Date Rape or Xenophobia?

This story from today’s Globe highlights the lack of consistency in
resolution of legal conflicts, especially if one of the parties is a
citizen and the other is not. And extra-especially if one of the parties
is Harvard…

CAMBRIDGE — He had kissed her before. She never disputed that. He had
hugged her and bought her dinner. They had talked late into the night
over hot tea about their lives. He thought he was falling in love.

After winter break, when students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education
returned to their dormitories, she walked to his floor and said hello.
She entered his room, they kissed, and for a brief moment, Giorgi Zedginidze,
a 34-year-old visiting student from Eastern Europe, considered himself
a lucky man. Four hours later, he felt like his life was unraveling.

That night, Zedginidze was arrested on charges of sexual assault. He was
handcuffed, strip-searched, and jailed. Nearly two years later, he was
acquitted at trial, yet Harvard refuses to readmit him and has resisted
scheduling a tribunal to consider it. In the school’s eyes, Zedginidze
said, his status is limited to one word: rapist.

"It has been a nightmare," said Zedginidze, from the Republic
of Georgia. "They
think I am guilty no matter what."

A Middlesex jury acquitted Zedginidze of all six counts of sexual battery,
but he cannot finish his degree until the graduate school’s Committee on
Rights and Responsibilities clears him. The committee, however, has shown
no inclination to schedule a hearing on the matter.If a hearing does take
place, he has no right to a lawyer, to face his accuser, or to cross-examine
witnesses.

Zedginidze, meanwhile, has lost a full scholarship from the US State
Department, a stipend, and the right to stay in the country.

from the Boston Globe