The author
Rebecca Walker along with a group of academics, including educators from Harvard and Stanford universities, protested the media response to the accusations in an open letter to
The Chronicle of Higher Education, saying it amounted to "a full-blown media-harassment campaign."
[84][85] While not dismissing the allegations, they cautioned against an "uncritical" and "sensationalist" handling of the issue that they said could reinforce stereotypes of blacks and Latinos as sexual predators.
[84][85][86] Linda Martín Alcoff, a professor of philosophy at Hunter College, wrote an essay in
The New York Times placing allegations of sexual assault such as those against Díaz within a larger political context, writing of the need "to develop critiques of the conventions of sexual behavior that produce systemic sexual abuse".
[68][87]