Posted on 01/29/2015 2:04:00 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
President Obamas sexual assault task force marked its one-year anniversary last week, and released new guidelines for colleges to develop with law enforcement.
Just asking colleges and universities to work with local law enforcement when dealing with claims of sexual assault is a step in the right direction, as the American justice system is far more qualified to handle accusations than schools. Still, as Ive written before, there is a role for colleges to play when it comes to handling sexual assault namely as a support service for accusers as they go through the legal system.
But the new guidelines, called a memorandum of understanding, still allow schools to have their own legal system. And although the guidelines say their purpose is, in part, to respect the legal rights of those accused of sexual assault, the document poses a bias to schools by repeatedly referring to accusers as victims, and the accused as alleged suspects or alleged offenders. This terminology muddies the waters, creating a guilty until proven innocent mentality.
K.C. Johnson, who co-wrote the book on the Duke lacrosse case, described this bias further.
The message here is clear: a crime has occurred (since the accuser is either a victim or a survivor), Johnson wrote. An accused student is, according to the administration, the alleged perpetrator of that crime. Under this definition of events, it would seem that an accused student could defend himself only by identifying the actual perpetrator; because of the MOUs language, a defense based on a claim that an assault never occurred is off the table.
Johnson also notes that the new guidelines give accusers the power to decide whether the sexual assault is also reported to police. This allows actual offenders to face only expulsion when they should be in jail, and innocent students to have no due process rights in trying to prove their innocence. If an accuser could almost guarantee the person they are accusing would be punished (as current activists and the administration seem to be pushing for) why even take the chance of reporting to police?
The new guidelines also require schools to conduct their own investigations even if the police are also investigating. As weve seen before, colleges just arent equipped to handle these investigations themselves. In the case of a he said/she said situation, the schools are under tremendous pressure to take the she said as fact, which put a lot of students at risk and opens universities up to a wave of lawsuits. And in the recent case at Vanderbilt University, the school, having no authority to subpoena, wouldnt have had access the evidence to find the young men responsible.
The administration also suggests in its guidelines that, when developing an agreement between schools and law enforcement, that critical partners be included. They specifically name law enforcement, prosecutors offices and victims services. They do not mention anyone who may speak on behalf of the accused its all about accusers.
Bottom line: Working with police is a step in the right direction when it comes to handling sexual assault, but creating a separate legal system with less-trained college administrators who are acting in the schools best interest (which currently is to find people guilty, not adhere to a fair process) is still a bad decision. Police, rather than college administrators, need to investigate crimes.
Co-ed Justice-for-whatever Nanny State PING!
Not. Gonna. Work.
If a rape is reported, local LEO's will always bounce it down to the Campus Cops. Even if the alledged attack took place off campus. Campus Cops are going to shuffle some papers and make the problem go away. The school certainly does not need any more rape allegations.
This is a social problem. One that the universities themselves are guilty of. Only if our schools and colleges return to the normal social values that America once had, will the problem of campus rapes ever begin to be resolved.
The Frank Marshall Davis Guidelines To Sexual Assault.
We can make it easy.
We will run a lottery.
1/4 of all the college men will be jailed.
another 1/4 will guard the jailed.
quote
AS MEMBERS of the faculty of Harvard Law School, we write to voice our strong objections to the Sexual Harassment Policy and Procedures imposed by the central university administration and the Corporation on all parts of the university, including the law school.
We strongly endorse the importance of protecting our students from sexual misconduct and providing an educational environment free from the sexual and other harassment that can diminish educational opportunity. But we believe that this particular sexual harassment policy adopted by Harvard will do more harm than good.
As teachers responsible for educating our students about due process of law, the substantive law governing discrimination and violence, appropriate administrative decision-making, and the rule of law generally, we find the new sexual harassment policy inconsistent with many of the most basic principles we teach. We also find the process by which this policy was decided and imposed on all parts of the university inconsistent with the finest traditions of Harvard University, of faculty governance, and of academic freedom.
Among our many concerns are the following:
Harvard has adopted procedures for deciding cases of alleged sexual misconduct which lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process, are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused, and are in no way required by Title IX law or regulation. Here our concerns include but are not limited to the following:
The absence of any adequate opportunity to discover the facts charged and to confront witnesses and present a defense at an adversary hearing.
The lodging of the functions of investigation, prosecution, fact-finding, and appellate review in one office, and the fact that that office is itself a Title IX compliance office rather than an entity that could be considered structurally impartial.
The failure to ensure adequate representation for the accused, particularly for students unable to afford representation.
Harvard has inappropriately expanded the scope of forbidden conduct, including by:
Adopting a definition of sexual harassment that goes significantly beyond Title IX and Title VII law.
Adopting rules governing sexual conduct between students both of whom are impaired or incapacitated, rules which are starkly one-sided as between complainants and respondents, and entirely inadequate to address the complex issues in these unfortunate situations involving extreme use and abuse of alcohol and drugs by our students.
Harvard has pursued a process in arriving at its new sexual harassment policy which violates its own finest traditions of academic freedom and faculty governance, including by the following:
Harvard apparently decided simply to defer to the demands of certain federal administrative officials, rather than exercise independent judgment about the kind of sexual harassment policy that would be consistent with law and with the needs of our students and the larger university community.
Harvard failed to engage a broad group of faculty from its different schools, including the law school, in the development of the new sexual harassment policy. And Harvard imposed its new sexual harassment policy on all the schools by fiat without any adequate opportunity for consultation by the relevant faculties.
Harvard undermined and effectively destroyed the individual schools traditional authority to decide discipline for their own students. The sexual harassment policys provision purporting to leave the schools with decision-making authority over discipline is negated by the universitys insistence that its Title IX compliance offices report be totally binding with respect to fact findings and violation decisions.
We call on the university to withdraw this sexual harassment policy and begin the challenging project of carefully thinking through what substantive and procedural rules would best balance the complex issues involved in addressing sexual conduct and misconduct in our community.
The goal must not be simply to go as far as possible in the direction of preventing anything that some might characterize as sexual harassment. The goal must instead be to fully address sexual harassment while at the same time protecting students against unfair and inappropriate discipline, honoring individual relationship autonomy, and maintaining the values of academic freedom. The law that the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have developed under Title IX and Title VII attempts to balance all these important interests. The universitys sexual harassment policy departs dramatically from these legal principles, jettisoning balance and fairness in the rush to appease certain federal administrative officials.
We recognize that large amounts of federal funding may ultimately be at stake. But Harvard University is positioned as well as any academic institution in the country to stand up for principle in the face of funding threats. The issues at stake are vitally important to our students, faculties, and entire community.
Elizabeth Bartholet
Scott Brewer
Robert Clark
Alan Dershowitz, Emeritus
Christine Desan
Charles Donahue
Einer Elhauge
Allen Ferrell
Martha Field
Jesse Fried
Nancy Gertner
Janet Halley
Bruce Hay
Philip Heymann
David Kennedy
Duncan Kennedy
Robert Mnookin
Charles Nesson
Charles Ogletree
Richard Parker
Mark Ramseyer
David Rosenberg
Lewis Sargentich
David Shapiro, Emeritus
Henry Steiner, Emeritus
Jeannie Suk
Lucie White
David Wilkins
Is this about those Secret Service guys who were screwing anything that didn't run away fast enough?
Exactly, the “rape” situation exists because of the colleges’ and universities’ incessant promotion of no-consequences sex.
Yep. I was reading yesterday a thread on how Dartmouth (Irony, of all places) has banned hard liquor from campus. Seems too many students (mostly underage) are into hard drinking and frat and campus life in general has become out of control.
Many FReepers poo-pooed that decision, but honestly, what can ya do?
If sex, drinking and out of control behavior go hand in hand on campus leading naturally to sexual assaults, then they gotta do something.
Actually you don't go far enough, though the scorn quotes around the word "rape" suggest you get it. Colleges and universities, and the Obama Administration, have also embraced to varying degrees feminist expansions of the notion of rape well beyond the bounds of what state statutes rightly define as the heinous felony of rape. Documentation of the problem this has created with instances of non-rapes treated as rape by college officials ruining students lives is set forth in an article from, of all places, Slate -- here -- written, incidentally, by the writer Slate's very socially progressive agony aunt column "Dear Prudence".
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