@northwesty wrote: “The Feds should never have butted into this, and they really should now butt out. OCR’s efforts are making things worse not better.”
There’s a line to walk here, though—I am aware of cases where university and state regulators have been more than happy to look the other way when colleges have opted to pretend they don’t have an issue with sexual assault. There really is a need for the occasional Dear Colleague letter, if only to remind the system that it needs to keep its house in order.
I don’t think I did use it. I’m just making the same points I’ve made all along. I see a situation in which bad decisions are almost inevitable, and since I am a strong civil libertarian, I really don’t like bad decisions that punish people who may be innocent. It may be true that tribunals will make just as many wrong decisions exonerating the accused as they do wrong decisions punishing the accused–but that is totally unacceptable to me, since I would rather let ten–no, a hundred–guilty people go free before punishing an innocent person. That’s why we have the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard and all these other protections in criminal cases. The preponderance of the evidence reduces the cases to the moral equivalent of a coin flip–or worse, if there is bias.
@marie1234: Actually, as someone who’s at a college that received a Dear Colleague letter, I can rather emphatically state that that’s not accurate. The primary purpose is to make sure laws aren’t being broken, and the secondary purpose (though not much distant behind the first) to ensure that a consistent process is in place.
What laws? Most of this is not even criminal and if it is there is usually a police department that has jurisdiction. The part about a consistent process seems self-evidentally silly.
dfbdfb, do you have inside knowledge about your college’s disciplinary process as it applies to sexual misconduct? Would you say that at your college, the decisions in murky, he said/she said cases tend to favor the accuser?
Hunt, you referenced momrath’s post. Momrath used the FSU case. I object to using that case.
I object to using all the cases I highlighted. Those cases don’t help your arguments.
The way it has worked in the past is the women’s cases were thrown in the trash. Women were encouraged to not pursue the cases.
It was extremely difficult for women to pursue cases. When women did pursue cases, the playing field was very slanted against women. I am hoping changes will make the playing field a little less slanted.
Because the accuser has to prove her case, the playing field should not be level.
Maybe the preponderance standard will level the field too much. If this is true, find better examples and pursue changes to raise the standard.
Even the Oxy example, there were quite a few guys worried about Jane Doe. There were guys who kept their eyes on her. Guys thought she was under no condition to say yes.
I do think that the people in charge of those cases (note: we don’t have student or faculty review boards here—it’s entirely done by administrative staff) do make an effort to be balanced, at least the ones I know and have talked to about it. The one thing where there’s a “bias” (wrong word, but I can see how it might be interpreted that way) toward the accuser is that an accuser is entitled to certain student support services (e.g., counseling) as if the accusation is completely accurate. In some cases this is simply because those services are needed before a determination of the validity of the accusation can be made, but there’s also the fact that an accuser is presumably in some sort of crisis no matter the accuracy of the claim.
Well, I don’t claim that every institution does it right (and I’m not sure ours did before we got the Dear Colleague wake-up call)—I mean, I worked at an institution previously where athletics was an outsized presence, and that can create certain tensions, to put it obliquely. That said, I do think most of the people involved in the process are at least trying to do good, you know?
Like @Hunt said, a lack of cynicism, I guess. Heaven knows I’m cynical enough overall, but in this I really do think there’s an attempt to get through things in the right way, even if there is, not just by the nature of the issue but also because of social changes that we’re going through right now, some distinct murkiness. Will things go wrong along the way? Definitely—but I do think we’ll end up with something reasonably robust.
I agree the reaction to momrath was quite harsh, but it is certainly true that there is no real evidence that the balance is actually tipping toward the accusers. The articles we are reading which appear that way may be news because they are so rare. In reality, most women do not bring charges. in the past, most men were not convicted.
The OCR letter, however, is a push toward more convictions and more expulsions, with a lower standard of proof. Some activists do not seem to accept any punishment short of expulsion along with blind faith that the events occurred precisely as put forth by the victim. It seems like some colleges are moving in that direction, which is also not fair. I hope what you are writing dfb is correct - that the schools are working in good faith to do the right thing.
I absolutely think that some colleges in 2012-2014 were presuming guilt, were ignoring or limiting evidence, were tilting toward more convictions and expulsions, were not even following their own written honor code guidelines let alone any guidelines and direction given by Title IX. Note the use of the word “some.” I also think some students got the idea that Title IX had more meaning than it actually has - that it would be a kinder, gentler method to remove someone they didn’t want to see anymore from campus. Granted this is speculative on my part, but if you look at the surge of lawsuits by both accused and accusers this did not occur in a vacuum. By the same token there are many fine colleges and universities that are neither under investigation for procedural violations by the OCR nor are they the focus of civil suits from expelled students saying their civil rights were violated. Given that there are thousands of 4 year residential colleges and probably less than 200 active OCR investigation so civil lawsuits around obviously some colleges/unis are either doing it right, or they have a student body that isn’t having issues.
“There really is a need for the occasional Dear Colleague letter, if only to remind the system that it needs to keep its house in order.”
DFB – I disagree 100%.
We are all much worse off because of the OCR. Bad policy, based on bad data, enacted in a bad way. There is literally nothing good about it. All would be better off if they had not done it. All would be better off if it were simply revoked.
It was and is simply wrong for the OCR to think that this issue is primarily a function of poor adjudication. It has mandated and emphasized a quasi-judicial process that colleges are ill-equipped to run and that all involved (accused, victims, advocates on both sides) think is horrible. If everyone hates the system OCR has mandated, why keep trying to make it work? Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is a failure. As a growing parade of lefty and feminist Ivy League law professors keep pointing out.
College procedures should be secondary to law enforcement, not primary or alternative. Colleges should focus primarily on stuff that actually helps – prevention, intervention, dealing with binge drinking, counseling, dealing with students so that they can continue with their studies.
Disciplining students is a necessary part of that, but the OCR Dear Colleague mandates are only helping plaintiffs lawyers. They haven’t made my college daughters any safer around campus, and they’ve made college more risky for my college son should he ever find himself in the middle of one these drunk sex situations.
“obviously some colleges/unis are either doing it right, or they have a student body that isn’t having issues.”
Isn’t there a third possibility – that at some schools, assault victims know it’s hopeless and don’t waste time complaining?
It’s not a coincidence that the list of schools under investigation was heavily weighted toward well-known, highly selective schools and flagship public universities. A large majority of the four-year universities in this country are directionals. The upward weight of the list is unsurprising partly because the government wants to take action that will get press coverage. Who’s reading the article about an investigation at Southeastern Whoville State? But I believe it is also because Sarah Lawrence victims feel safer speaking up than Whoville State victims do. They come from a more privileged demographic, and they have different expectations of their colleges.
“They come from a more privileged demographic, and they have different expectations of their colleges.”
I believe this is a big part of this whole issue. The focus on college rape (as compared to all rape) necessarily skews the attention and resources to a much more well-to-do demographic. A demo that is more likely to command attention to itself and be able to advocate for itself.
Feels to me like the policy is that assaults against higher SES college women are considered worse and more awful than the assaults against lower SES women not enrolled in college. So the college rape “epidemic” drumbeat gains much momentum from the fact that it is certain kinds of women being assaulted. And not so much from how many assaults there are or what the actual risks (in and out of college) are.
This may sound a bit irrelevant…but when two people are both drunk(male and female) and have a ***,
and if a woman sues for a “rape”, what is the chance that the male is found guilty? Personally I think both parties have faults.
Have to be careful here. While I don’t buy the 1 in 5 stat, I certainly think there is a sexual assault issue on campuses. The rate may not be greater than for non-college students, but it may be higher than it would be for those same college women, if they weren’t at college. Colleges are in the unique position of having students live, work and play within their boundaries and thus creates different responsibilities. The excessive drinking creates an atmosphere that leads to interactions that may end very badly, whether or not they reach the level of sexual assault. Colleges have an obligation to create an atmosphere that is safe for women, and yet not unfair to men.
paul2752, many people do believe that. It is absolutely part of the “issue.” Rape is criminal, drunk sex is not always criminal, nor in my opinion and others, does drunk sex always require punishment of one or both of the participants. In some cases both or one are underage for drinking which is illegal in and of itself and should be a focus. Counseling for both, yes, punishment, not necessarily. Title IX is being interpreted by many colleges as if someone needs punishment no matter what…that someone must be guilty if another person complains and worse yet that men need punishment because they should inherently, by virtue of their special gender powers, gag me, know when women have had too much to drink (in my opinion that is what is occurring at some institutions).