We have real cases.
The Stanford case of a few months ago.
A guy was raping a girl. Two guys saw this. Stopped it. Caught the guy. The guy is arrested. There may be a trial or a settlement. Stanford said to the accused do not step foot on the Stanford campus again.
I think almost everybody would agree this case should be in criminal court. I think most people would agree Stanford did the right thing by banning the guy from campus.
RAINN supports surveys. They want more colleges surveyed. I thnk RAINN wants a uniform survey developed by the government.
RAINN’s position (and mine) is that it is unwise and ineffective to primarily focus efforts on pumping up campus adjudication proceedings. Instead campuses should focus on prevention, risk minimization, supporting victims and supporting law enforcement. Not trying to duplicate or replace law enforcement.
So RAINN pretty fundamentally disagrees with the “Dear Colleague” policy of DOE OCR. As do I.
@momofthreeboys, If you say that RAINN is not silent on proof standards, and how colleges should handle sexual assaults when, let’s say, there is clear and convincing evidence that a student raped another student, but not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, then point me to the page where they talk about it.
as in civil cases? or are you still talking about the Dear Colleague Letter or something else? If the Dear colleague Letter then RAINN supports local police involvement and investigation and increasing student reporting (to local law enforcement).
I’m talking about exactly what I said. RAINN’s position is that a college should " Investigate every claim of sexual assault reported." A case comes to them. The college investigates. They discover clear and convincing evidence that a student raped another student, but the evidence does not rise to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt. The victim reports the evidence to the police, but the police/prosecutor decide not to prosecute. How should the college proceed? If RAINN talks about this issue, please give me a link.
I guess the problem is, I don’t understand how “de-emphasize internal judicial boards” is supposed to be implemented, in practice. Suppose internal judicial boards have been de-emphasized at Stanford. Then, two grad students are bicycling along the lake late at night, and they come upon guy over a woman. He runs away. They find that she is unconscious and undressed below the waist. They apprehend the guy and call the police. The guy, a Stanford student, is arrested, and released on bail.
Now, how is Stanford supposed to proceed? Is that student allowed to remain on campus until his trial, over a year later? If they throw him out, wouldn’t it have to be the (de-emphasized) judicial board making that decision?
The thing I really like about RAINN’s approach is that they are an anti-sexual assault organization. Not an anti-campus sexual assault organization. Which makes so much more sense to me. Campus sexual assault, despite the media spotlight, is just a portion of a much much larger problem.
Right now I have a college student daughter at home for the summer and another daughter who is high school age. Their risk (depending on whose stats you believe) is higher while they are at home than it will be when they return or enroll in college. If they get attacked today, they won’t have any help from any campus based resources.
So the best thing to do would be to improve the system that they have to rely upon before college and after college. And during college too.
In some ways, I find the focus on “campus rape” rather than “rape” inappropriate. First (depending on whose stats you rely on) campus is safer than the rest of the world. Second, it suggests that we don’t really care about the larger number of attacks suffered by the larger number of girls who aren’t enrolled in college. Dear Colleague doesn’t do anything for them. Dear Colleague only helps the more advantaged, higher SES girls. The ones who have the kind of heli parents that post on CC.
I totally agree with you northwesty. I’ve never understood why there is such a push to isolate and treat adult college students different than young adults that aren’t in college. I think colleges and universities can do their part by keeping good Clery records, by educating and by providing resources to support students in crisis. They have been handling honor code violations for many years without national media attention on their decisions. I would think they can handle honor code violations using the very same tools: education, mediation, suspension and in the most egregious cases expulsion without having to set up parallel justice systems and creating processes that aren’t fair because they feel under pressure to raise their reporting numbers or to “take-over” for our current judicial system. There are roughly 100 or so Title IX investigations going on and 70 or so lawsuits by males pending or recently settled. I do not know the breakdown of Title IX investigations that have been pursued by women or the results, but I’m guessing there are more Title IX investigations filed by women than by men so it feels like the numbers of dissatisfied is about equal. The Title IX mandates in theory made sense, but how colleges interpreted them in some cases was nothing but spectacular failure so if anything leaks about these investigations in the coming year perhaps the path will also be clearer. Those investigations are lasting in excess of a year, so in some respects our criminal justice system time from report to completion doesn’t look that bad. I think once you take the responsibility for felony crime off the college tables things will settle down and both men and women will understand the guidelines and colleges will feel more comfortable handling the misconduct as they have handled other campus issues of misconduct and perhaps colleges can focus on the real problem of alcohol abuse on campuses instead who did what to whom.
Did anyone else research the details of this case? From what I can find, the perpetrator said that he kissed the victim, whom he me at a party, and touched her vagina, but did not penetrate her. The witnesses did not see him penetrate her, or see his penis exposed. The police transported her in an unconscious state to the hospital, where she was questioned after coming to. The victim says she does not remember going with him outside the party or anything that happened with him outside. Both were drinking heavily. I have seen references to him being banned in some articles, but most say he voluntarily dropped out of Stanford. He pled not guilty to all five counts. I cannot find any updates on the status of the case.
Adding also that the victim was not a Stanford student. I’m adding this because I think it is relevant to the ongoing safety of victims who might have to share the campus with their attacker. This would not be a concern in the Stanford case, although of course the concern about having a possible rapist roaming free on campus would remain a concern.
“He is charged with one count of rape of an intoxicated person, one count of rape of an unconscious person, one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object of an intoxicated woman, one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object of an unconscious woman and one count of assault with intent to commit rape.”
I would have to assume that they have the evidence to charge him and aren’t just speculating. She wast taken to the hospital after all.
One would hope they have the evidence, saint fan, but I can’t find any references to the evidence anywhere.
He said that he “penetrated her with his hand” but did not intend to rape her. There we go again with a guy not understanding that penetrating a girl with anything while she is unconscious is rape and is just not OK no matter what you call it.
His own statement for one . . .
The police report says he says he “fingered” her vagina. Does “finger” mean penetrate? I don’t know. They do have that in the police report. I don’t know if it is enough evidence to prove a rape occurred.
“The woman, partially naked and lying near a tree and dumpster, was breathing but “completely unresponsive,” a deputy wrote. Her hair was “knotted and completely covered in pine needles.” She was treated at a hospital, where she didn’t regain consciousness for several hours.”
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Ex-Stanford-swimmer-denies-raping-intoxicated-6052212.php
The police report says the perpetrator said the victim was rubbing his back while he touched her.
While she was unconscious? Whatever may have happened back at the party she was out cold when he was seen and apprehended no matter what he says.
Reading the police report: The witnesses said they did not see his penis but they also didn’t say that it wasn’t out at any time. They saw him on top of her thrusting as if he was having sex. The report said that she was tested for AIDS due to the exchange of body fluids. It is possible that he had his “junk” out and put it away before running. still reading . . .