Limbaugh runs with smears to falsely claim Jennings endorsed sexual assault against student
Rush Limbaugh advanced the thoroughly debunked smear that Department of Education official Kevin Jennings encouraged an illegal sexual relationship between a male high school student and an older man, taking the attack even further to baselessly assert that the student — who Limbaugh falsely claimed was 15 years old at the time — told Jennings that “an older man is forcing his way on me, sex and so forth,” and that in response, Jennings “urged the 15-year-old to further the relationship.” In fact, the student was of legal age at the time, and the accounts of the conversation Limbaugh used to advance the smear provide no evidence that the student said he was assaulted or that Jennings encouraged the student “to further the relationship.”
Limbaugh baselessly asserted student told of sexual assault and Jennings urged student “to further the relationship”
From the October 7 Constance M. Boland of the law firm Nixon Peabody — which represented the organization that Jennings ran, wrote of Jennings’ 1994 account of his conversation with the student, “Nowhere in the book does Mr. Jennings state that he understood the student was being abused of victimized, or that he suffered injury from any abuse.” Boland added, “Based on the plain meaning of the words in the book, it is clear that Mr. Jennings had no ‘reasonable cause to believe’ that the student was being abused in any way. Because there was no abuse and no ’sexual victimization,’ the statute [8/3/04]
Student: “I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time.” In an October 2 statement obtained by Media Matters for America, Brewster said that “[i]n 1988, I had taken a bus home for the weekend, and on the return trip met someone who was also gay. The next day, I had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about it. I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a sixteen year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence. I find it regrettable that the people who have the compassion and integrity to protect our nation’s students are themselves in need of protection from homophobic smear attacks. Were it not for Mr. Jennings’ courage and concern for my well-being at that time in my life, I doubt I’d be the proud gay man that I am today.”
Limbaugh previously accused Jennings of of having “encouraged” and “facilitated” a sexual relationship between a male high school student and an older man. Limbaugh previously stated on his radio show that “Obama’s safe school czar is a guy promoting homosexuality in the schools and encouraged a 15-year-old kid to have a homosexual relationship with an older man, and even facilitated it.” [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 9/28/09]
Limbaugh’s claim that student was a “15-year-old kid” has been thoroughly debunked
Former student’s driver’s license shows he was at least 16 when he approached Jennings. Media Matters exclusively obtained the Massachusetts driver’s license of the student confirming that at the time of the incident he was 16 years of age.
Former student: “I was a sixteen-year-old” and “was of legal consent at the time.” The former student provided Media Matters with the following statement, which Media Matters published on October 2:
Since I was of legal consent at the time, the fifteen-minute conversation I had with Mr. Jennings twenty-one years ago is of nobody’s concern but his and mine. However, since the Republican noise machine is so concerned about my “well-being” and that of America’s students, they’ll be relieved to know that I was not “inducted” into homosexuality, assaulted, raped, or sold into sexual slavery.
In 1988, I had taken a bus home for the weekend, and on the return trip met someone who was also gay. The next day, I had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about it. I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a sixteen year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence. I find it regrettable that the people who have the compassion and integrity to protect our nation’s students are themselves in need of protection from homophobic smear attacks. Were it not for Mr. Jennings’ courage and concern for my well-being at that time in my life, I doubt I’d be the proud gay man that I am today.
-Brewster
Jennings’ attorney stated in 2004 letter that student was 16, which is — and was — MA age of consent. In the August 3, 2004, letter, Boland wrote that the “conversation” Jennings had was with “a sixteen-year-old student” and that there “is no factual basis whatsoever for” the “claim that Mr. Jennings engaged in unethical practices, or that he was aware of any sexual victimization of any student, or that he declined to report any sexual victimization at any time.” [Boland letter, 8/3/04]
CNN, FoxNews.com reports confirm “Brewster” was 16 at the time. Fox News, which repeatedly advanced the falsehood that Jennings, in the words of Bill Hemmer, knew of a “statutory rape” and “never reported it,” has attached an editor’s note to at least two FoxNews.com articles stating, “Since this story was originally published, the former student referred to as ‘Brewster’ has stepped forward to reveal that he was 16 years old, not 15, at the time of the incident described in this report.” CNN’s Jessica Yellin, after reporting that CNN had spoken to the student, aired an image of the student’s driver’s license, stating that it “verifies he was actually 16 at the time, not 15, which means that if there had been sex, he was actually the legal age of consent in Massachusetts.”
