<p>It really depends on the kid. I have one who is sensible, level-headed and all kinds of pleasant. She didn’t need any warnings. I have another who can be very, very unpleasant and difficult. She needed many warnings about how she treated people and how she could be perceived. I think it’s about knowing your kid and making the best decision for him or her. I’m not a fan at all of letting kids go off to college without some guidance. </p>
<p>My 85-year-old mother still gives me lots of warnings. Maybe I need them.</p>
<p>My oldest was far too trusting and probably still is. I texted her every evening of her first semester the warnings. </p>
<p>I just didn’t want her to “forget” one night. Plus, she was my oldest.</p>
<p>My youngest is tough as nails. I feel sorry for anyone who tries to mess with her or her friends. It took a lot of work to make sure she didn’t become a “mean girl,” but instead a compassionate young woman. </p>
<p>so far so good. But kids are different.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son. I’m sure he will do very well, but nobody knows better than the mom.</p>
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<p>As my oldest says to me now, “I’m smiling and nodding and smiling and nodding. Can we move on now?”</p>
<p>“Just one more thing…” haha.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, your daughters sound remarkably like mine. I wonder if it’s a birth order thing.</p>
<p>It could be. I could see that.</p>
<p>One of my never-been-in-trouble male students is looking to join a big frat scene in college. (Michigan, USC, etc.) I told him about my other student who was expelled after an alcohol-related sexual assault accusation. He was shocked; he had no idea that you can be subject to severe school discipline even if there is no criminal case. I have no reason to think he’d ever hurt anyone, but it can only be a good thing to give young men an additional, self-interested reason to look for sober sex partners.</p>
<p>^^I think it’s a good idea to make the guys aware. I think until they have experienced the bias or known someone who experienced being a victim of the guilty if male system, They have no clue that a woman can change her mind one day, one week or one year later and claim there was no consent. For guys it’s all in the moment and if some girl is aggressive toward them, climbs into bed with them or is hanging all over them or grinding away, they will interpret that as consent time and time again. 80% of the time there might be no problem, but no one wants to be in the 20% that are victims of false accusations.** All they need to know is what can happen if they aren’t careful - pretty much the same message we’d give the girls - IMO the message should be gender neutral because it’s all the same, don’t drink too much, don’t go off with someone whose been drinking, don’t crawl into bed with someone without clear consent, we’ve repeated the messages time and time again.</p>
<p>**The statistic is oft used by the Innocence Project, published rates of false accusation run from a low of 2% reported by feminist organizations to a high of 40% cited by some men’s organization - I chose the middle ground of 20% false reports used often by Innocence Project because of course women’s groups will use the lowest possible number to bolster their rape numbers and men’s advocacy groups will use the highest number to bolster their false rape numbers.</p>
<p>Regardless of what number you use, every false accusation that makes it into the news makes it that much harder for real victims to receive justice. And in the last year there has been a rash of male generated lawsuits against the colleges something that was virtually un-reported before the Dear Colleague Letter. For this very reason I think it is laws like California is considering are harmful. They are harmful to women because the colleges and unis will simply be picking up more false accusations of sexual misconduct surrounding the gray area of consent and they are harmful to men because being charged with sexual misconduct is equally traumatic with a whole lot less supports in place by the colleges and universities. </p>
<p>I want to clarify done things about Title IX, schools’ sexual misconduct codes, the “Dear Colleague” letter, and criminal statutes that apply to sexual battery, sexual assault and rape.</p>
<p>Each state has criminal statutes that outlaw certain sexual crimes. The precise elements vary from state to state. When Romani and others say they encourage victims to call the police, they are invoking criminal procedure. Police investigate and prosecutors prosecute crimes – violations of the criminal statutes. They do not investigate violations of the civil laws, like torts, or violations of university conduct codes. </p>
<p>Title IX contains federal statutes that govern the behavior of educational institutions that receive federal funding – basically all colleges and universities (as well as other school). Title IX, among other things, requires schools to protect students against sexual harassment. This language has been interpreted to require schools to take action to protect students against sexual violence. </p>
<p>The Department of Education is responsible for implementing Title IX, i.e. Promulgating regulations that flesh out the requirements in the statute. The Department may also issue informal interpretations that do not have the force of law. </p>
<p>The “Dear Colleague” letter that momofthreesons refers to is an informal letter from the department of education encouraging schools (to the extent they haven’t already done so), to develop conduct codes and procedures to protect students against sexual harassment, including sexual violence, by other students. It tells the schools that the conduct code should include provisions to attempt to prevent assaults against students who are incapacitated (as that word is defined in the law) because of alcohol or drug intoxication. The letter says that it is the Department if Education’s view that if schools do not promulgate and enforce conduct codes the school can be liable for violations of Title IX because they may be found to be “deliberately indifferent” to the sexual harassment occurring on college campuses. </p>
<p>While the school’s conduct codes have to meet a minimum standard to meet Title IX, some schools have adopted conduct codes that go beyond Title IX. To give an extreme example, I believe (but may be wrong) that BYU’s conduct code bars all homosexual activity. (Just to be clear: I find BYU’s conduct code to be abhorrent). I believe Pepperdine’s may bar all consensual sex between unmarried students on campus, etc.</p>
<p>Some schools MAY have adopted conduct codes barring all sex between drunken students, regardless of incapacitation. I don’t know if they do or not.,I checked University of Michigan’s and Michigan State’s, and they do not go that far. Instead, their conduct codes adopt the “incapacitation” standard.</p>
<p>To put these conduct codes in perspective,I believe all schools have conduct codes that bar underage drinking on campus.</p>
<p>A school can bring an administrative action to discipline a student for a violation of the school’s conduct code. This a hearing conducted by the school itself. This is not the same as a criminal proceeding. Many many things that violate the conduct code – violations of academic honor codes, for example – do not violate criminal law.</p>
<p>As with most civil proceedings, a preponderance of the evidence standard generally applies in school’s administrative proceedings. That is still a hard standard to meet. There has to be evidence, and that evidence myst outweigh the evidence presented by the other side. </p>
<p>The police do not investigate violations of university conduct codes. In some instances, the same act that is a violation of a conduct code is also a crime. Again, police would investigate alleged conduct that would be a crime if proved.</p>
<p>In the lawsuits that have recently been filed, the courts will have to interpret the term “sexual harassment” in Title IX to determine exactly what schools are supposed to be protecting against. The courts may accept or reject the standard set forth in the dear colleague letter. </p>
<p>I have explained all this here because I think there is some confusion about these varying standards. </p>
<p>There is definitely confusion about varying standards.</p>
<p>I also want to make a point about non-consensual sex surveys and how those statistics intersect with the concept of false accusations.</p>
<p>Statistics about unreported sexual assaults are often based on anonymous surveys in which respondents are asked whether they’ve ever had “non-consensual sex.” The question is specifically designed to encompass situations that felt non-consensual to the respondent. </p>
<p>Note that criminal laws and misconduct codes necessarily must take into account the state of mind of the initiator. If the initiator has a REASONABLE, GOOD FAITH BELIEF that there was consent, then there is no violation. </p>
<p>In deciding whether to REPORT an incident, the recipient of the sexual advances PROPERLY TAKES INTO ACCOUNT those circumstances that lead her partner to believe there was consent, even if, in her heart, she didn’t really want to do it. So, for example, if a husband wheedles his wife into having sex when she is tired but she goes along with it just to get him to shut up, there was no sexual assault and nothing to report.</p>
<p>However, a woman RESPONDING TO AN ANONYMOUS SURVEY is free to rely fully on her own subjective experience in answering a survey question. A woman who doesn’t really want to have sex but doesnt resist and never says no may feel that she did not fully consent and is free to answer “yes” on a survey re non-consensual sex. A woman who goes to bed early and is then awoken by her husband and is gaving sex before she’s thought things through may conclude, that to her, the encounter was non-consensual and answer yes on the anonymous survey question.</p>
<p>Those may be entirely proper answers, even though no sexual assault occurred in those situations.</p>
<p>In addition, and importantly, answering yes to an anonymous survey question is NOT the equivalent of a “false” accusation. There’s no accusation. It is an anonymous report of subjective feelings.</p>
<p>Because of all this, I think it is important to take the sexual assault AND false accusation figures with a grain of salt. </p>
<p>I want to note that I’m a woman who is a moderately liberal democrat. I consider myself a strong feminist. I have a daughter, no sons (although I’m very clise to my college-aged nephews). I’ve devoted hundreds of hours of my professional career, pro bono, on women’s rights and women’s health issues, and gay rights issues. I think this is important to note because the views on these issues do not necessarily break down along political lines. </p>
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<p>In at least the cases where males have filed suit, the only hard “evidence”–usually texts, emails, and so forth–would seem to be exculpatory, and that evidence was apparently ignored. Even when the evidence was gathered by the school’s own investigators, as in the Occidental case. The rest of the “evidence” is usually he said/she said testimony.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we have something like the Hobart and William Smith case where the panel ignored real, professional medical evidence of rape and did not even bother to get easily-obtainable DNA samples that would have proven whether some, at least, of the accused had lied about having sexual contact with the young woman. </p>
<p>I don’t see much evidence that there has to be any evidence at all. And it only seems to become a difficult standard to meet if the accused are football players valuable to the team. At least not in the hands of SOME of the administrators/professors/students who are delegated to make these decisions. Therein may lie the problem. Decisions are being left to a motley collection of activists conducting witch hunts, defenders of the status quo, and well-meaning individuals who don’t seem to have the faintest idea what they are doing. </p>
<p>That’s a pretty good description notelling. Even more importantly, people need to understand that students are not required to report sexual assault and rape to the police, although many colleges encourage it. Any recourse or dispute with the colleges after the fact becomes a civil trial. Some of these civil cases are wending their way through the courts right now. Some of the trials are claims that Title IX was not fairly applied, some of the claims are that due process was not followed, some of the claims are that the colleges own judicial process was not followed - many shades of claims. Some of these trials have already ended with out of court settlements and media gag orders between the colleges/universities and the plaintiff and the rest are in preliminary stages.</p>
<p>On top of all of that hot mess, the Department of Justice is “investigating” at least 60 colleges and universities to see if they handled sexual assault and rape claims appropriately. It is in this environment that the California lawmakers decided to “step-in”…</p>
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nottelling, you provide a lot of very good information. However, the quote above isn’t really true. Many, and maybe most, colleges do not apply the preponderance of the evidence standard to disciplinary proceedings. It is usually something less than beyond a reasonable doubt, often something along the lines of clear and convincing. The DOE letter instructed colleges that they must employ the preponderance of the evidence standard in cases of sexual assault–and there are now some campuses that apply that standard to sexual assault cases, but a more exacting standard to other types of cases. I’ve posted (at length) before on why I think the preponderance of the evidence standard is the wrong one to use in any case with potential serious punishment, so I won’t rehash that here.</p>
<p>I agree, momofthreeboys, with your important clarification.</p>
<p>Hunt, I’ll defer to you on the usual standard of proof that applies to administrative disciplinary proceedings on college campuses. I don’t practice administrative law. My point was just that preponderance of the evidence is the standard that often applies in civil litigation. I’ll take your word on the standard that normally applies in disciplinary proceedings and will look for your prior posts on yr view as to what the standard should be. </p>
<p>Well, historically, schools have mostly discouraged reporting to the police and have failed to apply any kind of standards at all to their own “investigations”. </p>
<p>At this point, more than anything, some real standards are necessary. I’m sure we will arrive at reasonable standards in good time, but for decades, the main goal of campus administrators has been to ignore or cursorily examine rape claims while getting the accuser to just shut up and go away. </p>
<p>These are the DOJ cases. It will be illuminating to see how that all shakes out. </p>
<p>Thank you very much for the explanation.</p>
<p>The crux of the issue, in my opinion, is in these three lines:</p>
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<p>Taken together these quotes really say that the schools must follow whatever interpretation the DOE deems correct (at the time) because the DOE determines liability for violations. What I find troubling is this is not a legal standard; it is political standard. This explains the inconsistency of college tribunals based on the temperature of the day at the DOE, as interpreted by each tribunal. In cases as serious as sexual assault and rape, I think it is a severe disservice to a society that is ruled by law when the political sets the judicial standard via administrative law, which, by definition, is always a moving standard. A civil society, to function properly, should be able to depend on the consistency of its laws, else it essentially has no law. And if a law is to be changed, the proper legislative process that involves debate and voting is what should be done to give the law the highest level of legitimacy possible.</p>
<p>One such political standard is the arbitrary call to increase the number of convictions and thus is totally independent of whatever the facts are in any of the cases. i.e., whatever the cases brought, there must be an increase. And since the DOE politically determines what is a violation and also distributes federal education money, the schools’ (specifically, the less wealthy schools more dependent on federal dollars) data better comport with what the political determination is as to what is the the proper number of convictions. I find that troubling because that is not a judicial standard, but a political standard of the worst kind - a standard that is held over one’s head based on the receipt of money. Therefore, if money is to be received, right or wrong is essentially regulated a back seat to political expediency. That is not a fair standard, in the least, to any person accused.</p>
<p>As to interpretations not having the force of law is Washington speak for “It does have the force of law, if you want this money.” This is why is I do find the administrative law state not a good thing and this is a perfect example as to why. I see this in business all the time and it is the silliest thing. One year the law is this, the next year we are illegal, the following year it is OK again etc. Happened six or seven times this year alone. Only people who do not have to pay the costs of inconsistency would even function like this. And this goes for both business and public policy. But, I understand there is a limit here as well in that schools, if they see themselves on the losing end of cases brought because of rights violations, will not jeopardize their endowments and existence to favor the DOE. </p>
<p>Again, thanks for the information.</p>
<p>Thanks. I don’t know enough about how Title IX’s been enforced to comment on that part of your post, but I totally agree with you on the moving targets involved with regulatory “guidelines.” Compared to the “standards” imposed by the tort system, however, the regulatory landscape looks crystal clear. (I’m talking about the business context here, which is the context I know best.)</p>
<p>Totally off topic, but to your point: what about when the agency charged with implementing a statute issues “guidelines” saying, “We think xyz is perfectly legal. Go ahead and do xyz.” Client does xyz and then gets slapped with a class action lawsuit. Court then says, “We think the agency got it wrong and xyz really is illegal under the very statute that the agency is charged with interpreting.” Happens all the time. </p>
<p>Forgive the business law digression and carry on!</p>
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<p>I don’t understand why this is even an issue. When someone has committed a crime against you, take it to the police and/or courts. This is something we as little kids. It’s just suddenly forgotten in college years and then remembered after college? I don’t get it. </p>
<p>Rape is an incredibly traumatic crime. The students, away from home for the first time, go to the school for advice and for decades have been ill advised. Schools are motivated to keep rape numbers low. </p>