Posted on 08/01/2017 7:43:48 AM PDT by TigerClaws
I have written for several years on my belief that Title IX investigations on campus are fundamentally broken.
But even I’m stunned to see some of the stories emerging from college campuses these days — like the one involving USC kicker Matt Boermeester, who made the winning kick in the Rose Bowl and was shortly thereafter kicked out of school based on flawed Title IX processes. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first let’s get this out of the way early: anyone with a functional brain is in favor of equal treatment under the law and everyone is against rape. Just like everyone is against murder and assault and any other crime that injures another human being.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s ask a big question that never gets asked: why are universities responsible for investigating rape accusations? The answer is because they’re required to conduct investigations under the auspices of Title IX. It’s a well intentioned application of federal law — premised on the idea that sexual assault on campus is a problem that needs to be treated seriously — but it creates as many, if not more, problems than it actually remedies. Because it sets up two different simultaneous investigations with two different standards of proof, two different investigative procedures, two different consequences and two divergent potential outcomes.
Let me explain.
If a murder happened on campus every single person who has ever been to college anywhere would find it ludicrous if a university was conducting a simultaneous campus murder investigation alongside police, right? Any time there’s a serious allegation of a crime, campus cops call the real cops and let them investigate. That’s because campus cops are equipped to give out parking tickets and respond to noise complaints, they aren’t there to solve murders or bank robberies or kidnappings.
If a serious crime happens on campus just about everyone would say that it’s the job of local police to investigate that crime. That’s because we understand that conducting criminal investigations is time consuming, difficult, and freighted with the obligations to implement that investigation consistent with applicable state and federal law. No college or university has an adequate investigatory staff to determine who committed a murder and assess guilt or innocence. Moreover, the very idea of a college conducting a hearing based on whether a murder happened and applying its own standard of proof, rules of evidence and confrontation rules in that case is laughable.
Yet that is exactly what happens on campuses today when sexual assault allegations are made.
You have a criminal investigation occurring at the same time that a school investigation is occurring. And there are two potential outcomes when a criminal investigation ensues:
1. Criminal charges are brought.
2. No criminal charges are brought.
The first case is simple — if criminal charges are brought students are expelled from school and the campus investigation is effectively moot. But the bigger issue occurs in the second situation, when a criminal investigation takes place and no charges are brought. Then the campus conducts its own Title IX investigation and a student can be kicked off campus if an investigative body on campus finds it 50.1% likely that a rape happened.
If that determination is made then a student, typically male although it can happen to females too, is branded a rapist and kicked off campus.
You would think with these kinds of consequences that Title IX investigations would be fair and impartial. But you’d be wrong. All too often they are kangaroo courts lacking procedural safeguards, protections for both accused and accuser, and lacking in all elements of fairness.
Which brings us to USC.
Just look at the fact pattern of this case.
According to the LA Times:
“The Title IX investigation began…after a neighbor witnessed Boermeester (USC’s kicker) and Zoe Katz roughhousing. The neighbor told his roommate, who told a coach in USC’s athletic department that Boermeester was abusing Katz. The coach then reported the incident to the Title IX office.
Katz said she was summoned to a mandatory meeting with Title IX officials, where she told investigators that the two were playing around. Katz was subsequently told that she “must be afraid of Matt,” she said. She told officials she was not. Boermeester has not been arrested or charged with a crime.
“When I told the truth about Matt, in repeated interrogations, I was stereotyped and was told I must be a ‘battered’ woman, and that made me feel demeaned and absurdly profiled,” Katz said. “I understand that domestic violence is a terrible problem, but in no way does that apply to Matt and me.”
Katz said that she has “never been abused, assaulted or otherwise mistreated by Matt.” Katz said the Title IX office made her feel “misled, harassed, threatened and discriminated against,” and caused her to hire an attorney.
“The Title IX office’s response was dismissive and demeaning,” she said.
In the statement, Katz said she is coming forward now to clear Boermeester’s name and lobby for change in the Title IX office’s investigative procedures.
“Matt Boermeester did nothing improper against me, ever,” Katz said. “I would not stand for it. Nor will I stand for watching him be maligned and lied about.”
…
This fact pattern should stun everyone.
Here you have a boyfriend and girlfriend in a one year relationship who are allegedly playing around and roughhousing outside their apartment. An unnamed witness sees this — we know nothing about this witness — tells a USC athletic department official and then a Title IX investigation ensues.
Neither the man nor the woman says anything improper happened and police bring no charges, but the USC investigator refuses to believe either party to this case and USC’s kicker is expelled from school.
All because one anonymous witness saw the duo playing around outside their apartment.
And now the alleged “victim” in this case is so upset at the outcome that she has hired her own attorney and feels compelled to release her own two page letter to the media to get her side of the story out.
Welcome to Title IX.
It’s a broken system.
And if you think Matt Boermeester at USC is the only innocent victim, you’re wrong. There are thousands of other students just like him all over this country. It’s way past time for reasonable people to acknowledge campus Title IX investigations are broken and return some sanity to the system.
Police should investigate crimes, not campus officials.
Another story about it:
Couple - both athletes - engage in roughhouse play having fun.
It gets reported as abuse. Girl denies it. “well that’s a classic sign of abuse.”
Feminazi star chamber trial kicks guy off the football team. The kicker who won the rose bowl for the Trojans with a last second kick a few months ago.
Leave it to Title IX to create a “crime” without a willing victim or actual perpetrator.
All the football stuff is meaningless in the context of the injustice done. I hope he sues and cleans them out. I want that board or whatever to bleed from their ears and eyes after writing the check.
Nothing offends me like the casual injustice that only people in power can dish out. They will run you over in the name of righteousness while never truly understanding that word.
Thank God he has an honest friend. A woman with a Social Justice Warrior agenda could have really SCROOOOOD him here.
Also he will be signing a $million dollar contract in the NFL soon. She wants to be his Mrs. I can’t see a football player going any where near a sjw or vice/versa.
“I hope he sues and cleans them out. I want that board or whatever to bleed from their ears and eyes after writing the check.”
No. I want the decision makers fired and be personally liable. It seems to me what they did is also a crime and they should be put in jail for fraud, endangerment, and defamation. These people need to be lucky in the future to be able obtain a job washing dishes.
Trump and Betsey DeVos need to clean out the Education Department's unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. These are radical feminists who have ruled the roost at DOE since the BJClinton administration. They came up with their own bizarre interpretation of Congress's Title IX law, and they have wielded enforcement power by suing schools that don't comply with their version of Title IX.
Thus radicals at the DOE have not only destroyed individual lives -mostly men's- but they have also destroyed many men's sports teams at the collegiate level ... simply because women didn't show as much interest in the particular sport as men.
Their "reasoning" was: If unequal numbers of men and women sign up to play a sport, then the men's team must, in effect, be reduced accordingly. Many men's teams were reduced out of existence.
We went through the same thing down here with Jameis Winston and his alleged “rape” charge. All anyone had to do was read the first three paragraphs of the accuser’s story and it was obvious that she was lying. Now she’s well off, because the University settled. At least, Winston is counter suing for defamation in the lawsuit, she brought against him. That suit of course, was conveniently filed after he signed his contract with Tampa.
60% of college graduates are now female. Will continue to grow.
Trump does need to clean house. The “Rape Crisis” myth created these draconian rules where the men are always guilty.
Which is a sure sign of just how completely the rapist has her in his power.
Hope he joins in her lawsuit. Good girlfriend. Or rather GREAT girlfriend!
thats why i said the board. the people who made such a horrible decision.
Not true. We do know that he/she is a nosy b@$t@rd/bi+ch. A result of "see something, say something", too.
Who will now get full-ride offers from about seventeen schools...
Say what you will about attorneys; sometimes they come in handy.
The injustice in this system of kangaroo courts is stunning.
This should be ended immediately.
The injustice in this system of kangaroo courts is stunning.
This should be ended immediately.
I hope this guy includes the names of the “brilliant” lunatics who made this decision as defendants in his civil suit. They need to go broke, along with the school, too.
A “convicted sex offender”?
Don’t be so sure.
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