September 17, 2023

When the accused hires a lawyer, "It is a power game, because usually the victim has no representation, and I think it is completely unacceptable and unfair."

According to Prof Sir Steve West, former vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England and president of Universities UK, quoted in "'It’s a power game': students accused in university rape hearings call in lawyers/Parents of young men facing conduct panels over assaults are raising the stakes by bringing barristers to them, academics say" (The Guardian).
Smita Jamdar, a partner at the law firm Shakespeare Martineau who advises universities on sexual assault hearings, said: “There are increasing numbers of students choosing to bring cases of sexual misconduct of all sorts to their university rather than the police, and increasing numbers of very serious allegations.”...
Jamdar said institutions often brought her firm in because an accused student had hired a lawyer and the university needed support. “Everyone ends up arguing over legal principles that are utterly bamboozling to most student conduct panels,” she said.... 
Jamdar said universities had worked hard to encourage reporting of attacks and that this [legal representation for the accused] had “really thrown a spanner in the works”
“There is a lot of confusion about how this fits with a victim-centred approach,” she said. “Respondents’ lawyers can ask: ‘Why did you take months to report this? Why did you behave in this way afterwards?’ and that sort of question can be very upsetting.” 
She added: “Universities are expected to fill the gap created by a criminal justice system that is slow and rarely convicts rapists.” She said students chose to report to their university “because they want that person out of the university so they can get on with their lives”.

This is a strange concept of fairness, an entitlement to freedom from "legal principles" and a reliance on a defenseless accused.

BUT: The universities have a problem: "Hardcore porn, choking and rape: UK universities left to tackle rising tide of sexual assaults/As on-campus sexual misconduct cases escalate, there are increasing calls to talk openly with young people about sex, pleasure and consent" (The Guardian).

Experts say issues around consent at university are becoming more complicated, with strangling – referred to by many students as choking – often a feature of sexual assault complaints, echoing its prevalence in the violent porn which many students will have been encountering for years while still at school....

Smita Jamdar... says: “Students now are navigating so much more complexity. They have seen stuff online about sex which many fully grown adults would struggle to process.... Allegations of some form of sado-masochism, including choking, are not uncommon.”

Jamdar explains that in some of these S&M cases the woman who has reported the assault has been clear that she does not want this. However, sometimes it is in a longer-term relationship where it has been a shared practice between two students, but some months in, one “reaches the conclusion that it is not OK for them/ These are particularly challenging cases, and it is difficult for the university to get to the bottom of whether someone should have known if their partner was still consenting,” she says.

48 comments:

typingtalker said...

Justice and public safety are determined by, "How much money do you have and how much are you willing to spend?"

We've come a long way since the ten commandments.

I'm writing as an ignorant observer.

Big Mike said...

“Respondents’ lawyers can ask: ‘Why did you take months to report this? Why did you behave in this way afterwards?’ and that sort of question can be very upsetting.”

What sort of idiot thinks those are not perfectly reasonable questions?

The accused has a lot at stake in these kangaroo court proceedings. Why shouldn’t they defend themselves?

TheDopeFromHope said...

Susanna Gibson, a Democratic candidate for the Virginia House, who's quickly becoming a "feminist" icon of the left (go figure), describes herself as a “submissive,” and says:"I like being choked. I like being hit. I do."

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/09/a-feminist-heroine.php

It's definitely a thing for some gals, but what if a woman “reaches the conclusion that it is not OK" any longer for her? Solution? Film all sexual encounters and post them on-line. It seems to be working for Gibson.

Big Mike said...

Experts say issues around consent at university are becoming more complicated, with strangling – referred to by many students as choking – often a feature of sexual assault complaints, echoing its prevalence in the violent porn which many students will have been encountering for years while still at school....

There’s a pretty simple defense to choking where the attacker can either remove his hands from the victim’s throat, or break his own little fingers. Both of them. Young women should learn it, and other techniques for self defense. About thirty years ago I studied aikido l, and my sensei taught a rape defense class where he used big guys from his dojo l, including me, as (unpaid) assistants. I was 8 or 9 inches taller and generally 100 pounds or more heavier than the women in the class, and we assistants were coached to really grab the students. And when those petite women learned how to use my own strength and momentum to send me sailing through the air, they and I alike felt a sense of accomplishment.

As to porn, I don’t get why young men — and certainly young women, too — don’t understand that it’s fiction? There are no dragons flying through the skies and no women begging and pleading for anal sex. Deal with it.

gadfly said...

“Universities are expected to fill the gap created by a criminal justice system that is slow and rarely convicts rapists.” She said students chose to report to their university “because they want that person out of the university so they can get on with their lives”.

Some personal independence that doesn't involve reliance on others to escape unpleasant circumstances would go a long way in ending this obviously invented need to interfere. If you personally don't like where you live, move; if you don't enjoy your job find a new one; and if you don't like the social surroundings of your school, enroll elsewhere.

But if you have been raped, robbed, physically abused, or had your property stolen or damaged - call the police.

Kevin said...

This is a strange concept of fairness, an entitlement to freedom from "legal principles" and a reliance on a defenseless accused.

Oh, just call it “equitable fairness”.

Not only can people get behind it, they’ll feel good about themselves.

Josephbleau said...

Wen you read this article the main takeaway is, what a horribly fouled up organization.

“because they want that person out of the university so they can get on with their lives”. The answer is to disappear people, one of you is going to have your life destroyed, and we are going to pick. This is not a wholesome approach to dealing with your problems. If an indictable crime was committed, sure, send the guilty to jail. And justice requires that you report it in a reasonable time frame.

Many young women have horrible experiences with college sex, a lot seemingly with football players. Why not have a required course for students in their first semester to explain these situations beforehand. Similar to the classic highway patrol movies about bloody car wrecks. Explain that sports stars and upper class men like to have multiple partners and often a girlfriend in their home town they are set to marry, so you may end up being a temporary object of convenience. Some prevention would be better than reaction.

And when schools have sex week to have tranny shows and teach alternate sex techniques, spend some time on having healthy approaches to relationships.

Big Mike said...

”These are particularly challenging cases, and it is difficult for the university to get to the bottom of whether someone should have known if their partner was still consenting,” she says.

What she means is that if the behavior has been incorporated into the normal practices within the relationship, it’s not as easy for the universities to railroad the young men out the door.

rehajm said...

Are campuses really more rapey or is it that the incentives have changed?

There is a lot of confusion about how this fits with a victim-centred approach

Ah I see, to accuse is to be a victim. No determination. Yah, I’d want an army of barristers, too…

Bruce Hayden said...

My impression of these cases is that they are very often He Says/She Says scenarios, decided by feminist oriented tribunals, in the woman’s favor. There is little risk to the accuser, but high risk to the accused. Very often, they are severely lacking in what we understand as Due Process. A couple end up having sex, the guy doesn’t give enough attention to the gal afterwards, she makes a claim with the school of sexual assault in retaliation, a kangaroo court, indoctrinated, and even sometimes staffed by feminists, sides with the woman, and the guy is thrown out of school, destroying his chances for a degree at that school, if not at others. With the price of tuition, that may cost the accused $100k or more, in lost tuition and opportunity costs. And there is near zero cost to the accuser if she loses.

Keep in mind that if these were true cases of rape/rape, the police would normally be the ones investigating, and the accused would have the normal protections in court that we expect. But they rarely are. Take a pair of examples. In the case of Mattress Girl, the couple voluntarily hooked up late one night. She went to his room and undressed herself (indicating intent for intercourse). At some point, he entered her anally, and then didn’t show her enough attention afterwards. And for standing up to the patriarchy, she was a feminist heroine, hauling her mattress around with her on campus, instead of being shown as an easy lay. On the flip side, Kobe Bryant met a groupie one night, took her back to his room (again indicating intent for intercourse), pulled her pants down, bent her over, and anally entered her. He was arrested, tried for rape, and acquitted.

If I had a son, he was in college, and was accused of sexual assault there in one of these scenarios, I would hire the best lawyers I could find. It’s very often a highly biased system, stacked heavily against the guys.

The solution, in many case, no matter how distasteful to their woke sympathies, is to provide adequate due process protections for the accused, instead of biasing the system in favor of the accuser. At a minimum, provide reciprocal consequences for a losing accuser. The process for deciding the level of consent for destroying the life of the accused shouldn’t be the same as for adjudicating getting caught pissing on the shrubbery, after drinking too much.

They are all drinking too much. Friday and Saturday, on many campuses, serious over drinking is a serious problem. And the women often times are worse than the men. They start drinking in afternoon preparties, then spend the evenings getting even more drunk. Then, for many, it is hook up time, texting around to find a bed partner. Compounding this, the sex ratios on many campuses are such that the women have to settle for near commitment free sex for that bed partner, because that is what it takes in that environment. No one should be surprised that a lot of young women do things in these circumstances that they regret afterwards. The problem, in my mind, is that school discipline systems so often facilitate this.

The Crack Emcee said...

Women and 50 Shades of Rape.

a href="https://themachoresponse.blogspot.com/2023/09/its-sunday-give-it-rest.html">

Larry J said...

How dare a young man accused of a serious crime be allowed legal representation! Why not save everybody a lot of time and aggregation by declaring him guilty? After all, no woman in the history of time has every lied or made a false accusation, right? That 6th Amendment was written a long time ago by a bunch of white men, so it doesn’t apply even to state run colleges.

Buckwheathikes said...

#BelieveAllWomen

Right, Ann? How is a defenseless accused and the concept of "guilty until proven innocent" not the end result of such mindless drivel?

We need to disabuse these people of their idiotic notions. Hard. And the sooner we do it the better. Or else it's going to come to wicked violence ultimately.

To all the male students out there: Get lawyers and sue the ever loving sh|t out of these people - the girl and the university - the minute they raise any untrue allegations about you or you will sorely regret it as you waste away in prison.

Saint Croix said...

“There are increasing numbers of students choosing to bring cases of sexual misconduct of all sorts to their university rather than the police, and increasing numbers of very serious allegations.”

You go to the police if it's a factual rape.

You go to the thought police if it's a narrative rape.

I would definitely call an attorney if anybody accused me of rape.

It's a violent crime to accuse an innocent man of raping you, when it's not factually true.

This is how black men got lynched in the South.

Universities are not honest places. Feel free to sue them and recoup your costs. And you might want to seek punitive damages, too.

Aggie said...

Another piece of evidence that our university system has become under-educational and over-administered.

Just an old country lawyer said...

Any quasi judicial process that is suspicious and unsupportive of the accused being represented by counsel cannot be trusted with the job.
I don't understand why universities have any business adjudicating allegations of a criminal nature. Those should be handed over to the local legal authorities and disciplinary decisions should await the real legal resolution. Cheating on a test, plagiarism on a paper, sure. Sexual assault? No way.

Saint Croix said...

People who are bored like drama in their lives.

And they will invent drama to give their life meaning and excitement.

We all do it, I guess, but it's dangerous as shit to other people.

Gahrie said...

At USC, the kicker for the football team and his long-term girl friend were engaging in horseplay one day. This was seen by a third person who reported him to the university for sexual assault. Despite the testimony of the kicker and his girlfriend, he was kicked off of the team and eventually kicked out of the university.

Darkisland said...

All the best, really hard core s&m porn is written by women, for women.

Pauline Reage (story of o) Anne Rice (Beauty series) and the woman who wrote the shades of Grey books for 3 well known examples of classic s&m porn

John Henry


Roger Sweeny said...

"really throw a spanner in the works"

Cf. John Lennon, A Spaniard in the Works.

D.D. Driver said...

“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Love the name of the law firm, too!

Roger Sweeny said...

At most colleges, females outnumber males, When it comes to relationships, males are a scarce commodity and their price is fairly high. Which means they can often push for and get consent to things the women wouldn't otherwise do, and don't really want to do. Or the males just bull ahead without consent.

Campus discipline then tilts way in the other direction, so that a "he said/she said" is pretty much going to be resolved in favor of the "she said".

K-12 operates in ways that are congenial for females and not for males, so the potential college population skews heavily toward females. The first paragraph isn't going to change unless K-12 does. But no one is even thinking about that.

D.D. Driver said...

I also find it fascinating when certain lefty sacred cows trample over the other ones. Where's the outrage over systemic racism in college rape adjudications? Someone should ask Quintez Cephus what he thinks.

JK Brown said...

"Are campuses really more rapey or is it that the incentives have changed?"

The president of the United States, Barak Obama, said that 1 in 5 women who attend college will be sexually assaulted. If the college campus was a bar or night club, the sheriff would close it down as a public nuisance.

How will college keep their enrollment up when they lose the widespread and frequent random sex part of the "college experience" they market?

I mean, they no longer are places for free and open dialog. Which means that they aren't place students can learn to discipline their intellect or regulate their emotions as they use established principles to "think through talking to others" about complex and often disfavored topics.

The best thing to happen is for the residential college to die so that it no longer traps thousands into lifelong debt for economically worthless degrees, much less the many social science majors that are actual impediments to developing human capital.

"Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality."
Thomas Sowell

Drago said...

Just an old country lawyer: "Any quasi judicial process that is suspicious and unsupportive of the accused being represented by counsel cannot be trusted with the job.
I don't understand why universities have any business adjudicating allegations of a criminal nature."

Because the New Soviet Democraticals can more easily construct and operate their star chamber Maoist/Marxist Struggle Session Show Trials with Calvin Ball leftist/LLR-leftist "rules" and even ordering gag orders against the accused who are deprived of all rights.

Think of it as a current Dept of "Justice" training program for future prosecutors.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

A male student should never cooperate with a university kangaroo court. Bring a lawyer. Bring a hand-cranked air raid siren and use every time they trample on the student's rights. Record everything, and if the kangaroo court says no, walk out. Bring friends along. Be disruptive.

n.n said...

The #MeToo etc precedents to social progress and profit.

hawkeyedjb said...

The use of the word "victim" in place of "accuser" gives the game away. And over here in the USA, the Biden administration recently got rid of most protections for the accused, excuse me the rapist, in college sex assault claims.

Big Mike said...

“Everyone ends up arguing over legal principles that are utterly bamboozling to most student conduct panels,” she said

That highlighted text has been bothering me all morning. Who in the Hell thinks a student conduct panel should include anyone that doesn’t understand fundamental legal principles? One cannot be bamboozled unless one is ignorant of the truth, and however knowledgeable the panel members may be in other areas, if they do not understand principles of fairness, rules of evidence, and the like, they should never be in a position to deprive a student of his valuable education nor to besmirch his good name.

Bob Boyd said...

Legal representation for the accused? That's no way to run a railroad.

Doug said...

Rape is a crime. If a woman accused me of rape but did not report the crime to the police, yer damned right is bring a lawyer to thee hearing.

baghdadbob said...

Out on Long Island...

18-year-old Hofstra University student, Danmell Ndonye, falsely accused fellow student Rondell Bedward and his friends Jesus Ortiz, Kevin Taveras, Arvin Rivera and Stalin Felipe of holding her down, tying her up and gang raping her in a university dormitory bathroom stall on the morning of September 13, 2009.[1]

A few days later, these claims were revealed to be false when a video of the event was given to the police, which showed that the entire encounter was consensual.[2] Ndonye retracted her claims, was suspended from the university and required to undergo mental health treatment. The prosecutor described her as "a deeply troubled woman".[3] No charges were pressed.[4]

Kathleen Rice, who still holds elected office, declined to press charges against the lying accuser who tried to destroy lives, saying in effect, that the accuser had already "been through a lot." F Rice.

Joe Smith said...

If a student is accused of committing a crime, call the cops.

If not, then shut the fuck up and let the kid go to class.

This is not a difficult concept.

Were I a parent of an accused student, I would be suing the school for defamation, etc.

Going on offense is the only way to deter bullies...

JeanE said...

I can understand why a young woman who has been sexually assaulted might prefer to avoid the questions that will be part of a criminal investigation. In a "victim centered approach", these young women would have a safe space to talk about their experience and their feelings without judgement or expectation, but they would also be counselled that if they are unwilling to file criminal charges, no action can be taken against the attacker.
A "victim-centered approach" should provide the victim the support she needs to go to the police and answer questions about the assault, or the strength to recognize the difference between regret over a sexual experience and a sexual assault. Learning to take responsibility for your choices is empowering, but blaming others for your poor choices reinforces your inability to control your own life.
One young woman may blame herself for date rape just because she agreed to go out with the attacker, but another young woman may cry rape after consensual sex she later regrets. The university can and should provide counseling to these young women to help them gain perspective, but criminal investigation and prosecution should be left to the police and the courts.

Dude1394 said...

If it was not reported to the actual police it did not happen ( cough kavanaugh ). Period. There is no way a male gets a fair “trial” in a woke university tribunal. None.

Sebastian said...

"but some months in, one “reaches the conclusion that it is not OK for them.""

Thesis: harassment "law" is the weaponization of women's regret.

Though gay sex can bring its own regret, in and out of college, not as eagerly covered in the media.

Yancey Ward said...

"This is a strange concept of fairness, an entitlement to freedom from "legal principles" and a reliance on a defenseless accused."

NSS.

Yancey Ward said...

Note how the accuser is always referred to as a "victim". That is why the accused are starting to bring lawyers to these kangaroo courts- they are being brought to these panels to prove their innocence, not to prove their guilt. The accuser isn't unrepresented here- she has the university, the university's lawyers, and the panel itself on her side.

Drago said...

Bob Boyd: "Legal representation for the accused? That's no way to run a railroad."

You "named that tune" in the least number of "notes".

Thread winner.

mikee said...

I see the desire for college kangaroo courts, star chambers, double secret probation leading to expulsion for the entire frat, and so on. My only problem with all that is HELL NO! to it all.

Jupiter said...

The attorneys advising the universities need to explain to them that institutions with deep pockets should not involve themselves in other people's legal disputes. There you are, the Second Assistant Sub-Dean for Psychosexual Equity Relations, barely an adult yourself, but empowered to toy with the emotions of some disturbed young woman, in order to torment some young man who wouldn't date you if you paid him in gold, and just when the drama is getting most absorbing, some lawyer walks in and says, "Who's going to pay for all this?"

And suddenly everyone is looking at your employer, sitting there fondling his fat endowment.

MayBee said...

It's so interesting to me that these things always seem to happen at colleges, and nowhere else in society.

Do electricians, plumbers, and hairdressers just know how to behave sexually?

MayBee said...

It's funny how once Mattress Girl admitted it was all performance art (and she liked it rough), we really just stopped talking about her. And what she'd done to the man, and how Senators lauded her.

Bruce Hayden said...

“I don't understand why universities have any business adjudicating allegations of a criminal nature.”

Because the conduct rarely rises to the level of criminal behavior that can be proven in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s He Says/She Says, with the bias in favor of the accuser. Campus cases very often revolve around issues of consent. Maybe she was too drunk to consent - but maybe he was just as drunk. That often doesn’t matter. Only the state of mind of the “victim” matters in many of these cases. Just the opposite of a criminal trial.

What seems to drive a lot of these cases is regret of a one night stand, and a drive for revenge on the woman’s sex partner for the evening, for not showing enough commitment afterwards. Wake up ladies. In those late night hookups, guys have one thing, and one thing only, on their mind. They may profess their undying love for you, if they have to, to get it. Often they don’t. And that leaves the woman doing the Walk of Shame the next day.

Mason G said...

saying in effect, that the accuser had already "been through a lot."

It must be awfully traumatic, finding that one's attempt to ruin the life of another has failed. Perhaps consolation prizes are in order, you know- like game show losers get?

Krumhorn said...

At USC, the kicker for the football team and his long-term girl friend were engaging in horseplay one day. This was seen by a third person who reported him to the university for sexual assault. Despite the testimony of the kicker and his girlfriend, he was kicked off of the team and eventually kicked out of the university.

It was more complicated than that. While she has maintained that he never assaulted her, her early statements about it weren't so supportive. There were a number of witnesses, and she even accepted a shelter with the request that the location not be disclosed to him.

While I believe that it is true that the great majority of these cases are mishandled, the USC kicker case may have had the right result.

- Krumhorn

Anthony said...

"Experts say" is now auto-translated in my mind as "Random people who agree with what I want to say".

RigelDog said...

"These are particularly challenging cases, and it is difficult for the university to get to the bottom of whether someone should have known if their partner was still consenting....”

Almost as though serious allegations of non-consensual sexual assault should be handled by the criminal justice system.

And almost as though, when you get naked with another person, you should not be there unless you have a very solid basis on which to trust this other person with your physical and emotional well-being.

Even if you are in bed with a trustworthy person, you still have to be very clear about what you do and don't want to do. It should not be grounds for a university investigation---let alone a criminal investigation---if your partner tries a physical act that you don't like, but then they stop when you tell them you don't like that/want to do that. If I were in the game today, I suppose I would have to specify that anything BDSM is a hard "no."

What are we doing to young women and men today, that they would find strangling each other to be normative sexual behavior??