months of investigation, the University finally took disciplinary action against the key organiser of the protest – Maddy Ward. See the video announcing this decision.

Political action following Bettina’s protest

Soon after the Sydney protest, the Federal Government set up an inquiry into free speech at our campuses. The French inquiry recommended a voluntary code of conduct to promote free speech and Education Minister Dan Tehan urged universities to come on board. But after many of the universities showed only token compliance, the government took action this year to introduce a compulsory code.

Senator Amanda Stoker grills TEQSA

Late in 2019 Queensland Senator Amanda Stoker used Senate Estimates to grill TEQSA bureaucrats about the role of that organisation in encouraging universities to move in this direction. Watch how they squirm here.

For more background on this whole issue, here’s an article Bettina wrote that same year for the online journal Quillette, explaining the recent developments. 

And an earlier Quillette article where she discusses the manufactured campus rape crisis which was used to bully universities into getting involved in this territory. Here’s a longer version she wrote for Quadrant magazine.

Bettina now works with a team of lawyers who are determined to ensure proper justice for men accused of such crimes on Australian campuses. Please contact her if you know of a young man dealing with a false allegation on our campuses. 

 Bettina is delighted by the widespread support she is now receiving from people all over Australia who are concerned about this issue.