"You're not supposed to betray your race"

“You’re not supposed to betray your race,” Ms. Watson, 39, said in her first interview since she accused Mr. Fairfax last month of assaulting her when they were in college together at Duke University nearly two decades ago. Mr. Fairfax has denied her allegations…

Ms. Watson said that she has received some support, but the condemnation has stung.

After she came forward, Ms. Watson said that a black male friend told her that he could not believe that she was “going to do this to a black man.”

On social media, strangers described her as opportunistic, dismissed her as a pawn to take down Mr. Fairfax and equated her to the white woman who falsely accused Emmett Till of flirting with her, leading to his lynching in 1955.