Hunter Yelton is the six-year-old Colorado boy accused of making unwanted sexual advances on a classmate. Hunter has been suspended from school for kissing a first-grade girl on the hand.
Hunter originally had a “sexual harassment” notation on his permanent record, but this has been changed to “misconduct.” Still, the child was suspended:
The school-district superintendent says, in KRDO's paraphrase, that "Hunters' [sic] actions fit the school policy description of 'sexual harassment.' . . . The school district also says Hunters' [sic] parents may believe that kissing the girl at school is overall acceptable–but that's where the school disagrees."
Hunter’s mother said this in an interview with a local radio station:
"[The girl] was fine with it, they are 'boyfriend and girlfriend.' The other children saw it and went to the music teacher. That was the day I had the meeting with the principal, where she first said 'sexual harassment.' This is taking it to an extreme that doesn't need to be met with a six year old. Now my son is asking questions . . . what is sex mommy? That should not ever be said, sex. Not in a sentence with a six year old," said Hunters' [sic] mom, Jennifer Saunders.
Would it have been okay if Hunter had kissed a little boy? Just asking…
Psychologist and radio host Helen Smith, author of Men on Strike, wonders what effect this fiasco will have on little Hunter:
Psychologically, I wonder what the culture is telling little six-year-old boys like Hunter Yelton when they accuse him of sexual harassment for kissing a girl. This used to be normal. Now, the PC police have taught him that girls are dangerous, that he is some type of pervert and that as a male, he is always suspect. This is a very bad lesson to learn. As boys grow up, more will opt out and decide not to get involved when women are present. I write about this opting out in my book Men on Strike and it takes the form of men not wanting to marry as often, go to college where they are seen as some type of rapist, or even stop to help a child for fear of being charged as a pervert.
Smith rightly ties the suspension of Hunter Yelton to the “war on boys,” a term coined and popularized by Christina Hoff Sommers.
The “war against boys,” which transforms into a war against men as they boys mature, is built on a notion that rape and sexual harassment are basic to the male mentality, at least the unfeminized male mentality.
John Leo addresses this cultural development in a piece on the “Minding the Campus” blog. It’s entitled “Let’s Challenge the ‘Rape Culture’ Warriors.” Due process has been eroded for men accused of sexual harassment. Don’t get me wrong—sexual harassment should be punished to the full extent of the law. But the accused deserves to be heard.
What happened to Hunter is not only a symptom of the “rape culture” mentality, it is also a result of Obama Administration directives to schools on how to deal with accusations of sexual assault. The treatment Hunter received can be traced to a 2011 directive by then-assistant ed secretary Russlyn Ali.
The Ali mandate makes it clear that federal money will be withheld from any school that doesn’t prosecute allegations of sexual misconduct in a way that meets with the approval of federal bureaucrats. The directive was aimed at higher education but it also appears to have caught poor little Hunter, too. James Taranto has a great piece explaining how this happened. He concludes:
As amusing as the story of Hunter Yelton is, however, it is an example of a dire and widespread problem. "Sexual harassment" rules are ostensibly sex-neutral, but in practice they are used primarily to police male behavior. Feminists like Hanna Rosin note with triumph that girls and women do better in school than their male counterparts. One reason is that normal female behavior is seldom stigmatized or punished in the name of "civil rights."
And while college "justice" is often downright oppressive, the excesses of contemporary feminism know no age limits. As the story of Hunter Yelton demonstrates, the war on men is also a war on little boys.