Amid Social Justice Furor On Campus, Stanford U Employee Falsely Cries Rape By Black Man Twice
Long revered as one of America’s top research institutions, and, lately, a bastion of social justice wokeism, Stanford University was recently the site of completely different research — an investigation that’s left a university employee facing charges for allegedly lying under oath about being sexually assaulted twice by a Black man on campus.
Jennifer Ann Gries, 25, a supervisor at Stanford’s Housing Service Center, has been arrested and charged with two felony counts of perjury and two misdemeanor counts of making a false crime report after prosecutors said she submitted untruthful reports at hospitals, applied for victim compensation money and caused school security to issue a campus-wide public safety alert.
According to the Santa Clara district attorney’s office, Gries first filed an allegedly false sexual assault report on Aug. 9, 2022, telling forensic nurses at Valley Medical Center in San Jose that she was attacked in the restroom of a campus garage by what she described as a Black man in his late 20s.
Then, two months later, on Oct. 7, Gries reported being sexually assaulted again by a Black man in his late 20s, who was about 6 feet tall and slender. Gries said the supposed assailant grabbed by her arm and dragged her into a basement storage closet, where she was assaulted
Gries claimed she became pregnant with twins from the alleged assault, but had a miscarriage, according to authorities.
Prosecutors said that after both attack reports, sexual assault examination kits were rushed for priority testing to protect the public from a potential sex offender. But, forensic examinations found the tests were not consistent with what Gries had told nurses what happened and that she actually had not been pregnant.
In response to Gries’ assault reports, campus police at Stanford issued a security alert, which earned local news coverage and caused many students to feel unsafe.
As Stanford’s Department of Public Safety continued to investigate the sexual assaults, it was discovered Gries had lodged a sexual harassment complaint against a coworker whose appearance fit the description of Gries’ alleged rapist.
In January, Gries apparently admitted to an investigator from the district attorney’s office that, yes, she had lied about being sexually assaulted. She also wrote an apology letter to the coworker she had implicated in the sexual harassment allegations.
In a statement, Stanford leaders said they will be reviewing Gries’ employment. She has been placed on a leave of absence.
“These false reports are damaging, both for true survivors of sexual assault and for the members of our community who experienced fear and alarm from the reports,” said a joint statement from Patrick Dunkley, vice provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community, and Laura Wilson, director of the Department of Public Safety. “We also want to emphasize that both false reports and outcomes such as this one are extremely rare in sexual assault cases.”
Said Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement: “This is a rare and deeply destructive crime…Our hearts go out to the falsely accused. Our hearts go out to students who had to look over their shoulders on their way to class. Our hearts go out to legitimate sexual assault victims who wonder if they will be believed.”
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, false reports account for between 2 percent and 10 percent of sexual assault reports. Meanwhile, an estimated 81 percent of women in the United States experience some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetimes.
Data from the National Registry of Exonerations suggest that Black people are almost eight times more likely than whites to be falsely convicted of sexual assault.
