June 27, 2022

"One frustrated Title IX coordinator told me she sometimes thought of her job as running 'The Break Up Office.'"

"She said many young people lacked the skills to navigate relationships themselves, and often didn’t want to. Why should they? Instead of focusing on punishing students who commit truly bad acts and aiding their victims, campus administrators transmitted the message that recasting any sexual experience as malign, and then reporting it to school authorities, is an act of bravery."

55 comments:

n.n said...

Due process, novel. One too many witch hunts and warlock trials.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

You might know Emily as Slate’s Dear Prudence

Which is why my mind was blown to read the entirely reasonable things she wrote here

Joe Biden has fulfilled one of the first promises he made upon becoming president. His administration has just announced a comprehensive set of regulations—701 pages worth—that will gut due-process rights for college students accused of sexual misconduct.

Apparently, Biden learned nothing from going through his own sexual assault accusation crucible.

...

The Obama administration set out to change campus culture, and it did. But in doing so, it undermined women, demonized men, and diverted vast resources away from education. Under rules promulgated by Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education under Trump, many of these policies were rolled back. The Biden administration now plans to restore much of this.


I am hopeful that there will be an immediate, and upheld, nationwide injunction against this assault on basic human rights by the Biden* Admin

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Biden and his creepy leftwing stasi handlers out to ruin as much as possible.

Owen said...

Emily Yoffe has done IMHO very good work on the abuses of Title IX. I am not surprised that it has become a way for students to hide from adulthood when managing their romantic/sexual lives. Old model: break up with your GF or BF and after some bitter moping s/he moves on, presumably a little wiser. New model: characterize every advance (real or even fictional) as rape-grade trauma and have your school put its imprimatur on your terrible suffering. Too bad for your GF or, especially, your BF.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Something to be said about the Left embracing the idea of a Nanny State, but at this point I think we all understand the power dynamic at play.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I've probably mentioned this before but I know first hand a frustrated mother who had a son (had - yes - he went missing and was found dead after over a year) but prior to his death his girlfriend would threaten to call the police and accuse falsely that she was raped - if they got into a heated argument over.. well... anything.

Not Sure said...

It's gonna take a lot more SCOTUS decisions limiting federal power to stop reflexive authoritarians like Miguel Cardona from cooking up sweeping new rules with far-reaching consequences and pronouncing them to be "nonnegotiable."

gilbar said...

isn't THIS, the way we want it to be? That:
a) women will have unprotected (bareback) sex; With ANY and ALL men that say that the woman is "cute"?
b) women will SUE FOR RAPE! ANY and ALL men, that don't respect, and love them afterwards?
c) women will NOT be seen, as INSANE Harpies, out to destroy men; just for the fun of it?

I mean, This is what we've got.. And it's Because We WANTED It.. Right? i mean, Right?

Static Ping said...

The problem with raising a generation who want to be victims is either the victims become bullies, or the victims gets their wish and become real victims.

Tina Trent said...

Impressive article. Fair.

Want to make these kangaroo courts against mostly men disappear overnight? Focus on making the schools co-defendants, just as apartment owners and restaurants, to name two entities, may be held liable when they fail to take measures to ensure safety after prior attacks. Law profs at Lewis and Clark' NCVLI clinic, which addresses victims in real criminal procedure, have some complicated thoughts about that.

But don't the schools already do that with endless administrators and student seminars addressing so-called date rape? Not necessarily, and definitely not by the rules of real courts. And, oh yeah, only real police, real DAs, real Grand Juries and real courts should adjudicate these cases. Why should college girls be treated differently from some poor kid slinging burgers or some mom raising five kids in a bad part of town? Why should college boys face higher levels of extralegal scrutiny (we used to call that something else) just because they attend school? Once the lawsuits roll in, watch the lobbying to return to deVos' saner rules begin.

Enigma said...

Eliminate priests and pastors and religious leaders from a culture and they will spontaneously regrow in a twisted and primitive fashion.

The students must cast the event and other person as malign because of the "sin" of early or "wrong" sex.

Dude1394 said...

Well as you say Ann, take them at their word, they WANT to gut due-process to punish those evil men. That is the plan.

Jupiter said...

And what fraction of these "young people" who " lacked the skills to navigate relationships" were male? 2%? Less?

So let's see, we have a woke collection of social rules, designed and administered by highly-paid adults, based upon the precept that males and females have identical sexual desires and expectations, that amount to frank opportunistic hedonism. And we find that lots of young people find themselves unable to "navigate" a set of expectations that classifies them as sex toys. And pretty much all of those people lack a Y chromosome. Huh. Funny that! It's almost like the adults are torturing the female children. But maybe they are just trying to get their abortion numbers up.

Andrew said...

This is the "If I don't call you back, it's rape rule". Or the "College women are to stupid to have agency rule".

MadisonMan said...

I've long appreciated Yoffe's writing on this topic.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Here's what the Administrator wishes he/she could say - Elvis song via YouTube

You offered me a penny for my thoughts
And I told you then that woman won't stay caught
But you turned and loved her anyway
She broke your heart and all I've got to say

It's your baby, you rock it
It's your heartache, you bought it
You made the bed your sleeping in
And I'm tired of hearing about it friend
It's your baby you, rock it

Well you cried upon my shoulder like a baby
I'm sorry 'bout your troubles and your lady
But she done you like you done me
And I've used up all my sympathy
It's your baby you, rock it

Michael K said...

The Brandon regime wants all kids to be gay or tranny.

R C Belaire said...

Gutting due process is a feature and a desired outcome, no?

Nancy said...

Our great Mikado, virtuous man,
When he to rule our land began,
Resolved to try
A plan whereby
Young men might best be steadied.

So he decreed in words succinct
That all who flirted, leered or winkec
Unless connubially linked
Would forthwith be beheaded.

Howard said...

Loco Parenting.

SDaly said...

If only there had been a large cohort of people, already embedded in the universities and with a substantial amount or power and control over governance, who were steeped in the wisdom handed down through the ages, capable of keen insight and persuasive reasoning, and who, drawing from the fields of history, literature, psychology, philosophy and law, could have prevented our educational system from turning into a shitshow, top to bottom.

Pianoman said...

Jonathan Haidt has talked about this a lot. Since kids in the early 2010's weren't allowed to have unsupervised play, they never learned how to resolve conflict between themselves, and were trained that Authority Figures were needed to do it for them.

It's why college students immediately shriek at the Administration whenever someone on campus says something they don't like. And it's why demonetization and banhammers on Twitter and Facebook have become the Order Of The Day.

Don't like what someone says? Go to the Authorities and have them shut up.

n.n said...

Want to make these kangaroo courts against mostly men disappear overnight? Focus on making the schools

The same with student loans. The same with medical pricing. The same with labor and environmental arbitrage And others. They only escape rational scrutiny through single/central/monopolistic regimes, em-pathetic apologies, selective prosecution, and shared/shifted liability.

madAsHell said...

Biden's Sex Police

Great name for a rock band!!!

Laurel said...

Boy, the Sexual Revolution has turned out great!

You Boomers sure showed the rest of us that “free love” was utopia on earth.

Hundreds of thousands of abortions EVERY year, sexually confused youth (What magical candy-colored gender are you today?), every form of sexual deviancy and depravity performed in public, in front of toddlers - because you’re never too young to be sexualized, apparently, sick freaks - colleges tasked with (are they, really?)raising ostensible legal adults to maturity years too late.

Damn, Boomers, this started with you. Losers.

Jason said...

The salaries and benefit costs of those 50 Title IX coordinator job positions at Harvard alone could fund an awful lot of scholarships and financial aid.

Jim said...

When two drunk college students have sex, who is the rapist?

Robert Marshall said...

Why should the fact that a rape allegedly occurs on a college campus require that the college deal with guilt or innocence? Is that really their job? Does the software company campus next door to the college have their own rape trial procedures, or do they leave it to civil authorities to handle?

Sure, they may later decide to expel someone, but that doesn't mean the college should make the determination of guilt or innocence. Let the local jurisdiction that encompasses the college property do what they would do if someone claimed to have been raped next door to the college. Take a police report, investigate, charge if warranted, trial, verdict, punishment if guilty, etc.

And when all is said and done, make the expulsion decision based on how the case was resolved by the authorities.

Requiring "victims" to take their case to the police and prosecutors might be unpleasant by comparison to taking it to a supportive, female Title IX coordinator who's duty-bound to believe everything you tell her, but it would have the beneficial effect of filtering out a lot of BS.

Yancey Ward said...

Well, gutting them was the express purpose.

Freeman Hunt said...

I have never understood this. Sexual assault is a serious crime. School administrators have no business handling serious crimes; they should be calling the police.

gadfly said...

Emily Yoffe wrote: "Apparently, Biden learned nothing from going through his own sexual assault accusation crucible."

Someone other than Dear Prudence finally got around to writing: "Trump is acting like Trump, offering a string of epithets and diminishments that reinforce the idea that preying on women is a normal thing to do. It seems entirely clear that these allegations disturb Trump only because they inconvenience him. He has not once spoken about the matter as if he understands that groping women, in itself, is wrong."

Nor does Mr. Trump have a problem with people knowing that he whored around with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal while married.

Drago said...

Gadfly continues to behave like the dumbest member of a DNC-aligned high school social media team.

And dumbest by alot.

Floris said...

The new Title IX regulations are just "Believe All Women", codified into Federal Law, with that law being enforced by bureaucrats who will need to fear for their jobs if a complainant objects to their decision.

What could possibly go wrong?

Goldenpause said...

If this “coordinator” had any integrity she would resign.

Michael K said...

Nor does Mr. Trump have a problem with people knowing that he whored around with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal while married.

I assume you have super secret evidence that has not so far been revealed or you are, as usual, lying. "Stormy Daniels" had a photo of herself with trump, fully clothed, at a golf tournament. I assume you do not attend celebrity golf tournaments but I have for years. I have a collection of photos with celebrity sponsors. Michael Avenatti must be your source although I think he will be unavailable to carry on his presidential campaign for a few years. I don't know who the other name is. Some Playboy nude model, I assume.

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

They really don't understand the wind they are sowing by creating even more of an anti-male atmosphere at colleges. The longer this goes on, the more certain it is they will find out. And it's guaranteed they will blame the monster this will produce on men also.

Michael K said...

As far as the college sex allegations are concerned, nobody wants to talk about how many are made against black men. My youngest daughter dated a black football player at U of AZ when she was there. She could not believe it when she saw him on TV accused of sexual assault. She said he had always been a perfect gentleman.

Ralph L said...

No one told the Biden administration that a disproportionate share of the accused men are black?

Quaestor said...

Freeman Hunt writes, "I have never understood this. Sexual assault is a serious crime. School administrators have no business handling serious crimes; they should be calling the police."

Isn't the answer obvious? Sexual assault is a matter of reasonable law enacted, enforced, and adjudicated in a reasonable manner. What goes on between university administrators and students is a matter of arbitrary power exercised by ideologically motivated bureaucrats who have more in common with Lavrentiy Beria's NKVD than the West Lafayette Police Department.

gpm said...

I thought Emily Yoffe was pretty good when she was writing for Slate. Not sure I can say that about anyone else.

--gpm

Freeman Hunt said...

Having university administrators handle sexual assault cases not only tramples the rights of the accused but trivializes a serious crime. This practice should end.

Freeman Hunt said...

If a student is raping people, the answer is not, "Kick the student out of school." It's, "Prosecute this person for rape."

If the response is, "We don't have enough evidence," then either the university doesn't actually know what happened and has no business kicking anyone out of school over it, or, "Of course you don't have the evidence! You haven't had police detectives investigating it!"

n.n said...

Prosecuting toxic masculinity, while encouraging wicked femininity, is the modern model adopted by social progressives.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Google: Misaligned incentives usually occur in the absence of well-designed rules that control the rewards or penalties for participants. The underlying idea is that unless the rules incentivize them to do otherwise, people and organizations both tend to act in their own self interest, which may not always be what was wanted.

Brett and Heather it's occurring a lot.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Does our national stupidity come from Joy Behar and Whoopii? or is it Jimmy Kimmel?

or perhaps our national Stupidity comes from the on air talent at Clinton CNN and MSNBC? Andrea Mitchell?

Vonnegan said...

It's not just the Bad Breakup Office, it's the I Don't Like My Roommate Office as well, as my younger son learned his freshman year in college. His roommate didn't like that he was "broody" (hey, you asked for an introverted roommate and you got one), thought some of his jokes were rude but couldn't just say so, and accused my son of "looming" over him (kid was 9" shorter and the room was 10'x14' - it's hard not to loom at 6'4" in that size space). But the roommate simply announced that he "felt unsafe" and filed a Title IX claim. Thankfully the school is not entirely insane, and although they went through a process of mediating between the two, they acknowledged to my son that this wasn't really grounds for a Title IX claim. They even let my son decide on the solution: he moved down the hall with some cool guys and left the crazy guy alone. So it all worked out in the end, and my son had his first big challenge that he dealt with without telling us - and very competently at that. But he was fortunate, because his university is run by relatively normal people. If he'd been elsewhere, they might have just thrown him out without an investigation to save time. Overall, it should have never happened, because 18 should be old enough to attempt to resolve conflict without appealing to authority like a 4 year old.

Drago said...

Michael K: "She could not believe it when she saw him on TV accused of sexual assault. She said he had always been a perfect gentleman."

There will always be lots of Avenatti/gadfly/Blasey-Ford liars running about.

Mr Wibble said...

Why should the fact that a rape allegedly occurs on a college campus require that the college deal with guilt or innocence? Is that really their job? Does the software company campus next door to the college have their own rape trial procedures, or do they leave it to civil authorities to handle?

They're not determining legal guilt or innocence, but whether he should be allowed to remain enrolled. The risk for the schools is that if they allow the student to remain on campus then they get hit with a Title IX complaint, because female students feel "unsafe" and thus are denied equal access to education. Add in the possible liability if he were to remain on campus and committed another assault. The school would be in the crosshairs because they knew he was a risk and still allowed him on campus.

To use your software company analogy: if a programmer was accused by a fellow employee of sexual assault, would the company continue to allow him access to the office while the police investigation was ongoing, or would they put him on administrative leave? And even if no criminal charges were filed, the company may determine that he violated company standards of behavior and thus warrants termination.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Gadfly - seek help. Trump is not the subject here.

Tho - your love affair with hair-sniffer international money grubber Potemkin Crook is curious.

Amadeus 48 said...

Have you ever noticed that Montana is sniffing Idaho along their border? And the profile looks strangely familiar.

Robert Marshall said...

Requiring students to report crime allegations (such as sexual assault) to civil authorities, rather than to Title IX coordinators, would reduce the rate of crime on campus, because much of what is claimed to be sexual assault is really hurt feelings, jealousy, second thoughts, embarrassment, alcohol-fueled conduct, regrets, etc. Even dumb kids are too smart to take that sort of trash to the police, knowing what's in their messaging app will come out.

Title IX, as implemented, gives kids the power to get revenge in these sorts of dust-ups, and gives politicians like Obama and Biden the chance to try to remake society as they would like it. We need to put an end to both efforts.

JAORE said...

Now who in the wide, wide world of sports would NOT vote for the party of:
Ending due process
Stifling freedom of speech
High inflation
Black outs
Congressional kangaroo courts
Weaponized IRS
Late term abortions
Uncontrolled borders
Executive action in the face of certain court disagreement
Sex education for kids still challenged by finger painting
And more, so much more.


Tina Trent said...

Mr. Wibble: if we lived in a sane world, the alleged victim would go to the police, not her software supervisor. The police would investigate and the DA take the case to a grand jury --- and maybe arrest him if clear evidence were found. Lacking clear evidence, the company would have to decide what was fair within the context of the workplace for both parties as the criminal case proceeded, hopefully with advice from the DA and detectives.

And that would be their only role. Men very rarely rape only once. If the guy has a record of other stranger or acquaintance rapes, or accusations, firing or suspending him would surely be reasonable. If the woman had a record of potentially false accusations, ditto.

The schools are determining guilt or innocence in pretend courts they invent and staff. They hold imaginary trials using people not trained in the law after conducting imaginary fact-finding done by people not trained in forensics or legal investigation protocols (law profs avoid involvement like the plague). Most of these people despise real police and do not want them involved, so evidence such as DNA is not used, as administrators are not allowed to force students to take DNA tests -- because they aren't real law enforcement! The purported victim may have legal counsel present, but under Obama's rules, about to be revived by Biden, the accused may not have a lawyer. The accused is also forbidden to see, and thus dispute, the charges against him. The outcome is recorded on the accused defendant's transcripts, effectively ruining him (usually a him, but there are more male on male and female on female cases than anyone wants to admit) for life. If his family can afford it, they can sue. If not, they can't. Real law enforcement is barred from participating, though the alleged victim may file a real police report too. There are real date rapists, and they are usually prolific. But schools should be barred from any and all involvement. This is legal lynching.

John Holland said...

Tina Trent at 1:33pm said:

"Once the lawsuits roll in, watch the lobbying to return to deVos' saner rules begin."

Well, I think your optimism is misplaced, because the lawsuits are rolling in, they've been rolling in for more than 10 years; millions have been paid out in legal fees and settlements. And nothing has changed.

Why?

First, it costs the University administrators nothing to be wrong: not their jobs, not their pensions and health benefits. No punishment whatsoever for cruelly persecuting their own students and ruining their lives. And in some jurisdictions the administrators get qualified immunity on top of everything else. They can't be sued personally for irresponsible or reckless behavior, only the colleges can be sued (and are being sued).

Next, Title IX. First, it provides an immunity shield for college admins (see above; as long as they can say "I was just following Title IX" they're off the hook legally.)

Second, Title IX liability can be far worse than a few penny-ante torts. Like, you could get multi-million dollar fines, and at worst lose all kinds of state and federal goodies, if the DOE finds that you didn't enforce Title IX as they dictated. As long as the cash from tuition, federal grants and billion-dollar endowments keeps rolling in, who cares if a few million a year gets thrown down the toilet in needless lawsuits? You can see how twisted the incentives are.

Finally, these Title IX administrators are True Believers, the New Inquisition. Females are blameless angels, and males are the toxic spawn of Satan, so no cost is too high to forge the New Soviet Man -- er, sorry, I mean the New Neutered Man-Boy. They would happily burn the whole campus to ashes if that's what it took, and (to paraphrase C.S. Lewis) will torment their male students without end, with the approval of their own conscience.

So: lawsuits, schmawsuits. No-one in charge at any college will "lobby" for a return of Betsy DeVos's rule changes, ever. They would rather the college went bankrupt, and the Deans/Trustees/Board of Regents/Whatever seem to agree. I mean, look what happened at Oberlin with its loss of a libel lawsuit. Not a Title IX matter, but arising from the same administrative mindset and twisted incentives. Oberlin will have to liquidate a large chunk of its endowment to pay the judgement and legal fees, and yet no-one at the college has lost their job over this episode, and no-one has resigned. No penalty, no shame. Incredible.

mikee said...

Lawyer up, invoke the Fifth, sue the school and the administrators personally for violation of due process.