Sep 26, 2016 4 min read

In 1915, “The Birth of a Nation” arrived in theaters, revolutionized the way movies tell stories and generated a whirlwind of controversy – even in an era we look back on as less enlightened – for its portrayal of African-Americans as being childlike and shiftless at best and unrestrained sexual predators at worst. The salvagers of order and uncorrupted womanhood in the Reconstruction-era South, “The Birth of a Nation” argued, were the Knight Riders of the Ku Klux Klan.

“The Birth of a Nation” was a box-office sensation, earned the endorsement of President Woodrow Wilson and, as movies grew in sophistication, became a touchstone for the filmmaking process. It’s still shown occassionally in college and university film courses, but with plenty of caveats about its crude glorification of brute racism.

Just one year past the century mark of this tarnished landmark, another movie called “The Birth of a Nation” is arriving in movie theaters next week. This “Birth of a Nation,” rather than glorify cross-burners, looks back at the bloody slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831. Described by people who have already seen it as gripping and powerful, it was snapped up for more than $17 million by distributor Fox Searchlight, and had been pegged as a near-certain Oscar contender. However, the fact that Nate Parker, the writer, director and star of “The Birth of a Nation,” was accused of raping a fellow student while attending Penn State University in 1999 has become a minefield that threatens to keep audiences away and divert the Academy Award statuettes to other movies.

To recap, Parker and Jean Celestin, a wrestling teammate who co-wrote the “Birth of a Nation” script with Parker, were accused by an 18-year-old student of having sex with her while she was drunk and could not consent. When the case came to trial in 2001, Parker, who was attending Penn State on a wrestling scholarship, was acquitted. Celestin was found guilty of sexual assault and not rape, but the conviction was later vacated after Celestin asserted he received inadequate counsel at his trial.

Although no guilt was assigned to Parker, there are now calls for moviegoers to steer clear of this “Birth of a Nation,” with Parker’s detractors emphasizing that few if any women ever air false rape charges and that Parker and Celestin led a campaign of harassment against their accusor, charges which they have denied.

Roxanne Gay, an associate professor of English at Purdue University, wrote in The New York Times she would not be seeing the movie. “We’ve long had to face that bad men can create good art,” she wrote. “Some people have no problem separating the creation from the creator. I am not one of those people, nor do I want to be.”

There is no question that, yes, accusations of rape should be taken seriously. Too often they are not, as demonstrated by the fact that many law enforcement agencies have backlogs of untested rape kits that could pinpoint perpetrators and prevent additional crimes from occurring. But another principle is at play here: the idea that, once a jury determines that there is not enough evidence to convict someone of a crime, a defendant should be allowed to get on with their lives. We will never know for sure if Parker committed the crime for which he was accused almost two decades ago. America’s system of jurisprudence rests on the presumption of innocence. If Parker was found not to have committed a crime by a jury, is it fair to tie the crime around his neck for the remainder of his days?

Writing for The New Yorker about the controversy, Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard Law School, made the following salient point: “… We are left wondering about the justice of not letting people who are accused and convicted of a crime move on, let alone those who are accused and acquitted.”

Audiences should see Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation.” Without guilt.