The online campaign appears to have been fueled by misperceptions about how the college's anonymous sexual misconduct reporting form works.
"Feminists at Occidental College created an online form to anonymously report rape/sexual assault," a user wrote in a Tuesday post on Reddit's Men's Rights group. "You just fill out a form and the person is called into the office on a rape charge. The 'victim' never has to prove anything or reveal their identity."There's also a controversy at Occidental about its failure to meet federal standards in reporting reports of sexual assault, so the school needs some kind of system for encouraging reports. But those who fear false reports are motivated to create pressure against any system that makes it too easy to make a false report. This particular protest, however, if it is what it appears to be, seems to entail making false reports as a way to demonstrate the harms of false reports.
In fact, the form was created by campus administrators in 2009 to encourage assault victims to come forward. Allegations reported to the site are reviewed by administrators and, if they occur on or near campus, should be reported to federal authorities in annual crime statistics. The anonymous reports can be used to track patterns and make inquiries but do not lead to formal investigations, Tranquada said.
It's possible that the reports from men against women are not false, but are reports of conduct that fits the schools definition of sexual assault but that men normally refrain from reporting. I'm thinking of unwanted fondling, hugging, and kissing, which women may impose on men, assuming the men must really want it and/or counting on the tendency of men to silently endure these low-level assaults.
But according to The L.A. Times, a spate of reports came in right after some character on Reddit posted:
"Step one: Get a list of every 'Feminist' at Occidental College who supported this system. Step two: Anonymously report them for rape," wrote user WhiteThrone in a Reddit post Wednesday night. "Step three: Watch them squirm as their lives are hanging in the balance over a false rape charge. Step four: Shutdown the BS online form."I'd like to know if the reports were of rape or — what I assume is the case — sexual assault. And were the reports filed against women who were quickly identifiable as feminists? I do think WhiteThrone's comment is satirical and not an actual call to action. Some idiots/activists might have thought it actually would be a good idea, but again, I don't know. There could have been some intelligent discussion about women who have engaged in the kind of physical aggression that, done by a man, could lead to a report of a sexual assault, and a decision to overcome the usual male reluctance to say a female has touched him without his consent.
Posts
69 comments:
The feminist Crying Wolf/Rape laboratory experiments run in liberal colleges as training for slandering men for the profit of women needs to be ignored.
If it is real rape, call the police and due process guys. If it is a charade of anonymous BS, then ignore it.
We need to destroy the concepts of facing your accuser, rule of law, public trials, jury of your peers....and just start locking people up.
I think it's perfect.
The recent Title IX push about "campus rape" is politically driven bullshit to appease feminist radicals by creating Star Chambers and snitch lines to railroad men accused of anything a woman says, sans due process or regard for individual liberties.
There is no "rape crisis" or "sexual assault crisis" on any campus today. It is a phony, ginned up, anti-male sexist campaign being wage by the usual campus radicals so that the Obama/Holder "civil rights" Division has a pretense to order the Colleges around and institutionalize discrimination against men at the behest of women by portraying all men as potential sexual harassers and rapists.
what SGT Ted said.
Wait, are we talking about rape, or about rape-rape?
Rape is a crime. Report it to the police and prosecute it if investigation turns up sufficient evidence to so so. Colleges and universities have no business being involved.
Isn't this Prez Obama's first college?
The perfect Alinskyite maneuver.
Saul would be so proud.
Can a legal expert expain to me why colleges are exempt from due procces constraints?
If another organization,say Wal-Mart, treated employee charges of assault with the same willful ignoring of basic rights of the accused, lawsuits would be in the 1000's overnite, against Wal-mart by employees railroaded out of a job, by charges that never meet minimum standards.
Rape is a crime. Report it to the police and prosecute it if investigation turns up sufficient evidence to so so. Colleges and universities have no business being involved.
The system as it existed did incentivize false reports. Because possibly unique among crimes, rape reports, when used to compile "annual crime statistics" and "track patterns", are a direct road to profit for certain people.
Which people? Doesn't take much imagination. Women's centers and activist groups need high numbers of reported assaults to thrive. Goosing the numbers directly benefits them, and removing any checks or balances against false reports is their bread and butter.
Unaccountability in the system has to be addressed. If this is the best way anyone could think of, well, it's something, I guess.
This 'Anonymous' Must Be Some Hot Chick for All the Attention She Seems to Get.
By the way, how's Meg Lanker-Simons doing?
I'm Sure the NSA has All the Necessary Information to Prove Any Allegations True or False.
America needs hoax-crime laws more than it needs hate-crimes laws.
So how's that woman who falsely accused Jameis Winston doing? Paying a heavy price for trying to get him lynched?
1975 East German Official says:
This is Exactly How the System Works.
1975 East German Official says:
People have Made Provocative Charges Against You, Comrade. No, I Cannot Tell You Who They Are. You Are Free To Admit Your Guilt At Any Time. You Have the Right to Remain Silent, Although Silence Will Be Construed as Guilt. We Have a Special Rubber Stamp for People Like You: Please Hand Me Your Papers.
In civil litigation, there is the concept of "Loser Pays" law. In criminal litigation, there should be the concept of "false accusation of criminal malfeasance does the time" law. If you falsely accuse someone of rape, you should go to jail and receive the sentence for rape. If you falsely accuse someone of domestic violence, you should go to jail and serve the time for domestic violence.
1975 East German Official says:
You Have a Right to a Lawyer. Of Course, Requesting a Lawyer is an Admission of Guilt.
1975 East German Official says:
A Good Citizen is an Anonymous Citizen. Act Accordingly.
Occidental college has turned into the west coast version of Oberlin. It is shot through with left wing nonsense from one end to the other.
Fifty years ago, I knew it as a nice small college with a football team and the usual culture of small colleges in the midwest. Now, I doubt there are enough men on the campus with testicles to field a team. I hope Jim Tranquada is not the son of Bob Tranquada, the former dean of USC medical school who I knew as a great guy. I also knew his kids slightly and hey were nice kids. I'd be sorry to learn that his son is involved in such crap.
Students should file reports naming school staff and administrators--especially those involved in the rape reporting program. That will stop it in an instant.
If fighting fire with fire is more important than the truth, then by all means accuse every female student, every left wing liberal arts prof (male or female) and the administration with unwanted advances and harassment. Bury the system in its own BS. Just be aware that if the perpetrator is a lefty icon, then there is no crime.
Something for everybody to remember:
Colleges and universities ALWAYS lose lawsuits against them for nearly every reason imaginable. If more victims of the PC witch hunts sued in court, eventually colleges and universities might get the hint and act appropriately.
"Occidental officials now are trying to determine how to isolate false claims from any actual assaults"
Oh no! How terribly inconvenient to have to do such a thing! Especially since they obviously never bothered trying to do that before! What an alien concept!
"Occidental College has been barraged with bogus allegations of sexual assault in recent days".
Bogus? Have they investigated them yet? How do they know they're bogus? Or are allegations by men considered bogus from the git-go while allegations by womyn are all true?
From the Article:
"It's the best way to keep track of serial rapists," said Caroline Heldman, chair of Occidental's politics department. "The anonymous reporting system allows you to identify the 4% of men on campus who are causing over 90% of the problem."
Yet no evidence is given to show that the 4% have been convicted of anything.
People have Made Provocative Charges Against You, Comrade. No, I Cannot Tell You Who They Are. You Are Free To Admit Your Guilt At Any Time. You Have the Right to Remain Silent, Although Silence Will Be Construed as Guilt. We Have a Special Rubber Stamp for People Like You: Please Hand Me Your Papers.
Reminds me of when I was accused of sexual harassment at a large company. My boss, a woman, kindly explained that women know when men are staring at their chests, and two women in the office had accused me of doing such repeatedly. But, of course, she couldn't give their names for their protection.
So, I went to my secretary, told her what I had been charged with, and to look into it. Turns out, it was one of the other secretaries and a docketing clerk. The former had found that she didn't have to work if she was talking to attorneys, and so spent much of the day doing such. The other secretaries, including mine, had to pick up the slack. So, to protect my secretary, I wouldn't make eye contact with this other secretary, and in retaliation, she accused me of sexual harassment, claiming that this my failure to make eye contact was staring at her chest. The docketing clerk, whom I rarely interacted with was a wannabe to the secretary's queen bee.
I, being a bit put out by this, naturally pushed back, and suggested tot my boss hat making false sexual harassment claims was itself sexual harassment, to ask the other secretaries whose story was more credible, theirs or mine, that I would be filing my own charges if this weren't made to go away, etc. And, of course it did. It was a bit scary though how easily my management, up a couple of levels to the VP, jumped on board, and was willing to facilitate the vindictive destruction of someone's career on such flimsy evidence.
I'm amazed that kangaroo courts like this don't expose the colleges to civil judgements for libel or slander. You've got a college officially certifying libelious accusations and taking concrete actions based on them with what can only be described as reckless disregard for the truth.
I know that libel is difficult to prove in our legal system, but surely a courtlike proceeding that intentionally eliminates due process qualifies.
I also disagree with you about your idea to make accusations against women that would constitute sexual harassment if made against men.
The primary problem here isn't unequal enforcement (that may indeed be a problem in practice). It's that a system which does not guard against false reports is inherently unjust.
Also, note that this court of star chamber got introduced because Occidental officials reportedly failed to report sexual assaults to the government.
Somehow, instead of fixing conduct by the people who screwed up, the solution is to try a criminal case in an academic court, with no safeguards for the accused.
Why not pass along criminal cases to the cops and take action after a real court has had its say?
I wish my undergraduate years had been so exciting.
Naked Bob Dylan Robot says:
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
1975 East German Official says:
I Agree with Comrade Dylan Robot. We have Reports about Something You Did: You Do Not Need to Know the Information, or Who Supplied it. You Are Indeed Doing it Again, By Your Very Presence. Sign the Papers: It'll Be Easier For You That Way.
"It's the best way to keep track of serial rapists, ... The anonymous reporting system allows you to identify the 4% of men..."
4% of the men attending Occidental College are serial rapists? Seems like that would be a serious black mark against the school. I wonder if they tell prospective students that.
MadisonMan: "Yet no evidence is given to show that the 4% have been convicted of anything."
This is as clear an example of left wing stalinist inclinations that you can find.
Once again, this is the inevitable and unavoidable mini-culmination (there will be others) of what happens when leftists capture institutions.
Note the standard lefty tactics:
Anonymous accusation and the victim has to prove a negative, which is impossible.
Impossible.
Just the way the lefties like it.
Does Occidental have an insider trading, carjacking or littering hotline? No? then why do they have a rape hotline? Hmmmm....what distinguishes rape from those other crime areas?
I think the university didn't understand the difference between academic norms and legal norms.
This is a real-world issue where crunching numbers and writing reports is less important than the possible abuse of power.
This isn't a double-blind study with the subjects' names blacked out. This is naming real people and accusing them of a crime without telling them or giving them any legal recourse. Does anyone think that these records won't become public record down the road if they come up in a court room?
That's not due process.
I'm also amused that the new line about campus rape is that some small percentage of men are "serial rapists."
The old line was that all men were potential rapists, so that's a nice change.
While true that rapists are a minority, it bothers me that this new line was only put forward to justify new campus policies about rape reporting. It was always true, but the truth was only advanced when convenient.
This sort of truth management is far too prevalent in academic environments. Highly verbal and intelligent people are very good at forgetting what used to be true.
Sounds like those guys who are filing false reports have learned the right lesson from the Alinskyite left: Make the enemy live up to their own standards.
For decades the feminist left has been loudly insisting that women do not make false rape reports. It was always obvious that this was a lie--not an error, a lie. Seeing radical feminists hoist by their own fascist petard is very entertaining.
Isn't there a Supreme Court case about where and when anonymous tips constitute probable cause?
Bruce Hayden "Reminds me of when I was accused of sexual harassment at a large company...."
A key problem is that false accusers are rarely punished, much less punished as severely as they deserve.
Here's another problem.
Occidental is an elite college. The President went there for a while.
Fast forward twenty or thirty years. Some graduate of Occidental is running for important public office... and an anonymous rape accusation surfaces. The politician never knew about it, never faced it, and now his political career is over.
Maybe the accusation was true, maybe it wasn't. There's no way to find out the truth because twenty years have passed and we don't even know who made the accusation. Maybe someone appears in the media, claiming to be the accuser. How do we know?
See what a circus this becomes? It's not unlikely, either.
Think about the possibilities for blackmail.
This would be the basis for a good thriller plot.
This is a small college with some activist faculty. It is not a good place for heterosexual men, which is why it is almost 60 percent female. Pretty soon it will be 75 percent female.
Civilization has a propensity to induce the Peter Pan effect, which is a progressive phenomenon that produces Pajama Boys and Girls.
Even if they are filing false reports, it's a relatively minor act of civil disobedience... in the sense that the consequences are light or possibly even non-existent. And if such an act is intended to draw attention to an unfair and potentially dangerous bureaucratic policy, then your post is one (of likely many) indications that they have succeeded.
Word up. As long as rape allegations are encouraged to be anonymous and consequence free, we should make as many as possible. Charge every last administrator and professor with sexual assault and see how fast they discover the need to protect the rights of the accused.
@Tarrou, right on!
As the President himself said, "Punch back twice as hard."
pst314 said...
For decades the feminist left has been loudly insisting that women do not make false rape reports. It was always obvious that this was a lie--not an error, a lie.
The left backed off this very quickly when Clinton became ensnared.
What the feminists offered up was a brand new category of boorish and potential liable activity, hence the lefties brand spankin' new "one grope rule"!
Of course it goes without saying that the feminist "one grope rule" applies only to liberal/left politicians.
For all other males, the feminists helpfully maintained their "consistent" "all men are rapists" schtick.
Julius: "Even if they are filing false reports,..."
Is this terminology ("false reports") even applicable given that these "reports" are provided to non-law lefty-political hacks on campus as opposed to legitimate law enforcement authorities?
@Drago-
Stop pickin' on Rocky, man...
Yes I agree! And your comment helps to prove my point...
Sorry folks, whatever the setting, when we're discussing anonymous accusations against others being sent to non-judicial agents so that action can be taken against a third party, we have stepped deeply into Soviet territory here.
If I was a Congresscritter from California, I would push to have Occidental's its tax exemption cut because it denies its students their constitutional rights as openly as any racist school denies its non-white students theirs.
Do I approve of the students submitting false reports? Yes, and I would approve of even more radical "propaganda of the deed" activity in a case this awful.
I assume serial rapist means more then 2. So 12% minimum of the women at Occidental have been raped by them, or 6% twice- but a large number. Unless they're wearing masks and clubbing them in dark parking lots and hauling the victimes somewhere else, it should be easy to identify this evil 4%. IOW- false statistics.
What Kevin said. Saul would be proud of the tactic.
It doesn't have to be either real or fake reports. There is plenty of room for it to be both.
Were in I in the mood to treat "rape" equally to both sexes there are plenty of situations I've been involved in that have happened where if the genders were reversed it'd be considered "rape" and get the other person thrown in jail.
If the intention is to cause chaos why not start with all the actual incidents of harassment or unrequested physical contact.
Example:
From Anon,
I was drinking a lot with Ms Miller, we made out a bit. I wanted to pull myself out of a bad situation so I left her and went elsewhere at the party. She kept following me so I went to my room and to bed. I fell asleep. I woke with her making unrequested physical contact with my junk saying she was "helping me wake up". etc etc etc.
In real life I just told her to leave and just went to bed and she left me alone. No biggie and I'm not marked for life or anything. Reverse the genders and it's not a playful come-on but sexual assault of someone who is sleeping. The story is true but the purpose is to expose the system for being garbage.
fivewheels,
Oh no! How terribly inconvenient to have to do such a thing! Especially since they obviously never bothered trying to do that before! What an alien concept!
It is kind of preposterous that it took a stunt to make them consider the possibility of false reports. Always assuming that it is a stunt. It might be, in fact, just a flood of legitimate reports of what is, legally, sexual assault.
As Ann said:
It's possible that the reports from men against women are not false, but are reports of conduct that fits the schools definition of sexual assault but that men normally refrain from reporting. I'm thinking of unwanted fondling, hugging, and kissing, which women may impose on men, assuming the men must really want it and/or counting on the tendency of men to silently endure these low-level assaults.
So if men have been sexually assaulted, in a sense that would be obvious if the sexes were reversed, and a lot of men report such assault at once because someone has alerted them to the fact that this is sexual assault, what's "bogus"? If you wake up to unwanted fondling of your genitals, and someone has alerted you to the fact that this is no more OK for women to do to men than it is for men to do to women, is your complaint thereby bogus?
Very serious perversions to basis due process rights for college guys is underway on college campuses around the country. Google "Judith Grossman" and see what this respected new york lawyer has to say about these new campus rape courts..I believe she calls them a "snake pit of injustice".
Long dead thread, sorry, but Althouse, you should check out KC Johnson's coverage at Minding the Campus of these college kangaroo courts and how the Obama admin has been trying to make them even less fair. Here's his most recent piece.
"There could have been some intelligent discussion about women who have engaged in the kind of physical aggression..."
I've been involved in advocacy for male victims and victims of female perpetrators for nearly two decades. That "discussion" is NEVER permitted.
The charge that "all men are rapists" is an attempt by lesbian feminists to get heterosexual women to switch sides.
If it is considered rape for a male to pressure a female into sex, it should also be considered rape for a female to pressure a male into marriage.
"I do think WhiteThrone's comment is satirical and not an actual call to action." One woman's satire is another man's end-of-professional-affiliation crisis. It's a real laugher for those in power. This is just the start, Ms. Althouse. Maybe after a few dozen more "satirical" acts such as this, the laughing will stop.
"I do think WhiteThrone's comment is satirical and not an actual call to action." One woman's satire is another man's end-of-professional-affiliation crisis. It's a real laugher for those in power. This is just the start, Ms. Althouse. Maybe after a few dozen more "satirical" acts such as this, the laughing will stop.
But how does one report a "good rape" at Occidental? You know, the kind that only women can do...
Perhaps after a night at the college theatre...
The feminists are complaining that reports of "rape!" should be ignored unless they're about legitimate rape? Todd Akin, call your office. A bunch of girls and manginas want to apologize.
Raise your right hand and repeat after me, "Men never lie about rape."
Again, "All women are rapists and thats all they are."
Again, "We must believe the victim."
And finally, "Women falsely accused of rape can sometimes learn from the experience."
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