<p>“Rape leaves evidence consensual sex does not leave.”</p>
<p>This isn’t always true.</p>
<p>I know, Hanna. As soon as I wrote that I knew I should qualify it. Let me rephrase: Rape frequently leaves evidence consensual sex does not.</p>
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<p>Binge drinking on campuses is highly correlated with higher sexual assault rates.</p>
<p>Greek culture is highly correlated with binge drinking. From the Harvard College Alcohol Study:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/What-We-Learned-08.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/What-We-Learned-08.pdf</a></p>
<p>And here is research on the “rape-supportive” moral disengagement among fraternity members.</p>
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<p>This is incredibly important.</p>
<p>It’s generally a bad idea to enter into ANY kind of verbal agreement with someone who’s too impaired to know what they’re doing - it can always come back and bite you on the [—]! But when the agreement is “yes, it’s okay to have sex,” the repercussions can be even more serious. It’s not a risk worth taking.</p>
<p>And, yes, that applies to all genders.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the president is taking appropriate steps to reform their internal processes. Do note that her letter states that she had already identified Title IX as an area in need of improvement and had already retained an outside expert to investigate and assess the college’s procedures. Also note that she was not the president when these events transpired.</p>
<p>I fail to understand what the police would do if called in at this point, as some early posters seem to think they should be. They could have investigated the original rape, if the student had reported it. What crime would they be investigating now? </p>
<p>I found it interesting that the new procedures added a “trained investigator” to the disciplinary process. That sounds like a good idea. As to why it doesn’t seem to include calling the police…I think that is a mistake. But I also think that it is likely that the college wants to be able to discipline students who would be unlikely to have a case brought against them in the criminal system, such as the boy in the case cited by M’s Mom.</p>
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<p>Person or female? I thought that I understood from earlier discussions that this varies by state?</p>
<p>Person. Nobody can consent to sex when they are intoxicated. </p>
<p>But, in this girls story there is no mention of alcohol, and it was actually the morning, and she was woken up to this. Lovely.</p>
<p>At any rate, the alcohol question always comes up, as if it is the only thing that ever happens. It is not.</p>
<p>I suppose that it varies from state to state, but no state I have ever lived in or my kids have gone to school in, so far, says that an intoxicated person is capable of consenting tosex. In every case I have familiarity with, sex with an intoxicated individual is considered to be nonconsensual. Men can’t perform when they are passed out, just to put a finer point on it. I have actually only heard of ruffies being given to a few gay men. </p>
<p>My personal concern is not with school “policy” which in every way, regarding almost every law, tends to be MORE Lax than state law, but with the legal ramifications, as I would ensure the police were involved and attorneys engaged to protect my D’s rights, immediately.</p>
<p>“Men can’t perform when they are passed out, just to put a finer point on it.”</p>
<p>So does this mean the girl has to be passed out to be considered intoxicated and unable to give consent? </p>
<p>And what if a girl accuses a boy, but doesn’t call the local police, just notifies the school? Can the boy call the police to protect his rights?</p>
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<p>This is what she wrote:</p>
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<p>I think it is quite clear that she is saying that she wakes up in the night, reliving the experience. I think that it is also pretty clear that she was in HIS room, which is why his roommates were on the other side of the door.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter where she was, though. Going to his room did not equate to consent to have sex, as we know we would all agree.</p>
<p>Nor was there any mention of alcohol. That only came up in the context of M’s Mom’s story. </p>
<p>What is clear is that this guy picked out a vulnerable target, as they so often do. I would not be surprised to learn that he had a number of other victims, and it is all too likely that he has continued to act in this way after graduating.</p>
<p>Regarding story related by M’s Mom:</p>
<p>" In this case, both parties had been drinking, and both had previously had sexual relations with each other. On this particular occasion, the girl reported she was raped the next day. The boy said she had consented - but acknowledged they were both drunk. The school acted without hesitation - he was gone. The sexual assault policy at that school was very clear: If she can’t give consent (because she’s too drunk or otherwise incapacitated), it’s sexual assault."</p>
<p>I don’t see that they got it right, based on the report of the case…according to which:
Both boy and girl were drunk.
Therefore, girl can’t consent!???
But, boy is responsible for verifying extent of girl’s drunkenness in order to judge whether her assent is truly assent???</p>
<p>How can this work fairly? How can you say that person a, being drunk, can’t be assumed to be a good judge of whether or not s/he wants sex, but person b, being drunk, must be a good judge of whether or not person a is too drunk to be giving consent?</p>
<p>Williams College addresses “mutually incapacitated sexual intercourse” whether vaginal, oral or anal as a conduct violation apparently for both involved.</p>
<p>Seems that is fair and would go a long way to disincentivize excessive drinking by having both parties suffer the consequences of drunk sex.</p>
<p>You know, this hasn’t turned out to be a problem. Prosecutors have wide discretion regarding whether to charge or not, and they know they have to win cases beyond reasonable doubt. They can charge with forcible rape, rape, violent sexual assault, sexual assault, assault and battery, and a whole array of misdemeanors. These hypotheticals don’t turn out to have much life in them, and the vast majority of cases are pled down.</p>
<p>^^This…and then we expect an administrative group not trained in legal or police work to ascertain guilt…I’d still counsel a girl (or a boy to protect his right from false accusation) to call the police before I’d tell either a girl or a boy to “go to the college administration.”</p>
<p>The Williams policy is interesting. If one or the other party doesn’t want to take it to the police that goes to the heart of filing a credible complaint and I can understand why a college might have a policy or simply asking both parties to leave.</p>
<p>MOTB–I think that is a great idea. Counsel all males and females who have sex while both are drunk to go to the police asap and make a report. </p>
<p>At Williams I guess making that police report is an admission that the reporting person (“I was drunk”) has engaged in one half of a conduct violation.</p>
<p>The college does not have to ascertain guilt or innocence of a particular charge. They only have to decide whether a student’s continued presence is conducive to the life of the institution, and if so, what sanctions might be appropriate.</p>
<p>The prosecutor, on the other hand, has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It is more likely that the local police/prosecutor will drop a charge, or fail to investigate, or accept a plea down than the college will. If you take a place like my alma mater (Williams) where there were 41 women raped (some more than once - and using the definition found in Massachusetts law) and several men as well, and hundreds of sexual assaults, the police department would be overwhelmed, and I expect even fewer women would experience justice than those satisfied by the four male students expelled.</p>
<p><a href=“http://president.williams.edu/letters-from-the-president/on-sexual-assault-at-williams/[/url]”>http://president.williams.edu/letters-from-the-president/on-sexual-assault-at-williams/</a>
<a href=“http://williamsrecord.com/2012/02/22/college-reports-stats-on-sexual-assault/[/url]”>http://williamsrecord.com/2012/02/22/college-reports-stats-on-sexual-assault/</a>
<a href=“http://wso.williams.edu/orgs/peerh/sexualassault.html[/url]”>http://wso.williams.edu/orgs/peerh/sexualassault.html</a></p>
<p>M’S Mom - very good point, when you state:</p>
<p>"(I have a son by the way and have made a point of talking to him about this. I want him to understand that not only does ‘no mean no’ but sometimes ‘yes’ doesn’t mean ‘yes’ either.)"</p>
<p>Re legal definitions of alcohol and consent: perhaps people now should be administering breathalyzer tests to their potential sexual partners, as well as HIV and STD tests. </p>
<p>And, of course, a person–male or female–could report that they were drunk the next day, and there would be no means of determining whether they were drunk the night before, or HOW drunk they were the night before.</p>
<p>I would say that the general response would be that making a rape charge is so serious and so unpleasant that it is highly unlikely that someone would do so unless it were true. The second part of that is that there are far more unreported rapes than false accusations. Both of these things seem to be true, but of course that is small comfort if you are the unlucky exception to the rule. </p>
<p>IMHO, what everyone should be focusing on is fostering the kind of innate respect for other humans that would make sexual assault unthinkable. That apparently already holds most people in check.</p>
<p>Doinschool: “why is the boy expected to be responsible but not the girl? And why does the school get to act as judge and jury?”</p>
<p>Had she physically or sexually assaulted him, and he was drunk and unable to consent, than she would be responsible. As it turns out, in very few cases, is it the woman who is sexually assaulting a man – but not impossible.</p>
<p>And the school makes the decision because the school gets to decide who stays enrolled and who is expelled or suspended. This isn’t a jail sentence. If this had been reported to the police, there would indeed be the full legal investigation with possibly a trial. This young man decided he’d rather not go that route.</p>
<p>And I don’t like Williams policy because any girl who has had even a single drink, is automatically going to be deemed guilty of complicity in her own rape. It’s just another step towards suggesting that she’s slut who had it coming. That seems perverse. The fact that someone has had too much too drink doesn’t mean that they should share in the blame if they are raped.</p>
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<p>I surely agree. But, the problem is that alcohol clouds or destroys the “thinking.” In cases where both are drunk both aren’t thinking straight. </p>
<p>Under the Williams discipline policy all parents and all students know up front that drunk sex can get that student booted. Since alcohol is present in a hugh percentage of college sexual encounters and accounts for unsafe sex and morning after remorse the Williams focus is spot on.</p>
<p>As mini noted, the Williams policy allows for a determination:</p>
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<p>A student who gets wasted and has sex with a wasted partner may not be a student that betters the overall college experience. On CC we constantly have threads on sexiling, drunk roommates, dorm disturbances etc. Even if the mutual incapacity takes the crime of sexual assault off the table, Williams may be doing the school and other students a favor to get rid of the student conduct violator(s).</p>
<p>“A student who gets wasted and has sex with a wasted partner may not be a student that betters the overall college experience.”</p>
<p>I wonder what percentage of the student population this covers.</p>
<p>Ignoring the horror, it’s beatifully written.</p>
<p>At this point, “the guy defending himself” with his side of the story does not count. At all. This amount of emotional trauma does not happen when a female misunderstands a consensual experience.</p>
<p>When I was in college (RPI, they should be named), my roommate was arrested. He was going to a party at the football fraternity, pulled up in his car, and saw a girl with no pants crying on their front lawn. She had been raped 11 times inside the fraternity and twice outside. He offered to help her, went in and found her pants and underwear, and offered to call the police. She just wanted to be driven home.</p>
<p>He was arrested for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” for having a 15 year old girl in his car after 11 pm. No one else was charged.</p>
<p>These types of administration coverups have been pervasive. And shame on the rape counselor if it is even half true.</p>