Posted on 12/08/2014 1:14:24 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
".....Any woman who is raped, on campus or off, deserves a fair and thorough investigation of her claim, and those found guilty should be punished. But the new rules—rules often put in place hastily and in response to the idea of a rape epidemic on campus—have left some young men saying they are the ones who have been victimized. They are starting to push back. In the past three years, men found responsible for sexual assault on campus have filed more than three dozen cases against schools. They argue that their due process rights have been violated and say they have been victims of gender discrimination under Title IX. Their complaints are starting to cost universities. The higher education insurance group United Educators did a study of the 262 insurance claims it paid to students between 2006 and 2010 because of campus sexual assault, at a cost to the group of $36 million. The vast majority of the payouts, 72 percent, went to the accused—young men who protested their treatment by universities.
[snip]
I’ve read through the court filings and investigative reports of a number of these cases, and it’s clear to me that many of the accused are indeed being treated unfairly. Government officials and campus administrators are attempting to legislate the bedroom behavior of students with rules and requirements that would be comic if their effects weren’t frequently so tragic. The legal filings in the cases brought by young men accused of sexual violence often begin like a script for a college sex farce but end with the protagonist finding himself in a Soviet-style show trial. Or, as in the case of Drew Sterrett, punished with no trial at all......
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
If you have someone heading to college, it's a MUST read.
If you don't have time to read it all now, print out a copy for future reference.
The victimization of women (and using college campuses to carve this notion in stone) is a cause celeb for the White House, the Department of Education, the Dept of Justice, Title IX, and feminist groups.
I imagine many people have jumped on one bandwagon or another in an emotional knee-jerk way because they don't have much information and/or haven't followed the history of how college sexual conduct is currently being adjudicated on campus -- believing that if they merely put their finger into the politically polluted air of liberal media bias, that they will be politically correct (and safe) -- ignorantly (and dangerously) believing that being PC is all that is necessary to address (and be prepared for and comment on) this frightening phenomenon.
If this is all some BIG issue...fine, let’s fix this. Remove colleges from handling this, and just hand the rape case over to the local prosecutor and let them use real state laws to handle the situation. The idea that college chancellors are somehow in the middle of this? No. Let the legal system handle what it’s built to handle. Same way with the military rape reports....hand it over to state prosecutors, and federal prosecutors overseas.
The way they (no doubt activists, teachers, elected officials) got local high school students to come out and march on the University of VA campus after the publication of the Rolling Stone story, tells me this framework is (if it isn’t already to some degree) heading to high schools, junior high schools, elementary schools, etc.
Exactly right. Rape is a very serious crime. Colleges are not equipped to deal with it and are not the right venue for it. Rape victims should call in the police and the DA. This is what we pay taxes for. If there are rapists on campus they should go to prison. But its not for a college to decide. It is for the courts.
Rape is a horrible crime. You don’t pretend to have been raped to get attention, nor do you pretend to have been raped in order to get revenge on a person. I think people who falsely accuse others of rape deserve to be fined and receive jail time. It’s an insult to anyone who has ever been raped, and it makes it harder for society to take rape seriously. Furthermore, it can destroy the reputations of those who are accused. Even if you’re proven innocent, people will still stigmatize you and treat you as if you are, indeed, a rapist.
Exactly.
And you know what? There should at least be the option of more supervised freshman dorms, such that 18- and 19-year-olds can have structure to mitigate the risks for both men and women.
This sure hits home here in Virginia where Rolling Stone Magazine appears to have failed to provide a minimum level of competence in the gang rape accusation at University of Virginia. The university leadership and even state legislature are out in the streets looking for young single males to “lynch”.
Do you see the insanity of this? On one hand feminists want full equality with men to the extent that justifies same sex marriage, that justifies women serving on submarines, fire fighting teams, and in combat roles.
On the other hand women admit that they are the weaker sex and want special protections? The want government provided birth control, abortions, and special treatment.
As a result we have chaos thanks to feminists with disordered minds.
“Rape is a very serious crime. Colleges are not equipped to deal with it and are not the right venue for it. “
Perhaps todays colleges are not equipped to deal with the criminal and mental health issues associated with it. However, they should be capable of providing a safer environment for students.
Consider in years past dormitories were single sex residence halls with very limited visitation by members of the opposite sex. Visitation was usually limited to public parlors. Dormitories and fraternities were chaperoned and monitored by live in house mothers, usually elderly women who reminded students of culture mores. There were defined periods when students were required to be in their dorm rooms, defined study hours during the week, and defined times for lights out. Social events on campus (dances for example) were chaperoned. In those days rapes were infrequent, and binge drinking was virtually unheard of.
Colleges have always served a transitional role for society between parental supervision and life in society as an independent adults and responsible citizens. In the now distant past students learned to live in group settings, with more freedom for self directed activity, but not unlimited freedom. Communal living in dormitories taught respect for others. The boundaries placed on unmarried male/female contact instilled in men the cultural beliefs men should respect women and taught women to respect themselves. The reinforcement of cultural behavioral standards was part of the education process. It benefited students by providing them a safe environment while exercising some of the freedoms they would have as adults.
Unfortunately in 2014 students transition directly from parental guidance to an anything goes environment with no boundaries or guidance. It is ironic in today’s post sexual revolution world we now see progressives, who eradicated the commonly accepted social limits on male/female behavior outside of marriage, debating the meaning of the word “no” and on some campuses instituting the concept of legal contracts to govern sexual behavior.
In the old world, where premarital sex was frowned upon by society and colleges provided guidance and restrictions on behavior, the definition of rape was very clear. In today’s permissive society progressives struggle balancing their cherished concept of sexual freedom, in all of its expressions, with the very real issues of sexual aggression and sexual aggression which are much harder to define when students frequently engage in casual hookups with people they do not know.
Progressives, particularly the intellectuals on campus, struggle with this issue for several reasons:
1) They reject societal mores and restrictions with respect to human sexual activity.
2) They reject religion and religious teachings about respect for others, not to mention religious teachings associated with appropriate sexual behavior.
3) To further their political and social agendas they deliberately seek to create conditions that foster distrust and animosity between men and women.
4) They focus exclusively on the rights and behaviors of groups, not the individual. Almost all sexual relationships and interactions, including rape, are between individuals. Both the perpetrator and the victim are involved in a unique situation, parts of which may involve free will. The point at which free will is no longer being exercised may be unclear to one party in any specific interaction. It is particularly difficult to define if two people have been involved in a consensual sexual relationship for a period of time and one party to the relationship abruptly redefines the amount of sexual contact she or he will permit with respect to the other party.
The best answer to rape, like most crimes, is to create an environment that prevents or makes the crime very difficult to execute. By abandoning their essential teaching role of reinforcing culturally, and at the time legally enshrined, standards of behavior colleges have created the conditions for rape and sexual assault on campus. When every individual defines his or her own rules, sometimes in the moment, it is understandable there will be incidences of rape and sexual assault. If society no longer has clearly defined limitations on behavior, how can we as a society pass judgement regarding an unwitnessed event involving two people in the heat of passion?
It is unfortunate the concepts of returning to monitored single sex dormitories and societal standards for premarital sexual behavior are not even being considered by the intellectuals running institutions of higher learning. After all, it is a solution that doesn’t fit their world view or political objectives. It just works.
These show “trials” on campus give a window into the way Leftists would run a judicial system on a larger scale, if given the power. You would be guilty based on “white male privilege”; end of story. Off with your head. This is madness, and the only way to stop it is to sue the pants off universities that think they can destroy anyones constitutional rights.
Our offices have a cleaning lady that is a very hard worker and an exceptional human being. I think the world of her and she is black. She has raised an exceptional young man through high school and into college. He works part time and goes to college as well. She and I agree the key to keeping him safe and moving forward is the people with whom he associates. More than ever before young men (and women to a lesser degree) must be very guarded regarding who they choose as friends. They must seek out age appropriate friends and older adults to help them make the right choice at every turn. As an aside I am sending no mention of the your man from the accused fraternity that took his own life soon after the article was released.
And education is a serious business. Colleges are not equipped to deal with it and are not the right venue for it.
It’s the AL Sharpton 1st step in a career of socialist rabble rousing.
Hand over our troops to foreign legal systems?
If the alleged offense takes place off base they already have jurisdiction. If on base are you nuts?
But its not for a college to decide. It is for the courts.
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They (the colleges) can’t have that ,, after all the Courts use objective law ,, while the colleges can impose their own standards from their feminist studies classes...
Thank you for your good and useful comments.
You already have SOFA agreements in place for various crimes, and some maintain that a GI can be charged by local authorities. Nuts? Nope....we’ve already entangled ourselves into this type of situation.
As for on base? You need some neutral cast of folks who have nothing to do with the post commander or the next ten people after that. We can vouch from the Aviano episode...the system is screwed up.
Good truths!
Topic is universities. Don’t drag the military into this.
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