“Why is this even a tiny bit difficult? Anyone who can count to two realizes that two different accusations means two different accusers. Where is the example of the university getting simultaneous accusations, accepting the woman’s accusation and ignoring the man’s accusation, other than your imagination?”
Of course a simultaneous accusation is unlikely to ever happen. It’s a hypothetical to illustrate a point: There has been a shift in culture such that people now presume that the women is “always” the victim and always truthful and that the opposite is the case for the man. After being accused of rape in a situation like the one described in the Occidental case, the man could make the same claim that the woman made that he had non-consensual sex because he was intoxicated, but given how the school decided even when his only claim was that it wasn’t rape, I doubt an accusation by him either before or after the woman’s claim would have been taken as seriously as her accusation.
@Darthelmet wrote “Innocent until proven guilty: It’s the LAW”.
Only kindasorta, in these cases. Universities operate under different rules than the criminal court system—for one big difference (and germane to this discussion), criminal courts are required to operate under a “beyond a shadow of a doubt” standard, while universities are required to operate under a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. As a result, it’s entirely reasonable for someone to be found innocent in a criminal court, but still be subject to university sanctions for the same offense.
As others have pointed out, colleges do have jurisdiction over their students’ off-campus behavior—and in fact, for some types of cases (including sexual assault), colleges are actually required to react to their students’ off-campus behavior if it’s brought to their attention.
What are North Carolina’s laws on rape? Some states explicitly define sexual assault as an act only a man can perpetrate. If NC is one of those, Title IX certainly would lead to an interesting state-federal legal conflict of the sort the Supreme Court gets called in for.
It’s a hypothetical that proves nothing. If a guy accused a woman, then… then what? Then, you say without any evidence, just pulling the story out of your ****, his accusation would be dismissed. And that proves that the system is unfair to men. In your imagination.
Maybe the system is unfair to men, but an imaginary case where an imaginary man was mistreated is not going to convince anyone.
The system is unfair to men, AND THEREFORE if a man made an accusation against a woman it would be dismissed, AND THEREFORE the system is unfair to men. Nice reasoning there.
Michigan should if they were Michigan student organizations. At CU, even if the initial meeting happened at a fraternity house, the fraternity was not a student organization. If the party had taken place at the YMCA or a church group, should the university investigate and take action just because the two involved also happen to be students? Shouldn’t things that happen in a private home or club be up to the rules of that club or the city police?
I don’t know what happened in Alaska. Was it a school activity? If not, then I think no, the school shouldn’t have rules about that. If a student gets a DUI when on spring break at his home, does the school then have a hearing to decide his additional punishment on campus, especially if there was no criminal conviction (I understand some honor codes may require a student to report criminal convictions)?
It’s a bogus story folks!
Meant to get everyone riled up over how society is over reacting to women’s complaints of rape without good cause. it is bogus.
@Cardinal Fang
“but given how the school decided even when his only claim was that it wasn’t rape, I doubt an accusation by him either before or after the woman’s claim would have been taken as seriously as her accusation.”
The scenario I was arguing about was a slight stretch based on a fairly reasonable assumption that arose out of the actual events of the case we are discussing. The facts as we know them are this: The school knew both of them were drunk, but decided that the burden fell on the man to gain consent. He was punished, she wasn’t. It isn’t a total fantasy to assume that had he been the accuser that there wouldn’t have been a similar result if he can’t even convince them that he wasn’t entirely at fault.
The link and quote momrath provided about Duke is a more explicit demonstration of this.
“In that case, presumably, “they have raped each other and are subject to expulsion.” Not so, stated Wasiolek: “Assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of the male to gain consent before proceeding with sex.””
I’ll concede that when discussing a serious issue like this, it doesn’t help to divert the discussion with hypothetical. But this is real and this happens.
Anyway, I think I’m going to withdraw from this discussion before we get bogged down by semantics. I’ve said what I needed to say even if I didn’t say it all that well.
Are we talking about Occidental? The university must decide the case before it. She accused him of having sex with her without her consent. The question before them was, did he have sex with her without her consent? They weren’t asked to decide whether she had sex with him without his consent. Maybe they would have decided that, if they had been asked to decide that, but they weren’t. She accused him, so they had to find out if he was guilty.
The burden was also on her to gain consent. But we don’t know whether she did or she did not, because he did not accuse her so that question was never before them.
I agree that Wasiolek at Duke did not answer the question as I would have. But again, she was not addressing a case where a man accused a woman of having sex with him without his consent. And whichever party is “proceeding” with sex needs to get the other one’s consent. In the case Wasiolek was addressing, the accused guy used enough force that that the accuser sought medical attention, so one might be justified in concluding that he was the one that was proceeding and she the one proceeded upon, which is what she alleged.
That is incorrect. It is beyond a reasonable doubt, and those are very different things. Beyond a shadow of a doubt means 100% certainty. That is almost always impossible. Beyond a reasonable doubt means exactly what it says, what 12 reasonable people (or a judge) decides means that the evidence could not be interpreted any other way by an intelligent person and/or by common sense. Many cases are decided on circumstantial evidence, which almost never means zero doubt. Just that the odds of another explanation of the circumstances is so unlikely that the person is guilty.
@lostaccount
Do you have evidence or proof of this, or is that just your opinion?
Darthelmet,
if you found the earlier poster not worthy of people’s times and that posters were silly to interact with that person and that the thread was deteriorating and stuck on some less than important topic, why did you choose to participate?
As an aside, there are different criteria for civil vs criminal matters-- reasonable doubt (criminal) vs preponderance of the evidence (civil).
It’s not always a jury of 12, and not all states have the same standards or requirements. Some only require 8 of 12 jurors to agree, some don’t seat a jury of 12. Universities investigating matters can set their own standards, their own rules of evidence and representation (lawyers allowed or not allowed)
But why would the male claim be perceived as retaliatory and not the female’s claim? I think the point of the author was that you can’t make presumptions at the onset of these things especially if both have been drinking.
It would be viewed as retaliatory because he made it after being accused: that’s what I meant by counter claim.
And I also think that since those adjudicating and investigating these cases seem to buy into the idea that a female has no responsibility for her own actions, and a drunk woman cannot consent, no matter what, that his claim would have a snowball’s chance in hell.
It seems to me, @Consolation, that you are theorizing far in advance of the evidence. Have you got examples of men accusing women, and the dispositions of these cases?
There are certainly domestic violence cases where men are the victims of women. Who beat up who is easier to prove.
You have to admit there is a very strong societal balance towards men who would report being victims of women, in any way let alone sexual assault, being labeled as liars, wimps or not manly at the very least. Look at all the comments page regarding boys being targeted by teachers (latest case was 14 and 15 year old boys), like “good for him!”. It’s like some people are applauding the youths for not having to pay for it! Some people have no perception of the possibility of men, even below legal age boys, being victims as opposed to beneficiaries of sexual advances.
Of course, male-male rape is totally different, and those same commenters would be outraged if the exact same thing happened to the boys except the teacher was male.
There are a few cases of male rape reported anecdotally, but going from anecdotal to actually filing charges is much more difficult. Think about how difficult it is for a woman to get rape charges filed, and then multiply all the pushback she gets a hundred fold: “why didn’t you fight him off?” (male cases more likely to be by a supervisor or teacher, fearing repercussions) “how do we you know you didn’t start the sexual activity?” (for a guy? who would believe him?).
There are a lot of women under 5’3" tall and under 150 lbs., and there are few men who are under 5’6" tall and under 170 lbs. That’s an automatic difference, now you start putting in qualities like athletes (males likely to be 6’ tall or more, and 200 lbs. or more) or rich guys (studies show that richer guys tend to be taller), and chances are, the average man in college is 170 lbs. and the average woman 120 lbs., and height difference is 6" or more.
I think the potential for fighting off someone who is 6" shorter than you and 50 lbs. less than you is a lot higher than the reverse situation. And too many movies (especially old movies) imply that “only bad girls don’t push away a lover” and “good girls have to fight a little before they give in”. Trouble is, there is no option for not giving in, in the movies.