Reuters reported that a court has rejected Brock Turner’s appeal against his felony sexual assault conviction. As has happened so many times before, the most important thing they think people should know about Brock Turner is not that he was convicted of raping a woman, but that he had some success as a athlete.
Turner’s hobby is not relevant to his conviction. If he collected Pokemon cards or built model trains or photographed birds in his spare time, none of these things would rate a mention at the bottom of an article, let alone be the defining word in the headline. But an athlete? That’s a Big Deal and it shouldn’t be. It does not excuse him, it does not make what he did worse or better.
His actions towards the woman he raped, his refusal to take responsibility for it and his utter dismissal of her experience are what makes his actions during and since the rape so reprehensible. That he used to splash about in a pool has no place in a headline about a court upholding his conviction.
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