This is a relatively new concept. I have two college housemates who married profs (and are still married thirty some years later). The age of majority for making decisions regarding sex is well below the age of 21. I “get” that there can be a conflict of interest with that individual student in terms of fairness in grading to others, and if a campus makes a rule…just like sometimes businesses make rules prohibiting two employees from dating each other, that is one thing, but to presume that it’s somehow against some law or the federal government needs to sweep it into Title IX or hurts others, I’m not totally convinced of that aspect although I can see the issue and having a 20 year old wait a couple years until graduation to have an affair with a prof isn’t that huge a hardship.
I do find it odd that it is Laura Kupris the students were upset with. She’s pretty strongly anti-rape and feminist. And to some extent I see “trigger warning” as somewhat antithetical to the basic concepts of higher education - might fly in a technical education but many classes are about explorations of philosophies, concepts and ideas. But, I think there is a large percentage of students for whom education is a commodity item, something they “have” to do before they make money rather than the life of the mind, pure joy of discussions and dialogue and debate.
I just don’t believe that most of the boys involved are sexual predators or that the girls involved are “bad girls,” two humiliating labels that tend to attach themselves to boys and girls who find themselves in these situations. I think the majority of the students involved are probably decent kids who sadly make serious mistakes under the influence of alcohol, the consequences of which could affect them for the rest of their lives. I think as adults we should be looking at the main causes of the problems, the most obvious of which is alcohol, rather than trying to tease out exactly what happened in each of these very fuzzy scenarios of he-said/she-said, when even the parties involved often aren’t totally clear on what happened, due to being intoxicated. Of course any accusation of rape must be taken seriously, but there would be a lot fewer incidents if alcohol wasn’t a factor, and they would be much more clear-cut and easy to prosecute fairly.
The whole discussion of alcohol (and other behavioral risk factors for sexual assault) is problematic, as a handful of college presidents/provosts/such have discovered lately—any mention of what someone can do along those lines to reduce risk often gets perceived as a “blame the victim” approach, and gets objected to vociferously.
I understand the reaction—such discussions have, after all, been used to blame victims in the past, both directly and indirectly. (You know, “If only s/he hadn’t drunk so much, this wouldn’t have happened.”) Even well-meaning attempts have been misused in such ways. Unfortunately, that’s been done so often that the door to discussing sensible risk-reduction methods seems to have been closed off in the reaction to the reaction, and that’s IMO a big problem.
Chris17mom: last month many of us read “Missoula” by Jon Krakauer, at dstark’s recommendation. If you haven’t already, maybe you would be interested. It deals with many of the issues you are raising. Also, there’s a thread on it.
90% of all campus assaults occur when one or both of the kids have been drinking. Repeat. 90%. Alcohol is THE date rape drug.
Guys and gals with a high BAC both act in ways that they never would act at a moderate or lower BAC. That’s a fact. 80+% of college kids drink. That’s also a fact.
Problem for colleges is that the 21 drinking age prevents them and their localities from trying out the most obvious and reasonable regulations of alcohol. Because federal law says it must be completely banned, then every campus is supposed to be BYU. Good luck with that.
Like they say on SportsCenter, “you can’t stop the drinking, you can only hope to contain it.” But because federal law requires that the drinking must be stopped, the colleges can’t do things that would contain it.
My solution is to make the beer/wine drinking age the December 31 of the year in which you turn 18. Booze stays at 21. Colleges ban and aggressively enforce a strict no booze policy (a la Dartmouth). So pretty much no HS kids are legal drinkers. Pretty much all college kids are beer/wine legal drinkers after they get through the red zone of first semester. Since beer/wine are now permitted, colleges can openly and reasonably regulate their use by students (while also banning the hard stuff).
Only reason not to do that is the effect such a policy may have on drinking and driving. That is a tough call/trade-off.
Unfortunately dfbdfb there is truth to the statement. “We” just need to decide if women are so weak they can NEVER assume any degree of fault no matter what they are doing and need legal protections because it’s always men raping women or we put on our big boy and big girl pants and understand that sometimes it’s not rape and we get the colleges and universities out of the way of investigation and due process and let our existing systems decide if the behavior is illegal. As a women I’ll never stand still for regressing to being considered a protected class because I’m a female.
Only what happened to me! We were both drunk, and we were both otherwise decent kids, and I do not believe it would have happened had alcohol not been involved. I definitley don’t want to blame the victims, because I’m a female and I was in that position, so I really do get it!
Sorry, but I do believe this is true…it’s just that I believe it applies equally to the boys and girls, and that it isn’t about women’s weakness or victim blaming. I think that both girls and guys are making a huge mistake by getting drunk and then randomly getting sexual with each other, there is just so much potential for miscommunication, mistakes, regret, and even later accusations. Of course getting sexual with each other under those circumstances is as natural and as predictable as rain, so there is really no place for judging or shaming them for it, in my view. I would just like to educate and inform them so that they hopefully will navigate this stuff more successfully, without some awful incident being seared into their hearts, their self-esteem, and their permanent records. And to me, the adults involved have a huge responsibility to eliminate or limit the enormous problem of binge drinking by college students. Its the big white elephant in the room here, as far as I’m concerned. I think @northwesty is on the right track, trying to come up with some reasonable solution…
Actually, if the vast majority of college rapes involve alcohol, then a lot of them probably are fuzzy encounters, bordering on date-rape. The general category of drunk sexual improprieties is going to be very murky stuff. What is the rape rate on dry campuses? That’s your control, since sober rape is going to be more pre-meditated and clear cut.
Have not read it yet, but I plan to. I’m a fan of Krakauer anyways, and this topic is sure timely!
From @dstark’s post #1036 RE Stanford policy. This seems key to me in addressing the “But what if they were both drunk?” questions, intoxicated “regret sex” issue, and the like.
“Incapacitation is not the same as legal intoxication.”
I think people are misreading the effect of “If only s/he hadn’t drunk so much, this wouldn’t have happened”. (And note, when I brought it up, the quotation marks could also reasonably be read as scare quotes.)
The problem is that you can say it isn’t equivalent to victim-blaming, and I suspect that the majority of the time it isn’t intended as such, but it doesn’t matter whether it is or not—it has been turned into victim-blaming often enough that the reaction that holds it suspect is justified.
The problem is when that objection leads to a shutdown of discussion of solutions—and unfortunately, that’s done by all sides, not just those who are objecting to the victim-blaming.
The victim-blaming vs. risk reduction conundrum is difficult. I was bemused a bunch of pages ago when there was a discussion of why anybody would send their daughter to a college with a 1 in 8 risk of being raped–and some of the folks who believe that the stats really are that high said that they’d feel OK sending their daughter to such a college because her behavior (i.e., non-drinking, non-partying) reduced the risk to her. This seemed, to me, to come full circle in terms of arguments. It also occurred to me that if the 1 in 8 number is true, but that women who don’t drink and/or party have a much lower risk–then what is the real risk to those who do drink and party? It would be astronomical.
"Daughter, be careful when you drink. If you drink a lot and get very drunk, you could be the victim of a rapist. Also, you could make decisions about sex that you’d later regret.’ == Fine advice for a daughter.
“Son, be careful when you drink. If you drink a lot and get very drunk and then have sex, you could be the victim of a false rape accusation. Also, you could make decisions you later regret: you could rape someone because you intentionally ignored their clear non-consent, you could be so drunk that you missed their clear non-consent, you could have consensual sex with someone you would not be interested in when you were sober.” == UNFAIR! UNFAIR! We shouldn’t have to tell our sons this!!!
It’s not fair that a guy could be falsely accused of rape. But then, it’s also not fair that a young woman could be raped. Life isn’t fair, and we should be honest in telling our kids about the risks of drinking.
I definitley don’t want to blame the victims, because I’m a female and I was in that position, so I really do get it!