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Rape accusation against Whitman’s son kept quiet

October 23, 2010

The son of Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman was accused of sexually assaulting a female classmate while a student at Princeton University–a school that lists Whitman as one of its most generous donors. [Gawker]

Critics contend that the incident has been downplayed by university officials, unwilling to embarrass the former e-Bay CEO who has donated more than $30 million to the Ivy League school.

Griffith Rutherford Harsh V was never arrested or charged with a crime in connection with the 2006 incident. Princeton dealt with it quietly and internally, ultimately allowing Harsh to continue his education. He graduated with the class of 2009, three years after his rape accusation—and two years after the inauguration of Whitman College, the residential living complex his billionaire mother donated $30 million to help build.

A young woman, a classmate of Harsh, told university officials that she awoke one morning with a black eye, bruised and bloodied face, and no memories from the previous night. Harsh admitted to having sex with the woman, but insisted it was consensual, and that her injuries had come from falling down.

The woman consulted her friends, some of whom worried about the “social repercussions” of accusing such a high-profile student of rape. She was “terrified,” according to her friend. “She didn’t want to press charges because it’s Meg Whitman’s son. She didn’t want to go through that. She didn’t go to the police. She didn’t get a rape kit.”

The university disciplinary panel concluded that it did not have enough evidence to discipline Harsh. He took a leave of absence for a year before finally graduating in 2009.

His legal troubles didn’t stop there.  Shortly after the Princeton rape incident, Harsh was back home in California when he was arrested for breaking a woman’s ankle during a brawl at a bar. He was released after his mother posted $25,000 in bail and the charges were eventually dismissed.

Whitman’s other son, Will Harsh, also enjoyed a rather controversial time at Princeton.


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More bad news for Whitman and her dwindling number of supporters:


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/Governors/2010/1026/Meg-Whitman-declines-Jerry-Brown-challenge-to-stop-negative-ads


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More sloppy writing once again on this site. It’s really too bad. I have written comments like this before that although are not inflammatory still are not posted by the admins here. Not sure why.


First, rape is not a crime that an alleged victim can ‘decide’ if they want to “press charges” or not.


Second, based on what I read, there were no charges filed by the cops, and the university didn’t even find enough evidence to academically dicipline the guy. That did not stop the “author” of this story from calling it, “the rape incident”. Very irresponsible. Also, on most news articles below the headline and date sits the writers name. I dont see the writers name in this story at all. Why?


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If you read the article, I believe that you will see it came from Gawker. It is right there in the first paragraph and linked to the original story for your easy access. Also this site has never refused to post a derogatory comment against it that I’m aware of. I’ve seen plenty of derogatory posts here.


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Thanks Nancy for your reply. The Gawker link refers to the story that THAT paragraph was refering back to. This story here is not the Gawker story. If you clicked on the ink you mentioned, you would have seen they are two differently worded stories. I still think this entire article is lacking if its not attributed to a specific writer. Maybe just an innocent oversight


Also before you say, “This site has never refused to post a comment…that youre aware of”. You may have missed my mention where I said I had a comment recently that was not posted, and it was not rude, inflammatory at all.” Not a huge conspiracy at all, but someone who knows a thing or two about journalism, especially in this new age of comments below stories, it just made me say hmmmm…thats all. So now you can say youre aware of one, haha….


Thanks for your reply Nancy…I appreciate comments well thought out and polite like yours was.


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I remove comments that are of the where is the beef type (mentioned in the guidelines) all the time, especially if it happens to be the first comment in a post

there are a number of people here with moderator powers so your actual mileage may vary, if you are not a complete jerk your comment will usually stay.

I also delete comments mentioning moderation on sight. ????Email


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“she awoke one morning with a black eye, bruised and bloodied face, and no memories from the previous night.” First I am going to withhold all judgment until I hear if she went and had her urine tested for date rape drugs and second, how much did she drink? I’ve heard it all before and these young woman need to learn to take responsibility for themselves when drinking. I saw an incident where a drunk female student entered a classmates dorm and climbed in his bed in the early morning hours (she knew him and where to find him). A couple of days later he mentioned something about the good time she gave him. She had been in a black out ( at her age of only 20!!) and didn’t remember. She filed rape charges against him for “taking advantage” of her and a bunch of liberal bratty co-eds protested at the college against him for rape!! He was made to leave school for a year!

That is outrageous. Since when are woman not responsible for their actions but men are responsible for those same woman? Since when are college boys supposed to carry breath detectors to be certain a drunk “booze bag” isn’t too drunk?


A for the timing of this allegation coming out, if it was important it should have been pursued prior to Meg’s run for GOV. AS far as I’m concerned, it’s a non issue. I am not going to vote for “moonbeam”.


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————————————–Very good points!


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All politicians have skeletons in the closet or monkeys on their backs, especially the farther back into the family hierarchy you go. Name one who does not…

It is interesting the bulk of these come out during the election cycle and is a very good indicator of an opponents character.


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Junior’s filthy laundry came out alright, but no one was interested, so we got 8 years and 2 wars.


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To all who want to attempt to diminish the effects of how bad this news story makes Meg Whitman look by comparing her sons to any of the Kennedys, stop it, now. If the young lady who was the subject of this incident (or attack) were your daughter, sister or wife, would you be so ready to dismiss the very questionable actions of Ms. Whitman’s son? Really? I will not condone or excuse in any manner any action by anyone anywhere if they take action against any female like this, even if their last name is Kennedy; the action was wrong wrong wrong, period. To address the incident that was reported in this article however should raise concerns for voters as the actions of Ms. Whitman during the fallout of this “encounter” ; did she really attempt to “buy” her son’s way out of accountability for his actions? Why does that matter in the race for Governor? I really think so and my point is that if she cannot face the reality of what SHOULD happen in a situation like her son was in, how is she going to face the reality of what she will encounter in elected office? Running a government is not like running a business; you do not have the final word like you would as a CEO, you have to deal with the other two, co-equal branches of government, you have to be aware of the wishes of the citizens and the lasting effects of what actions you do take, unlike in a corporate situation where you only seem to care about the short term profitability of your company. In situations like this one and other situations that Ms. Whitman does not have complete control of the situation, Meg Whitman has shown that she does not have the temperament to run a government that would truly serve the greater population, but would probably be just what the richest of society would enjoy the most.


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I agree with Treken on the point that what I care about is the 40% of the jobs that were outsourced during Meg’s tenure with Ebay. This story is just tabloidy nonsense. No one was convicted so who cares? Anyone can accuse anyone of anything, it means nothing. Also, when one has a great deal of wealth it’s not uncommon for unfounded gossip and accusations to fly around. I bring Palin’s kids into debates because Palin brings them into the spotlight. If a candidate doesn’t bring their children into the campaign then we should leave them out. Personally I care about what Meg stands for, I would never in a million years vote for her, I like Jerry. But I feel it’s dirty to bring up stories like this.


It also doesn’t bother me that one of Jerry’s staff called Meg a whore. I don’t like it but she’s a big girl and you can bet that she’s called Jerry plenty of bad names. I just want to know what they’re going to do, what their beliefs are and how they conduct themselves,,,especially while in office.


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Not saying that two wrongs make a right or defending this mans actions one way or the other but to point out that both parties are guilty of dallances, does anybody remember the William Kennedy Smith trial of ’91? Reads very similar. This happens way to much (buying off with money) and should be eliminated all around.


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Jerry Brown will be our next govenor!

Meg is a snowball full of nothing more than fluff!!!


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————————-50/50 at this time—-I like Meg–I like Jerry—–What their kids do as adults is not all about up bring!


Has any one out there seen Jerry’s portrait at our State Capital?


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I wonder about the accuser too… is she afraid to accuse because she simply doesn’t know if it was her own fault for being too drunk? I’d be afraid of accusing someone falsely more than accusing someone rich. As is obvious by this election, “the rich” have powerful enemies too who would be happy to find the kid guilty.


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She may have been drunk. But if she was too drunk to remember what happened, drunk enough to fall and really bang up her face, she was clearly not in her right mind and unable to give consent. In an earlier era, a true gentleman would never have “taken advantage” of a lady in such a situation, and any man who would was considered a cad. Even today, most of us would consider such actions immoral even if not strictly illegal. Such actions speak to a culture of immense privilege, of feeling entitled to get what one wants whenever and however, with no concern about how actions may impact others, with the assumption that enough can cure any evil. If that is the way she raised her sons, I am concerned about what implies about her values.


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