Recognizing this history is critical to encouraging (and even forcing) schools to protect students from sexual violence....
When [Title IX of the 1972 Higher Education Amendments] was passed, legislators sought to ensure that women, in many cases newly allowed on coed campuses, could learn and thrive like their male peers and enter the professional world on an equal playing field....
When a student faces harassment, abuse or assault at school, it’s hard to learn. And because women are disproportionately victims, this leads to gender disparities in students’ access to education and ability to succeed.
December 4, 2014
"Why are colleges in the business of adjudicating rape?"
"In fact, there’s a very good reason that universities are charged with the task of handling matters of sexual assault and harassment."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
168 comments:
But that doesn't address the issue of false accusations, does it?
Case in point, Lena Dunham.
Okay, that's a reason to pay attention to the problem. Where does it say that due process needn't be applied?
The FSU star QB's statement said rape is a horrible crime equaled only by a false accusation of rape.
I am for mandatory body cams on all rapists.
What Alexander helped to establish, then, is that campus rape is not just a crime but also an impediment to a continued education
It is not just a crime, but it is a crime nonetheless. Sure colleges have responsibilities to protect students, but "ajdudicating" violent crimes is not part of it.
TG, didn't you mean body cams for all men?
And because women are disproportionately victims
Says who?
Wouldn't mandatory body cams on all women make more sense?
I agree with this Article. At the University of Nebraska, crimes committed by the football players were almost always handled by the Athletic Department and not the local police. The University recognized that it needed to protect the campus and the University and not cede such responsibility to the unreliable local and state police departments.
Colleges should be in the business of preventing rapes, not in the business of adjudicating them.....They're going loco over the accusations when they should be going in loco parentis with the chaperoning.
Pamela Price deserved a better grade.
Full stop, right there.
Dueling Body Cams. The one with the best resolution and lighting production values wins.
Seriously no one will wear a body cam when sex is their goal...well maybe Laslo would. He'd probably have one implanted in his spatula.
"Sure colleges have responsibilities to protect students, but "ajdudicating" violent crimes is not part of it."
Exactly. If I work in an office building the management has a duty to maintain a safe environment. But if I get assaulted on their property it's not their job to hold a trial to prove the assailant's guilt. That's simply insane. Colleges aren't sovereign nations. They are part of the same society as everyone else.
I am not troubled by a school that expels a student on the basis of a preponderance of evidence that he committed the felony of rape.
What I am troubled by is the vague definitions of "consent" and "sexual assault" or "sexual misconduct." I am also troubled by how the accused often lacks the right to confront the accuser or to put on evidence in his favor.
Protecting women on campus is an important goal, but I don't see how it's more important now than back in the 70s. Is there a compelling need all of a sudden to weaken the procedural protections and overpolice student sexual relationships?
Are schools required to report rape complaints to the police? If not, they should. That would go a long towards protecting rights and increasing the chances that the truth will see the light of day.
Professor Althouse, I'm surprised you didn't ask the larger question: why are private businesses and other institutions in the business of adjudicating crime?
As recent events in the NFL show, private institutions are getting a jump on this whole legally innocent until proven guilty thing. Well, perhaps not all businesses feel the same. UPS seems to already have processes in place to conserve employees convicted of DUI.
The college rape fad is but one particular instance of a larger whole.
Colleges are now filled with gender studies majors working as "diversity" counselors. This is their rice bowl. How are they supposed to pay back their student loans if they can't work on these rape cases ? They would have to get jobs at Rolling Stone or something.
That doesn't really explain why the universities need to adjudicate criminal matters, only that they have an interest in making sure they get investigated and adjudicated--by the proper authorities. Schools simply aren't equipped to deal with serious criminal matters--disruption in class, sure; cheating scandals, ok--but rape, murder, violence? How is some university board even remotely able to deal with this?
I get that they can only suspend people or kick them off campus. But when these punishments deal with far more serious (non-academic) crimes, they can reach far beyond the school.
'AND' is a terrible word sometimes.
Sexual Harassment AND Violence...
Sexual Harassment is, most of the time, not a crime. This is your rude frat boy behavior, your professor holding your grades hostage to their sexual advances and so on. This sort of behavior should be policed by the school. They should get involved in these sort of issues. They should adjudicate, expel, censure or suspend for sexual harassment.
Sexual Violence is a crime. A crime that should be handled by police.
Toughen up, precious snowflakes.
If you feel need special protections, that says everything right there.
Being unfairly accused of sexual assault is an also impediment to a continued education. Since such unfair accusations fall predominantly upon male students, who are already outnumbered by female students on campus, it can be said that creating an environment which encourages false accusations is discriminatory.
One other reason Colleges adjudicate: Because there are Deanlets at the Schools who have made it their business (and part of their job description) to do this. Follow the money.
Presumption: The administrators who do this were not Engineering or Physics Majors.
My question is "did the writer of this article ever pass a class in logic?"
What about panty cams for all women?
Answer: Because women are a protected class.
I think when the gender balance of universities went all topsey turvy, the whole sexual dynamic between men and women changed. Woman used to be the prized commodity, and were treated with respect and respected themselves. Now they are the cheap commodity, and throw themselves at any actual straight men who still attend college.
I wonder what "rape" statistics are like on campuses where men outnumber women significantly, instead of the other way around, as it is now.
What would happen if her rapist gets hired by the same company she does. Will she carry her mattress around the company
Typical of a student analysis.
Sexual harassment is a social misbehavior in the workplace that should/can be policed in the work place. Sexual assault/rape is a CRIME whether in the context of a university or society at large. As such it should be treated as a crime and be the responsiblity of the police and local prosecutor.
The trouble is that liberal students are conflicted because they don't want to have to admit that the police have a role in society.
If each accusation of sexual assault were actually treated as a crime there would be a lot less false accusations and a lot less male sexual misbehavior. Very few want to have to face a criminal investigation just to get a little "nooky".
Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the reporter who broke the UVA story in tRolling Stone...Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Slate...Jed Rubenfeld...
This is the 1-2-3 problem in writing. The author had one and two, and then realized that she needed a three, and that three had better be a man. Google it! There's a way.
"Professor Althouse, I'm surprised you didn't ask the larger question: why are private businesses and other institutions in the business of adjudicating crime?"
This post is entirely composed of quotes, so I am not asking any questions. Why then are you "surprised"? That's just strange. Or is it just an expression not to be taken literally... you're "surprised"?
In any case, there are other posts on this blog talking about that subject. To put it briefly:
Various organizations are obligated by law to avoid sex discrimination. At some point the conditions are different enough for males and females that, under the case law, it constitutes sex discrimination.
The schools and colleges are required to meet a legal duty to avoid conditions that have a disparate impact on female students. They need some policies and remedies aimed at avoiding those conditions.
This function of the university doesn't replace or supersede the criminal law system any more than tort law supersedes criminal law.
In any given case, you might say that if what is asserted really happened the police should be involved. That's definitely true in that UVa case. Failure to go to the police can raise an inference that the person making the complaint isn't telling the truth. But the university was still put in a position where it had some obligations and needed to decide what to do about it. It couldn't just say because this is a crime, we won't deal with it!
There are many incidents that the university concerns itself with as it tries to create a good climate on campus for learning and for socializing. There are and should be disciplinary rules that overlap with the criminal law, and the sanctions for violating disciplinary rules include penalties different from criminal penalties, such as expulsion from school.
That is not to say that universities don't owe their students process, and a lot of the confusion these days is over what process is due. But I certainly don't think that whenever the behavior is also criminal behavior that the sole process permissible is to go to the police and to have the criminal process take over.
Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway? Or is handling it internally through school discipline permitted?
Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway?
High schools don't kick students out, and ruin their lives for being accused of pushing someone in the hallway.
Yeah, a rape is not a shove.
Michael K said...
Colleges are now filled with gender studies majors working as "diversity" counselors. This is their rice bowl. How are they supposed to pay back their student loans if they can't work on these rape cases ? They would have to get jobs at Rolling Stone or something.
12/4/14, 9:43 AM
THREADWINNER
Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway?
As long as we are asking rhetorical questions, Do you think the university should call the police every time there is a murder?
If you don't think it is a police matter, you shouldn't call it rape.
A LOT of college problems would go away if we stopped protecting college students. It causes a lot of friction on campus too, as students -- I was an RA and heard this from my guys a lot -- suspected that who got to deal with the smoke and mirrors of school functions and who got to deal with campus security and who got to deal with the police for various violations was a status/racial thing.
College administrators have a conflict of interest when it comes to accusations of sexual misconduct on campus.
If the general public gets the idea that a particular university is unsafe for women, women will stop wanting to go there.
Thus a drop in enrollment, which leads to less money to pay administrators. Thus the desire to downplay such incidents in the past.
But now the feds have informed the universities that they aren't allowed to do that any longer. If they do they will lose money cause the government will stop giving them the government cash they need to pay administrators.
So the administrators, most of whom are unemployable outside of academia, have the incentive to go over-board and find pretty much any male accused of any misconduct whose father or mother is not a big donor guilty.
This is especially true in the current moral panic climate. Who wants to be the administrator who let a rapist (since all sexual misconduct is conflated with rape) get away with it.
But of course the current state of affairs is also unsustainable. Men will stop going to universities that have a reputation for over-zealous persecution of men, leading to a drop of enrollment by women, leading to a lack of cash to pay the administrators. Not to mention the fact that many of the accused witches, I mean men, are getting lawyers and successfully suing universities. I expect a smart, under-employed lawyer will be thinking about the possibility of a class action lawsuit for gender discrimination against a institution with a large endowment anytime now.
So what is a university to do?
I would suggest firing 2/3rds (at least) of the administrators. Most don't actually add any value to what the universities claim as their role, educating young minds to make them better people and responsible citizens of the world.
That is the last thing most university administrators want. Their mission is to enforce PC thought and prevent competing ideas from being expressed.
Such is the state of higher education in the U.S. in the 21st century.
"That is not to say that universities don't owe their students process, and a lot of the confusion these days is over what process is due. But I certainly don't think that whenever the behavior is also criminal behavior that the sole process permissible is to go to the police and to have the criminal process take over."
Logical, but if the behavior is criminal as in rape, it would not be in the best interest of the accused to discuss the case in a university procedural matter prior to the conclusion of the criminal case. The accused clams up per legal advice of counsel, gets booted from university, then exonerated or not charged by law enforcement, resulting in where we are today.
It's easier if you pick any violent crime instead of focusing on rape.
Suppose I punch someone at work. If it's a private company, they are firing me. If it's a university, I will get sanctioned in some way academically up to and including expulsion.
This will have no relation to whether or not anyone presses charges, or whether or not there is a trial.
Ok, now the violent crime is rape. Yes, universities should kick out rapists. That said...
The problem is that universities are using a very broad definition that most people don't agree with, and applying it with prejudice to one gender.
That most of the population does not agree rape should be defined this way--that is what social justice warriors mean when they say "rape culture" and "teach men not to rape". SJWs find it unaccpetable that the rest of the world doesn't use the word "rape" the way they do.
'Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway?"
There is an assumed difference between minor children who are students and college students who are presumed to be adults. (Which brings into question the wisdom of zero tolerance rules in schools, but let's leave that for another day.) If a college student shoves and pushes another student, he or she could be charged with battery. What do colleges do in such cases?
"When a student faces harassment, abuse or assault at school, it’s hard to learn."
This is not a statement strictly about sex, it's about abuse or assault and is absolutely true. It does not justify removing criminal cases from the criminal justice system. In some states there are legal requirements for teachers to report abuse to legal authorities, I don't see this situation as drastically different.
and also:
I have been made aware that when a student is drunk, high, or hung-over, it's hard for them to learn
"rape" is like "torture," one of those words that the left has redefined, while trying to keep the connotations of the original meaning. It is one of their favorite tactics.
@Trashhauler:What do colleges do in such cases?
Students who beat people up, by and large, get kicked out. There's a procedure for that.
Students can get kicked out for plagiarizing and that's not even criminal.
Saying that universities shouldn't kick out violent people is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Doesn't matter what sort of violence.
The problem is not that universities should kick people out--it is that they have taken a violent offense and broadened it to the point that it's no longer violent, but applying the same level of severity nonetheless.
@tim in vermont:"rape" is like "torture," one of those words that the left has redefined, while trying to keep the connotations of the original meaning. It is one of their favorite tactics.
That is exactly the problem.
Of course there should be academic discipline for students who commit violence.
But universities have broadened rape into an offense that may not be violent, while still applying the same standard they apply to violence.
"Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway? Or is handling it internally through school discipline permitted?"
See, I don't think even outside of school the police need to be called for every shove. But if the police should be called for something that occurs outside of school (robbery, rape, assault, murder, etc.) then why should the police not be called if it happens inside the school?
"If you don't think it is a police matter, you shouldn't call it rape."
How about "sexual shove"? That way you can justify handling it in-house.
As long as colleges are in the business of adjudicating rape accusations, there will be lawyers in the business of making lots of money suing said colleges for violating the rights of the accused. How many college admins have the necessary legal knowledge to conduct criminal investigations?
Colleges and Universities have a conflict of interest for reporting crime; it can damage their reputation and cause prospective students to look elsewhere. There's also a political motivation for radicals to make scapegoats of innocent men (ie DUKE). FWIW I think these cases are better pursued the public eye where due process is at least possible. But that opinion is more a product of my lack of respect for University admin than principle. In principle admins should be able to distinguish major cases (felonies) from minor ones (misconduct) and punish those minor cases. I just don't trust them to do the right thing based on past performance. Good laws/rules or even ideal rules are rendered moot by incompetent or corrupt admins. There appears to be little stable, steady, calm application of order at Universities but rather highly unpredictable over reaction (Duke) or under reaction (Penn State) to sexual/criminal crises as they occur.
@Brando:But if the police should be called for something that occurs outside of school (robbery, rape, assault, murder, etc.) then why should the police not be called if it happens inside the school?
Normally both of those would happen in the case of a violent crime. They're not mutually exclusive.
Obviously colleges should kick out violent people. This a no-brainer. They can, they do, they have, and they should.
Let's try another analogy.
At my company we had some people going to lucnh for a couple of hours, coming back, clocking out, then clocking back in again an hour later. Took a while to catch them.
Should they have been fired if no one called the police over it?
Seriously, the discussion is getting so far away from reality because there is so much red/blue politics mixed up in it.
Universities should kick out rapists, convicted or not, just like they should kick out students who beat up each other or faculty. Universities should not call drunk hookups "rape". it's really that simple.
@Goju:How many college admins have the necessary legal knowledge to conduct criminal investigations?
They're not conducting criminal investigations. They don't need to, because they are not imposing a criminal penalty.
If a student punches a professor in class, he'll get expelled. They will ALSO probably call the police, though plenty of professors would be reluctant to do so, they don't like the thought of their students' lives being ruined.
This is exactly the same thing, EXCEPT that universities are redefining rape in such a way as to guarantee injustice.
The solution is to fix the misapplication, not to forbid universities to punish misconduct.
This post is entirely composed of quotes, so I am not asking any questions. Why then are you "surprised"? That's just strange. Or is it just an expression not to be taken literally... you're "surprised"?
Ah...let me rephrase, then, because, no, I've not researched other relevant posts throughout your blog either.
I find this growing broader trend across both higher education, the NFL, and perhaps others of private groups making substantially life-altering determinations based on individuals not yet having been convicted of any crime not only interesting but troubling.
The term we previously applied to these sorts of actions was vigilantism.
Many public middle and high schools have resource (police) officers on staff. They do not have to call the police for every shove in the hallway. Resource officers can and do detain and sometimes formally arrest students for scuffling in the hallways. Mostly they are seen as a deterrent to scuffles.
The proper forum for such cases are the civil courts where full due process is allowed-and-required for the accused rather than academic kangaroo courts.
Those making such accusations must be required to so on "on oath or affirmation AND before a magistrate". That would, if the claims are not proven, allow criminal prosecution for perjury and form a basis for a civil action against the liar.
@Clayton Hennessy:The term we previously applied to these sorts of actions was vigilantism.
When your boss fires you for coming in late, and you don't even get a trial, that's vigilantism?
I think the basic issue is that "freedom from sexual hangups," that is the destruction of behavioral norms related to sexual conduct between men and women, based on how the vast majority of men and women actually think and act, not on how a small, apparently sociopathic, minority want them to act, has led pretty much to where the religious fuddy-duddies who where sneered at as reactionaries in the 70 and 80 said it would; a toxic culture where men refuse to commit to relationships and take advantage of women.
The powers that be recognize that the culture is harmful (to both men and women) but they can't very well say,
"Well we need some morals and you guys need to stop drinking and screwing around."
After all, what would they base it on? Chivalry? Judeo-Christian principles? Western civilization?
It is to laugh.
So what do totalitarians do in such a situation. Fear. They utilize fear to cow the subjects.
Thus star chambers.
When your boss fires you for coming in late, and you don't even get a trial, that's vigilantism?
I don't think these straw men are helping you. Like children shoving children in the hall, coming in late for work is not a crime.
"... schools to protect students from sexual violence...."
There is little that schools can do to protect students from sexual violence. There are things they can do to attempt to help victims of such to seek justice, but there's not much they can do to prevent it from happening in the first place. The concept that academia is somehow a utopia wherein real life can be held off from intruding is a fantasy indulged in by people who think that they are somehow special and elite and superior to the rest of us and are thus able to form a better society.
@Clayton Hennessy:I don't think these straw men are helping you. Like children shoving children in the hall, coming in late for work is not a crime.
Getting fired is a life-altering penalty applied without due-process, much like expelled from a university is.
You can get expelled for cheating or plagiarism and those ar enot crimes. Why should you not get expelled for a violent crime? That's a very strange postion.
Let me see if I can elaborate. I think we're on a slippery slope when, in the absence of a previously mutually agreed to policy governing explicitly defined behavior, a private group can irrevocably damage someone's life, not for being duly adjudicated as a criminal after the fact of a legal determination, but merely for being scandalous, for having committed some murky type of moral transgression.
@Clayton Hennessy: a private group can irrevocably damage someone's life, not for being duly adjudicated as a criminal after the fact of a legal determination, but merely for being scandalous, for having committed some murky type of moral transgression.
Or for coming in late. Or for copying. Or for getting too many Fs.
You can get expelled for cheating or plagiarism and those ar enot crimes. Why should you not get expelled for a violent crime? That's a very strange postion.
Gabriel, you are talking to yourself, not reading what I'm writing.
My point, Clayton, is that universities and private companies already have this power which they use in much smaller cases than accusations of rape.
You want it off the table for accusations of rape--do you want it off the table for cheating or non-attendance too? If so, how do you justify that?
MadisonMan said...
"One other reason Colleges adjudicate: Because there are Deanlets at the Schools who have made it their business (and part of their job description) to do this. Follow the money.
Presumption: The administrators who do this were not Engineering or Physics Majors."
DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!!!
We have Womyn's Studies majors to employ! They are useless for anything else. Progressives are intrusive and nosy by nature... lets make some jobs about investigating every sexual encounter on campus!
Good thing we are subsidizing sociology, art history, performing arts, and psychology too. We wouldn't have enough progressive activists in this country drooling their way through your life without federal subsidies.
The thing is, Clayton, if a student for example is accused of cheating, whether this happened is determined by what other commenters have called "academic kangaroo courts". And based on these determinations universities inflict life-altering penalties up to and including expulsion.
So, what is the problem? Cheating is not even a crime and they can do this. The standard of evidence is no higher than for an accusation of rape.
So how do you justify taking expulsion off the table for a serious accusation and leaving it on the table for an accusation that is not even a criminal matter at all?
"Universities are using a very broad definition [of sexual assault] that most people don't agree with, and applying it with prejudice to one gender."
The experience of military academies can be illustrative here. Bear in mind that cadets and midshipmen are in the military and subject to the UCMJ. Therefore, any crime they commit can be tried by the academy in a military court. The OSI investigates and the JAG tries them. (They might accept administrative punishment, but have still been convicted and punished.) The number of accusations of sexual assault at each academy was usually less than ten per year.
A few years ago, up pops a study based on a survey using an expanded version of sexual assault going far beyond the UCMJ definition. Suddenly, the academies were faced with a "sexual assault crisis" because a large percentage of women cadets reported having been victimized according to the definition in the survey. Much sturm und drang followed.
At the Air Force Academy, the male Commandant was fired and replaced by a woman. The Academy attacked the problem directly: Briefings, mandatory training for all, encouragement of reporting, and victim assistance officers, annual surveys and reports to Congress, the works.
The result? Reports did go up. There were 53 sexual assaults reported at the three academies during the 2012-13 school year. 45 were from the Air Force Academy. But after preliminary investigations, the number referred for full criminal investigations was only 15 (with 9 unfinished as of 1 Jan 14). Number of courts martial: 1. Administrative punishment: 1.
Some crisis. Much disruption, few actual crimes. One might expect that civilian universities will expel more students than the academies can, not being held to normal due process requirements or and using who knows what definition of sexual assault. But the chances for miscarriages of justice without a formal judicial process are frightening.
Ann Althouse said...
"Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway? Or is handling it internally through school discipline permitted?"
If you don't call the police then you don't think it is rape. Unless you are going to build jails on campus and allow jails to meet out punishment or you are defining rape as a non-criminal offense.
Also Most campuses are run by professors and Deans who are progressive in general and entirely unable to grant due process to people they have already judged guilty, i.e. men.
If you want the university system to collapse let them run their kangaroo courts. They are already getting sued and settling out on these suits. It requires maturity and wisdom to adjudicate. Progressives/Professors in general have neither.
Do you think high schools should call the police over every occurrence of murder that occur in their hallways?
So how do you justify taking expulsion off the table for a serious accusation and leaving it on the table for an accusation that is not even a criminal matter at all?
How easy is it for one student to falsely accuse another student of cheating and get them kicked out?
What if you flip your question, and make this about murder. Should colleges adjudicate murder among their students and not involve the police?
@Achilles:If you don't call the police then you don't think it is rape. Unless you are going to build jails on campus and allow jails to meet out punishment or you are defining rape as a non-criminal offense.
Universities are punishing misconduct, not crimes. Violence against another student is academic misconduct whether or not charges are filed. If the student leaves the university the university can do nothing to them.
Again, punch in the face. If a student punches a professor in the face they are getting expelled for misconduct. They are not getting sent to prison unless the government charges them with a crime. The professor might well decline to prosecute, but that doesn't mean the student didn't deserve expulsion.
The problem is the overly broad definition of rape, not that universities can punish it as misconduct and impose academic penalties.
It's exactly like getting kicked out of a store for shoplifting. Rape is more serious, but the process and the principle are the same. Universities have the power to kick out students for a hell of a lot less than rape.
@Maybee:Should colleges adjudicate murder among their students and not involve the police?
Universities cannot shield students from criminal prosecution.
A student who commits a murder is getting expelled. That is the university's punishment that only has relevance at that university--getting expelled from Harvard doesn't apply to Yale.
A student who commits a murder will be charged by the DA and go to prison if convicted. The university has no say in the matter.
If a student is a victim of a violent crime, THEY have to make the decision to call the police. THEY have to decide to press charges--and if they don't the DA might.
Gabriel, here's the flaw in your thinking. Let me illustrate.
A student, let's call her Sue, turns up dead in a dumpster. Gabriel was last seen walking with her near the student union.
Clayton and his friends accuse Gabriel of having murdered Sue. Campus law enforcement begins investigating, but to oil the waters and calm students, the university expels Gabriel from an abundance of caution. Murder, after all, is an expellable offense.
The problem is, in the absence of an explicit morals policy such as no fraternization between men and women or no switching of one's children in one's own home, the law defines whether the action - rape, child battery - did or did not take place.
Until the law adjudicates that a crime which it has assumed jurisdiction over has taken place - rape, child battery, DUI - it has not: Gabriel can't be fired for DUI because he was seen having drunk a beer before driving. DUI isn not an offense Gabriel's firm can elect to adjudicate on its own.
The only conceivable alternative to this - that, in the absence of explicit, legal private policy or legal public adjudication, not only no crime but no institutional violation has occurred - is open-ended para-legal vigilantism.
Otherwise, private groups could simply act at will as random, ad hoc enforcers of selectively perceived torts by selected individuals.
Althouse: "The schools and colleges are required to meet a legal duty to avoid conditions that have a disparate impact on female students."
No. The schools and colleges are required to meet a legal duty to avoid conditions that have a disparate impact based on gender -- male and female.
Two issues are getting conflated here:
1) Universities are not the government and have no police powers. The punishments they impose are not binding on people who leave the university or who do not attend it or work there. They can impose punishments for things are not even crimes.
2) Universities are adjudicating rape unfairly. This is a totally separate issue. They should bring fairness back to the process, but saying they should abolish the process or the punishments is totally nonsensical.
@Clayton:Gabriel can't be fired for DUI because he was seen having drunk a beer before driving. DUI isn not an offense Gabriel's firm can elect to adjudicate on its own.
Again, you are conflating two different things.
YES my company can fire me for DUI--or a lot less, they don't need a reason. They cannot convict me and impose jail time because they are not the government.
If I come into work smelling of alcohol--which is not a crime--I will get fired. I will NOT be convicted of public drunkeness and have to do community service, but I will not have my job.
This is not hard.
2) Universities are adjudicating rape unfairly.
Gabriel, this is the crux of the problem: universities can't adjudicate rape at all - any more than they can adjudicate murder.
A university cannot convict a student of rape, giving them a criminal record. They do not have this power.
They can expel a student for it, certainly.
Just like a store can not FINE you for shoplifting, but they can kick you out and tell you not to come back. They don't need a criminal conviction to do that, that's absurd.
@Clayton:universities can't adjudicate rape at all - any more than they can adjudicate murder.
Semantics games.
Universities are not courts. They have internal committees which hear cases of misconduct. Misconduct has no relevance, and carries no penalties, outside the university.
They can adjudicate using their internal processes to punish cheating, violence, or underage comsumption of alcohol, regardless of whether these are even crimes. They cannot impose criminal penalties because they are not the government.
This is not hard.
Again, you are conflating two different things.
No, Gabriel, you are talking to yourself again.
They may or may not be able to fire you for drinking, but to claim you are being fired for a legally defined crime you have not yet been adjudicated as having committed is beyond their reach, even if they can fire you for no reason at all, because they cannot arrogate to themselves the mantle of the law having rendered a legal determination.
Gabriel:
What standards do you think universities apply to expel students who are accused of plagiarism? I think you would be surprised to learn -- based on the above comments -- most universities have multiple protections in place for the accused, including the ability of the accused to offer a defense. Also, the accused has a right to view the evidence against the accused.
If I am correct, that those procedural safeguards exist in the examples you are offering but do not exist in cases of alleged sexual assault, would you change your opinion?
@Clayton:even if they can fire you for no reason at all, because they cannot arrogate to themselves the mantle of the law having rendered a legal determination.
Obviously. But I'm still fired.
A university cannot convict a rapist. But he is still expelled.
@Clayton:universities can't adjudicate rape at all - any more than they can adjudicate murder.
Semantics games.
Universities are not courts. They have internal committees which hear cases of misconduct. Misconduct has no relevance, and carries no penalties, outside the university.
They can adjudicate using their internal processes to punish cheating, violence, or underage comsumption of alcohol, regardless of whether these are even crimes. They cannot impose criminal penalties because they are not the government.
This is not hard.
If what you claim is true, then they could expel you for murdering Sue and give that as the reason for your expulsion to any who inquired.
Of course, they cannot impose criminal penalties because they are not the government.
@Birkel:What standards do you think universities apply to expel students who are accused of plagiarism?
Since I used to teach at the university level I know this quite well.
most universities have multiple protections in place for the accused, including the ability of the accused to offer a defense. Also, the accused has a right to view the evidence against the accused.
Depends on the university and depends on the offense.
If I am correct, that those procedural safeguards exist in the examples you are offering but do not exist in cases of alleged sexual assault, would you change your opinion?
My opinion is that the procedural safeguards should be proportionate to the imposed penalty and the seriousness of the offense.
What I am arguing against are the people who are saying universities should not have the power to expel people accused of rape, or to have hearings to determine if rape occured and needs to be expelled.
Obviously the hearings should be fair.
@Clayton:If what you claim is true, then they could expel you for murdering Sue and give that as the reason for your expulsion to any who inquired.
Yes they can.
Since I used to teach at the university level I know this quite well.
@Clayton:If what you claim is true, then they could expel you for murdering Sue and give that as the reason for your expulsion to any who inquired.
Yes they can.
'Nuff said.
"A university cannot convict a student of rape, giving them a criminal record. They do not have this power. They can expel a student for it, certainly."
The problem, of course, is that the university is not competent to determine whether a rape has taken place or not. They have taken (or been given) the right to punish before all the elements of the crime have been established.
Gabriel:
Given the judgments and settlements recently made by universities to the students they expelled, indicating a lack of procedural safeguards, do you believe those safeguards exist?
Remember, universities are settling claims made by former students for real money plus lawyers' fees.
Does that color your full-throated defense of the universities' ability to properly adjudicate the allegations?
@Clayton: The university I attended expelled students who participated in a riot, even those students who had not been convicted. They even revoked degrees earned by these students.
The fact that in some cases universities are abusing this power does not mean that they do not, or should not, have this power. It means they should not abuse it.
Gabriel:
I will note that you appealed to your own authority when you said you used to teach at the university level. Then, you provided nothing further about the procedural safeguards for plagiarism accusastions that would bolster your analogy with universities' adjudicating sexual misconduct allegations.
I am unimpressed.
@Clayton:he problem, of course, is that the university is not competent to determine whether a rape has taken place or not.
Not legally, no, just like they can't if you punch the Dean in the face.
They have taken (or been given) the right to punish before all the elements of the crime have been established.
They are not punishing crimes. They are not imposing criminal penalties. They are imposing academic sanctions for academic misconduct. Again, punch a Dean in the face, that's academic misconduct--AND a crime, but that's between you and the state. Likewise, rape a student, that's misconduct, AND it MAY be a crime depending on how well the university's definition matches up (not well, in my opinion.)
Again, just like shoplifting. The clerk says he saw me do it, my word against his. The store cannot legally determine I committed theft, but they can kick me out for it. They have no power to ban me from other stores, and they don't have to wait for a conviction before "punishing" me.
Gabriel:
That you are eliding the differences between state institutions and private universities does not augur well for the persuasive power of your argument.
@Birkel:Then, you provided nothing further about the procedural safeguards for plagiarism accusastions that would bolster your analogy with universities' adjudicating sexual misconduct allegations.
There's no point, it's different at every university.
If you want to know how mine worked, I could on my own authority impose very minor sanctions, but for giving a failing grade or anything more serious I had to write a letter to the offending student and the Dean of Students outlining what had occurred and requesting a sanction. Then there was a hearing, if the student demanded one, where they got to tell their side. Then a committee imposed the sanction with the consent if the Dean of Students.
So, a lot of paperwork but not real "safeguards". There's no rules of evidence or anything like that.
The problem with universities deciding rape cases are (a) the universities are not equipped to make determinations of criminal violations (no due process procedures, no forensic investigators, etc.); (b) the universities have an obvious conflict of interest (they want things quiet, and some students are more valuable to them than others, so they may be loathe to kick a rich legacy out over a poor kid on financial aid); and (c) university-led investigations can impede and hamper the criminal investigation rather than supplement it.
Do universities have the right to expel students for any infraction they choose, based on the university's own rules and investigation? Sure, but you better believe they face lawsuits if those investigations were faulty--just like an employer can be sued by an employee if he was fired for a bogus reason (there effectively is no true "at will" employment in this country, as there are numerous actionable reasons to fire someone).
For universities trying to handle rape cases, I'd refer you to the statement of Walter from Big Lebowski--"You're out of your element!" Either way the school will get sued, so they're better off referring these cases to law enforcement.
@Clayton:That you are eliding the differences between state institutions and private universities does not augur well for the persuasive power of your argument.
Why does that make a difference? State insitutions can have their rules changed from outside by the legislature. California did that. Private universities like Harvard can adopt whatever rules they want.
But they're all doing it the same way as a condition of getting Federal student aid. Public/private is exactly the point--these are not necessarily government actors.
Althouse asks;
"Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway?"
I think that the rights of a citizen do not depend upon his location. If a shove is a crime when it occurs on a street corner, or in a private home, why does it cease to be a crime when it occurs in a high school?
Your question is a telling one. The reason it ceases to be a crime is because it is inconvenient for the people running the high school to have to provide an environment in which the laws are obeyed. They prefer to tolerate behavior that is illegal elsewhere, for reasons that are essentially economic.
@Brando:(a) the universities are not equipped to make determinations of criminal violations (no due process procedures, no forensic investigators, etc.)
Irrelevant, since they are not determining criminal violations, they are imposing sanctions for violating academic policies.
(b) the universities have an obvious conflict of interest (they want things quiet, and some students are more valuable to them than others, so they may be loathe to kick a rich legacy out over a poor kid on financial aid)
Same is true for cheating, so, irrelevant.
(c) university-led investigations can impede and hamper the criminal investigation rather than supplement it.
Since they're not at crime scenes bagging fibers they can probably work it with the advice of their lawyers.
they're better off referring these cases to law enforcement.
How do they do this? They are not the victim of the crime. They are not the DA.
How is this different from you calling up the police saying someone told you they were raped? It's like saying that the Rolling Stone journalist should have "referred it to the police"--what are the police supposed to do if the victim doesn't come forward?
@Jupiter: why does it cease to be a crime when it occurs in a high school?
It doesn't. Where are people getting this idea that schools and universities have the option to shield people from criminal charges?
They don't. If a student gets shoved in the hallway he can press charges or not. The school can impose academic sanctions, but can't press charges. Why is this so hard?
Gabriel, you don't even understand the conversation you're involved in. When you're not assuming your own conclusions as starting points - universities may kick students out for rapes and murders, whether or not they've even occurred - your comments are entirely solipsistic.
Let me put this ungently: you appear to be confused, disoriented and talking to voices in your head. Already twice now you've assigned quotes from Trashhauler and Birkel to me. You don't appear to know shit about what you're talking about, but rather are simply pulling it out of your ass only for the repetitive attention you're receiving.
And claiming a university can not only expel a student for murder but publicly report that as the reason for his expulsion merely because a dead body exists on campus - really? - completely destroys any credibility of your having ever been employed at one.
Gabriel:
So your saying the student accused of plagiarism was allowed to see the charges against the student? And they were allowed to confront witnesses? And they were allowed to present a defense? And there was no disparate impact based on gender?
Now that we've established your hypothetical plagiarism case is nothing like what is happening in the instant sexual misconduct cases, try another analogy.
It doesn't. Where are people getting this idea that schools and universities have the option to shield people from criminal charges?
My question about murder was really whether a school has an obligation to contact the police if there is a murder. My guess is a school wouldn't even think about having a murdered student on campus and *not* immediately calling the police. Murder is a serious crime.
Yet, they are considering doing this very thing with rape.
They cannot shield a student from criminal charges, but they can be an active participant in reporting or not reporting crime, and waiting or not waiting until the criminal investigation has happened.
Gabriel:
You quoted me but referenced another handle.
The fact that you don't understand the difference between state action and private action reflects poorly on your argument.
Professor Althouse appears to have missed a golden opportunity to break out her "bullshit" tag for this post, or rather, for the link to the bullshit which Politico inexplicably published.
Gabriel wrote:
"The university I attended expelled students who participated in a riot, even those students who had not been convicted. They even revoked degrees earned by these students."
And later in response to my point about punishment before establishing the elements of the crime:
"They are not punishing crimes. They are not imposing criminal penalties."
That's right. They are punishing people not convicted of crimes. The universities ability to do this is based on a voluntary acceptance by the student of the university's authority in certain matters of discipline. However, no voluntary agreement can give carte blanche to the university, especially the refusal of due process.
That means any student believing the university has overstepped the bounds of the voluntary agreement can sue for redress in a court of law. Unless your university's pamphlet of disciplinary procedures explicitly describes how due process is limited for each and every breach of discipline, you are wide open for law suits. Be prepared to reap what you sow. The only students who don't sue will be the ones too stupid to know they can.
The fact that in some cases universities are abusing this power does not mean that they do not, or should not, have this power. It means they should not abuse it.
I'd agree that universities should be able to kick out students who rape or commit other serious crimes.
My issue is the White House and other activists are driving universities to adopt unfair and unrealistic rules and definitions redefining rape, and putting students at risk in a very unjust manner.
Secondarily, any university that does not demand a student who claims rape contact the police does not consider rape to be a serious crime.
It might be worth stepping back a bit.
Nobody here is disputing that universities should not kick students out over he said/she said or drunken hookups.
Not in dispute.
But to say that they should not have the power to do anything AT ALL makes no sense.
It's like saying cops should not have guns because sometimes they kill people who were not convicted, or even charged, with a capital offense.
I'm happy to agree that institutions have moral and legal reasons for sanctioning members, even absent a police investigation.
BUT, in the case at hand (UVA), the university apparently made no effort to identify the actual individuals accused, instead sanctioning a large group of people who were almost certainly innocent of any infraction at all.
That's what sticks in my craw.
@Birkel:So your saying the student accused of plagiarism was allowed to see the charges against the student?
Yes.
And they were allowed to confront witnesses?
No. The committee asks all the questions, if it has any.
And they were allowed to present a defense?
Yes.
And there was no disparate impact based on gender?
There might well have been. It may be that men are more often sanctioned for cheating or plagiarism, I don't have stats for that.
Now that we've established your hypothetical plagiarism case is nothing like what is happening in the instant sexual misconduct cases
You haven't, because procedures are different at every institution.
And a person who is raped who does not report it to the police is making the same choice the victim of any other crime makes "Is it worth it to report this crime, or can I handle this on my own?"
Would you report to the police: a $5 bill missing? A slap across the face? A missing computer? Someone jumping you and robbing you in the alley? Someone jumping you and raping you in the alley? A murder? A drunken uncomfortable sexual situation?
What is worth it to report a crime? And why should a university have to act on something the victim will not?
But to say that they should not have the power to do anything AT ALL makes no sense.
Is anyone saying that?
@Fred Drinkwater:BUT, in the case at hand (UVA), the university apparently made no effort to identify the actual individuals accused, instead sanctioning a large group of people who were almost certainly innocent of any infraction at all.
That's what sticks in my craw.
They have always done it though, for underage drinking or grades or whatever. They impose sanctions on houses as well as on the whole Greek system.
The Greek system is a privilege and not a right.
Gabriel:
We can agree, as Fred Drinkwater says, that private institutions are free to sanction members based on rules that were an accepted part of the contract -- explicit or implicit -- that the parties entered.
Here, the rules have been changed to include past actions under the new standards. Here, there is no due process. Here, there is disparate treatment (likely) and disparate impact (almost definitely) based on gender.
Universities are signing settlement checks and will continue to do so. There is a reason that is happening. We don't have to know the law to know that the parties signing the checks, repeatedly to different plaintiffs, were likely in the wrong.
If the facts were different, I would agree with your position. I do not live in that world.
@Maybee:Is anyone saying that?
Yes, they are saying universities have no business determining if a rape occured, according to its own procedure and definitions, and punishing it as misconduct according to its own procedures and definitions.
They are saying that unless there is some kind of criminal conviction universities must do nothing.
The greek system has fuck-all to do with the universities. If private citizens wish to form private clubs and public universities try to ban them, they should sue under the First Amendment freedom of association and then cash the fucking checks.
Yes, they are saying universities have no business determining if a rape occurred, according to its own procedure and definitions, and punishing it as misconduct according to its own procedures and definitions.
Oh. Well that's different than saying they shouldn't do anything AT ALL.
I would say the university has no business determining if the rape occurred.
Just as police have no business determining if plagiarism occurred.
@Birkel:If the facts were different, I would agree with your position. I do not live in that world.
That a process is abused is not sufficient to say it shouldn't exist.
I don't see how rape is different from a punch in the face. If a university tried to redefine "punch in the face" so that it included microaggression or some such I would say that was an abuse, but I would not say that studends should not expelled for violence, or that criminal convictions should have to happen first.
Gabriel,
BTW, that was a nice, if ineffective, dodge on the disparate impact of plagiarism. Nice try. No points are awarded. Points are subtracted for failing to argue in good faith.
Also, you admitted that there a defense was allowed in the cases of plagiarism. That distinguishes the alleged sexual misconduct and your analogy fails. You cannot -- in good faith -- admit the material differences between your analogy and the case at hand while simultaneously arguing that your analogy survives the scrutiny I am applying.
At this point you are exposing dishonesty in your argument. You should feel shame.
@Birkel:The greek system has fuck-all to do with the universities
they have a privileged status with regard to access and resources, which they lose if they don;t abide by conditions.
Nothing stops you from creating Birkel House, you just won't get recognition from the university unless you abide by conditions, and that's what's been forfeited.
Gabriel: "That a process is abused is not sufficient to say it shouldn't exist."
That is patently absurd. The question is whether the instant process should survive. The answer is plainly 'no' and to argue otherwise is ineffective or worse.
Nobody here has argued that a university should not be free after some process to expel students. The question is, and always has been, what process is necessary.
The fact that checks are currently being cut to expelled former students tells us our answer. You may deny many things, but when checks are cut, they represent a reality you cannot simply wish away.
Birkel House is a frightening concept, indeed. There we would force members to abide by the contracts members and the institution have formed without fear or favor. You wouldn't be invited to participate.
Birkel House is not in the business of cutting checks to former members who Birkel House treated poorly, in abrogation of members' legal rights.
@Birkel:you admitted that there a defense was allowed in the cases of plagiarism. That distinguishes the alleged sexual misconduct and your analogy fails
Like I said, different institutions have different procedures. Where do you get that no university allows any defence in sexual misconduct cases from?
BTW, that was a nice, if ineffective, dodge on the disparate impact of plagiarism.
Should I have lied and said I knew what I didn't know?
Lots of discipline has "disparate impact", look at the Minneapolis school systems which are imposing reviews on discipline of students if color.
At this point you are exposing dishonesty in your argument.
What dishonesty? Universities have the power to define and punish misconduct just like private entities have, and this has nothing to do with the criminal justice system and never has. There's no argument. That is the fact.
If people want to remove that power, whatever, but I think they ought to think carefully through the consequences of the principle that would be established.
Title IX adjudication of criminal acts is a charade. It is forum shopping for complainants with a thin case. Of course, in using the ineffective and meaningless procedures employed in those hearings, unpleasant matters can be avoided. For example, I give you the forensics in the Winston case (trigger warning all you delicate flowers):
"The victim’s shorts and underwear were tested, as was her blood for alcohol and drugs. Drugs were not found, and her blood alcohol level was measured as .048, although Meggs said on Thursday that he could not be sure how long after the alleged incident that sample was taken."
"Meggs told reporters that Winston’s DNA was found in the woman’s underwear, and another man’s on her shorts. Meggs said the woman said she had had sex with her boyfriend earlier on December 6 and that his DNA matched the sample found on her shorts."
At least she had an excuse for her lack of fidelity to that boyfriend.
Women don't lie about rape. Title IX hearings on issues of crime are an effort to due process.
@Birkel:Nobody here has argued that a university should not be free after some process to expel students. The question is, and always has been, what process is necessary.
Then we agree, and your vituperation of me is really unjustified.
Birkel House is not in the business of cutting checks to former members who Birkel House treated poorly, in abrogation of members' legal rights.
Universities might be cuting checks to students who were unfairly expelled, but this has nothing to do with the Greek system. A house might be liable if they haze a pledge or some such, and the university might be liable if they don;t punish houses that do that. What has that to do with the original topic?
Gabriel:
I now know that you are completely dishonest on this topic. You either cannot or will not see that your point is asked and answered and then genuinely consider others' points.
Welcome to the internet. You'll fit right in. (As I'm sure you did at many a faculty luncheon.)
Gabriel:
You are hazy about the concept of arguing in good faith. You should try it some time.
Gabriel: "Universities might be cuting checks to students who were unfairly expelled..."
Now you are trying again to assume your own facts. Fuck that. Argue fairly.
Universities are cutting checks.
Do you believe that universities cutting checks is indicative of a fair process or an unfair process?+
@Birkel: I have explicitly said in this thread that the low standards being used in some of these cases is unfair.
Again, not in dispute.
And you have just said you do not dispute that universities should have a process for handling these cases.
We both agree this process should be fair to the accused and that in many cases lately it has not been.
So you might tone down your rhetoric just a little.
Gabriel wrote:
"They are saying that unless there is some kind of criminal conviction universities must do nothing."
Well, I'm not saying it. Go back and read my post about the military academies. They are aggressively addressing the issue of sexual assault (and drinking). The important difference being that the academies, being governed by the UCMJ, can try and convict cadets and send them to Leavenworth prison. The discipline at any academy is far tougher than at any university. However, while seriously addressing the issue of sexual assault, the academies do not expel students without first establishing that a crime was actually committed. (They may be sequestered, held back, or confined until guilt is proven.)
There are many things that a university might do in aid of victims and to promote a safer environment. But labeling and expelling students as sexual offenders without due process isn't one of them.
Show above where anybody said no private organization has the right to expel a member/employee. I didn't see that above. In fact, I saw several comments above that specifically said you were arguing with things nobody had said.
Meanwhile, back in reality, a world is happening around you. And students are treated unfairly. It's ok though. The plaintiffs' lawyers will make out handsomely.
"Just because the process was handled illegally and in violation of students' civil rights doesn't mean there should be no process" argued Gabriel to himself.
@Trashhauler: But labeling and expelling students as sexual offenders without due process isn't one of them.
If by "due process" you mean something that is fundamentally fair I would agree, and agree that in these cases students are not getting that fundamental fairness.
But I apply my "punch in the face" test. A university should be able to expel a student who punches another student in the face a) in a fundamentally fair way b) which would not have the full panoply of protections afforded by the criminal justice system, since universities simply aren't set up to operate that way.
What I'm sticking at here--the ONLY thing that I'm in fundamental disagreement about--is that some kind of criminal conviction has to happen in order for the university to have acted fairly.
It's a bit like OJ, he couldn't be convicted of the murder, but he could be held liable for the wrongful death; and though the legal system considers him not guilty 99.9% of us are 99.9% certain that he is.
I kinda hope it takes more than punching another student in the face to get expelled from a university.
@Birkel:"Just because the process was handled illegally
What law was violated?
and in violation of students' civil rights
Ok, what civil rights are violated?
I honestly want to know because I don't understand. I agree that the process is, as implemented, unfair. It is, however unfortunately, legal.
@Maybee:I kinda hope it takes more than punching another student in the face to get expelled from a university.
Bad enough to require surgery, let's say.
Ann,
Do you think a high school should call the police over every shove that occurs in the hallway?
No, I don't. Nor do I think they should call the police every time a six-year-old kisses a classmate. But as the latter is "sexual harassment," in such cases the police have been called.
In general, the standard for "common" assault is much, much laxer than for sexual assault. If two college men get drunk and one beats the other up (rather more than a "shove"), it's most unlikely that either will be expelled, partly because even the beaten one is unlikely to bring it to the attention of school authorities, let alone police. I'd say that there is much more likely to be an accusation around a "drunken hookup" than around a drunken brawl, partly because of the idea that getting into fights is something a lot of men do, and partly because universities are currently scared out of their skins by "rape culture." Why this hits now, when rape has been declining steadily for over twenty years, is anyone's guess.
BTW, isn't basing this on Title IX just a wee bit weird? Women outnumber men on practically every campus. They're more numerous getting in, more numerous graduating, more numerous in graduate school. Their grades, or so I understand, routinely surpass men's. Difficulty learning because of sexual violence or the threat thereof doesn't seem to me a particularly pressing problem; I'd be more concerned about what the welter of worries this new "affirmative consent" regimen will do to the academic performance of male students. (Not quite joking here, either.)
I already know you're not on a genuine pursuit of information due to your behavior on this thread. You should read the lawsuits that have been filed to educate yourself. The briefs are available online.
If you want to know whether laws and rights have been violated, ask yourself why checks have been written and the universities have not won cases yet.
HINT: Look at my correction of Althouse above.
Michelle Dulak Thompson's last paragraph should give you some idea of my cryptic (to anybody predisposed to ignore argumentation) meaning.
Difficulty learning because of sexual violence or the threat thereof doesn't seem to me a particularly pressing problem;
Exactly.
What problem are we really solving?
Note Title IX is 44 years old, yet this new rape definition is something just now being added.
It's as if problems are being created so some people continue to have problems to solve.
A punch bad enough to require surgery, but not bad enough to press criminal charges?
Why would the punched student not want to press criminal charges but would want to get the other student expelled?
Should the school report that assault to the police?
Gabriel wrote:
"But I apply my 'punch in the face' test. A university should be able to expel a student who punches another student in the face a) in a fundamentally fair way...."
Well, I understand your point, though a punch in the face at the Academy that warranted expulsion, i.e., with no extenuating circumstances, would likely get you a special court first - or a general court martial with counsel if you chose it. Of course, universities aren't run that way.
I guess my sole point is that the life-changing penalty of being expelled and labeled as a sexual offender is so great - especially if imposed for something which isn't even a crime - should only be imposed with all the protections available in a court of law. Otherwise, the chances of a miscarriage if justice are too great.
>"When [Title IX of the 1972 Higher Education Amendments] was passed, legislators sought to ensure that women, in many cases newly allowed on coed campuses..."
"In many cases..." In may cases? I guess it depends on your definition of many.
If two Yale law school students, not yet born in 1972, know only that Yale College (undergraduate)had become co-ed in 1970, you might imagine that "many" suffices to describe the circumstance. When looked at in totality, few colleges, not many, were single sex institutions that were integrated. So in their effort to describe legislative intent, they flunked by providing a revisionist version of history.
Is anyone studying at university? Or is it just sex, sex and more sex? I get the impression reading all this stuff that universities are just orgy parties.
Too bad it wasn't like that when I went 20 years ago.
@Birkel: If it's Title IX you refer to, that's tricky isn't it? Some courts may have ruled sympathetically to that argument; and some certainly won't, and then there's appeals aren't there?
In the meantime the executive branch insists that Title IX requires them to operate in this way, and so does the legislature of the State of California.
So the legality, and the civil rights, hasn't been sorted out yet. Universities are in a very tough position.
MayBee said...
"I kinda hope it takes more than punching another student in the face to get expelled from a university."
If you are saying that every incident of one student punching another should not automatically result in expulsion, I would agree. That would put the University in the position of operating a judicial system. But given the leeway that Leftists are being granted on many campuses, to suppress speech with violence, I think that if charges are pressed and a court finds a student guilty of assault, expulsion is a perfectly reasonable result.
Same with rape. The university should not investigate rape, but it should take cognizance of judicial findings.
Ann said:
There are many incidents that the university concerns itself with as it tries to create a good climate on campus for learning and for socializing.
A little bit too much socializing and not enough book learning. Yeah, I know studying is HARD when you'd rather be partying!
KEGGER!
@MayBee:Why would the punched student not want to press criminal charges but would want to get the other student expelled?
The victim might not want the student expelled and the university might do so anyway. (Suppose it was a fight between frat brothers because one slept with the other's mom. True story.)
I knew some students who liked to throw mopeds off pedestrian walkways. One of these mopeds belonged to a football player. Word came through the grapevine, settle up or get beat down. They paid up. The unviversity AND the police investigated but no one would say anything. If they had turned up any evidence there'd have been expulsions.
The world really has changed. My roommate at the Academy got caught having sex with his girlfriend in a car beside the dorm one Friday night. His administrative punishment, imposed by a Commandant's disciplinary board, was six months restriction to the Academy grounds, four months confinement to our room, except for classes, PE, drill, meals and formations, and 40 tours (marching in full uniform with rifle for an hour).
Of course, he claimed it was all worth it. ::grin::
Jupiter- yes, I agree with your 2:35. Gabriel has been saying he believes a university should be able to expel a student for punching another student, even in the absence of a criminal investigation or charges.
That's what I'm disagreeing with.
I don't believe universities should be in the business of meting out justice for serious crimes in the absence of criminal investigations.
They should be in the business of appropriately dealing with non-criminal academic issues or issues regarding university owned housing.
The victim might not want the student expelled and the university might do so anyway. (Suppose it was a fight between frat brothers because one slept with the other's mom. True story.)
So I'm guessing in this situation, the punchee did not come to the university and report that he'd been punched, right? There was some other reason the university found out about it?
Does the school expel the frat brother for fighting? They really couldn't stand to have him on their campus any more?
Gabriel:
Imagine a world where the law is unclear. Then imagine a world where the universities lose their cases, or settle, for big money and lawyers' fees on a very -- nearly universal -- consistent basis. And then tell me again that the law is unclear.
My knee is ready, once again, for slapping.
MayBee said...
"Jupiter- yes, I agree with your 2:35. Gabriel has been saying he believes a university should be able to expel a student for punching another student, even in the absence of a criminal investigation or charges."
Hmmm .... I guess I believe that a university should be able to expel a student for thinking about chewing gum, if that's how they care to operate. But they should not be going around punishing people for *crimes* unless they have been found guilty of those crimes.
Newspapers know better than to find people guilty of crimes, and maybe the universities need to be educated by the same means. Certainly, I would be delighted to see Harvard forced to go hat in hand to Carlos Slim to keep the doors open, like the NYT.
Betcha Carlos would like to own him a 10% share in Harvard. Not good for much, but there's bragging rights.
@Birkel: Then imagine a world where the universities lose their cases, or settle, for big money and lawyers' fees on a very -- nearly universal -- consistent basis.
That's not the world we inhabit, yet. Not all the cases are won, not all the appeals are heard, and the law can always change again, as it did in California.
@Jupiter:But they should not be going around punishing people for *crimes*
They do not, and never have, punished crimes. They punish academic misconduct. Sometimes the act that is punished as misconduct can also be punished, by the government, as a crime.
Just like OJ was found liable for wrongful death, but not for murder, and because it was not a criminal penalty it was not double jeopardy and the standard of evidence was much lower.
It's an odd worls where you can be expelled for cheating but not rape.
I started reading the reference article, but became lost at the actual Federal Law, wherein "discrimination" based on "gender" is declared illegal.
Had the same problem with Thomas Sowell's otherwise marvelous book "Applied Economics - Getting Beyond Stage One (2nd edition)" (from Amazon/audible) at the section on "prejudice, bias, and discrimination."
If there is to be productive discussion of these subjects, mutual agreement on the terms is important.
My understanding of the words is more old-school, narrowly defined, than current MSM NewSpeak.
Firstly:
..SEX: female or male; vagina or penis
..GENDER: feminine or masculine; clothing and accoutrements
As to the other:
..Consider a test subject presented with two pots of water. One pot is bubbling furiously, emitting vapor and radiant energy. The other is quiescent; small pieces of a clear solid float placidly, and appear to diminish in size with the passage of time.
To DISCRIMINATE is to be cognizant of differences between the pots.
..The test subject is asked to place his hand in one of the pots. The subject might, on the basis of the above noted discrimination, pre-judge the quiescent liquid to be the safest.
This illustrates PREJUDICE by the subject.
..Let the test be repeated 100 times, the position of the pots (left/right) being at each trail random. After the 100 trials it may be that the subject has shown a significant preference for one pot over the other.
The subject's actions are BIASED.
Note that there is nothing about discrimination, prejudice, or bias, which is per se bad, wrong, or worthy of being deemed illegal.
The subject simply discriminated a difference between the pots, made a pre-judgement (perhaps from having stuck his hand in boiling water as a child) and this caused his selection to be biased in favor of the cooler liquid.
======
Now go back and parse Title IX: “no person ... shall on the basis of gender ... be subjected to discrimination ...."
It is illegal to be aware of differences between masculine and feminine behavior or appearance. Call the Thought Police!
Trashhauler,
So he got a Chiquita sticker for the bottom of his cap brim?
Gabriel said...
"They do not, and never have, punished crimes. They punish academic misconduct. Sometimes the act that is punished as misconduct can also be punished, by the government, as a crime."
When a university expels a student for rape, they are stating that he committed rape. If a newspaper publishes a claim that a person committed rape, they had better be able to show that he was convicted of that crime by a court with jurisdiction. Claiming that "When we say 'rape', we mean 'lascivious thoughts', will not get them off the hook. Universities should be held to the same standard.
This means, that if the university says they expelled Bob for chewing gum, and a civil jury believes that is libelous, Bob may receive damages to the extent that the jury finds an accusation of gum-chewing damaged his reputation. And the same for rape. If the university is going to use the terms a court uses, it had better use the definitions a court uses.
And you might want to watch your diction as well. "Academic misconduct" is not the same as misconduct in an academic setting.
"So he got a Chiquita sticker for the bottom of his cap brim?"
Couldn't put it there. They inspect closely before a tour. The tour could be disallowed - after you marched it.
At least they used to. Like all old timers, I'm aghast at how slack the place has become.
"Not all the cases are won, not all the appeals are heard, and the law can always change again, as it did in California."
The California statute is unlikely to save them. The far more troublesome aspect is the lack of real due process, not the standard for judgement. Although that's bad enough.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a softie. I've seen a lot of dead bodies and witnessed countries where "justice" depends on how much you have in your pocket. I'm just a bit surprised to see academic types be quite so callous about their students. Take their money, kick 'em out, "Shut up, you're guilty" it's all the same, eh?
Gabriel
"It's an odd worls where you can be expelled for cheating but not rape."
I am late to the thread but I would think a student can be expelled if he is convicted of rape. It would be an odd world where a student is expelled for murder if no criminal charges have been filed but a college has determined a murder occurred.
Trashhauler understands what Gabriel will not. The universities have an unblemished record of failure under the new policies. This will continue until the willful misconduct proves too expensive to maintain. Then the rules will return to normalcy or we will have shrugged off the chains of civil law and finally unleashed Leviathan.
Gabriel has cast his lot.
If ALEXANDRA BRODSKY and ELIZABETH DEUTSCH are paying for a Yale legal education, they are being robbed.
It's an odd worls where you can be expelled for cheating but not rape.
Can you be expelled for cheating if nobody can actually prove you cheated?
Rolling stone recants.
As Lori notes (at 12/5/14, 1:11 PM) "Rolling Stone recants." And the accused frat has lawyered up. And the circle of supporters for the complainant has thinned. Pass the popcorn.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-fraternity-to-rebut-claims-of-gang-rape-in-rolling-stone/2014/12/05/5fa
I think those old timers might have been on to something when they made the rule that no one could go into the room of an opposite sex student.
I believe this is more about colleges controlling statistics and protecting their reputations than helping alleged victims. If someone is raped then they should report it to the police.
I think tim in vermont hit the nail on the head. Minor crimes can and should be handled by the school. But major felonies - murder, attempted murder, rape - those should be left to the cops. Only the police have the expertise (e.g., forensic) to investigate and power (search warrants, grand juries, etc.) to handle major felonies, and when universities get involved, they are more likely to screw things up and make it both harder to convict the guilty and more likely to punish the innocent, especially when they are following the commands of the federal government to punish as many students accused of sexual assault as possible without regard for any niceties of due process.
Post a Comment