<p>Mandated reporting makes sense to me, but it’s going to stop some victims from coming forward at all. They’re either adults or they’re not. Having it both ways isn’t working.</p>
<p>If I think a co-worker is being abused, should I report it to the police? </p>
<p>College students occupy a grey area. They are not children; legally they are adults. Yet there seems to be a sense that they should be given some of the same protections as minors get in the public school or public welfare system. This is a confusion that needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>We allow college students maximum personal freedom, yet when things go sour, we are supposed to protect them from the consequences of such freedom. Our thinking on how to handle 18-22-year-olds on campuses (when in other settings, as private-sector employees or, say, soldiers, they would be expected to assume full adult roles and responsibility) is very confused.</p>
<p>What we need to do at this point is agitate to get the drinking law changed so that 19 year olds can drink beer and wine and hard liquor is highly taxed at the same level as smoking. </p>
<p>That will bring drinking back down to an out in the open college social experience. Additionally, the colleges and universities, who have no idea how to handle the drinking thing and so basically ignore it, could now send the campus safety through parties, through dorms and have a much wider kind of presence in hallways and whatnot than they do now.</p>
<p>That would really help a lot, in my opinion, to actually reduce rapes on campus.</p>
<p>it is much easier to learn how to drink alcohol with beer than with shots of hard liquor before the party. </p>
<p>That said, I complete disagree with anyone who says that colleges have no place in this. They must be a part of the solution since it is their problem. There are just too many rapes and there have been far too few actual investigations.</p>
<p>The UVA story is horrifying, terrifying, to be sure, but it is only made worse by what we are currently finding out about their administrative policies vis a vis the safety of their college freshman.</p>
<p>“For one thing, college students are legally adults…” </p>
<p>Doctors and nurses are mandatory reporters of adults and it seems to work. If a person is assaulted, shot or stabbed and seeks medical care they are required to report. In domestic abuse cases it takes the onus off the victim when her partner is arrested. IMO it works better than before it was required. When you give the victim a choice you run the risk that she can be pressured into dropping the charge. What other felony against a person gives the victim the choice to prosecute or not?</p>
<p>I’m also against the current ban on 18-21 year olds drinking. As many have said it drives it underground and results in binging. They can vote, get married, join the military but can’t have a beer? </p>
<p>I just keep thinking about the Jezebel article. Put yourself in her place. What are her options? How would you defend expelling students for cheating on a quiz, but not for rape? What can you say?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>She can pretend that she does not know that is happening at all, but that would conclusively demonstrate incompetence.</p></li>
<li><p>She can say that she just does not think rape is as bad as cheating on a quiz, but that would be politically unacceptable.</p></li>
<li><p>She can say that she thinks rape is more serious than cheating, but her bosses have instructed her otherwise. This would get her fired immediately.</p></li>
<li><p>She can make a convoluted and irrational argument and hope that no one notices. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>She has four bad options, and she chose option number 4 which may in fact be the best of the bad options.</p>
<p>We’ve got several generalizations going here that are undoubtedly wrong on their face. Let me play devil’s advocate. </p>
<p>First, all frat boys do bad things. Nope. Some of your (our, though mine chose not to join) sons do not do bad things. Probably almost all of them do not do bad things on their own. </p>
<p>Second, if not all frat boys are evil, frats are not evil. Or, if not all frat boys act badly, then frats don’t have a bad effect. [Again not all frats are evil, but let’s put that aside for a bit]. There is a difference between individual psychology and social psychology. People act differently in groups than they would individually. [That’s why there is a field of social psychology]. I’d have to look, but I’m pretty sure that there is significant evidence that young males in a group take risks and do things they would not do individually and that young males in a group with alcohol will take more risks and do even more questionable things. I would be willing to bet that when you combine young males with alcohol in a group and put them in a culture that sees young women as objects more than people (which characterizes lots of fraternities but I’m sure not all even if if doesn’t characterize all of the boys), bad things are likely to happen to the girls with some probability. Even “good boys” do bad things. Look at way the last boy to rape Jackie was exhorted to do so if he wanted to become a brother.</p>
<p>Third, rapes don’t only happen in frats. Therefore eliminating frats would not reduce the probability of rape on campus. See point 2. If you reduce the easy confluence of young males, alcohol, a culture that treats women as objects, you probably reduce the number of instances the rapist has to rape. You also make it harder to bring together the brothers who can be egged on to participate and you eliminate the brothers and national organization to cover it up. </p>
<p>As the NY Times op-ed piece quoted in another thread suggested, schools enable or do not prevent fraternities (or eating clubs or final clubs or secret societies) from being at the hub of socializing. Thus the center of the social scene is a school-sanctioned all-male, alcohol-fueled organization with a culture of objectifying women. Like the author, I think eliminating frats is likely to reduce the incidence of rape, but of course not eliminate it. Even better might be requiring frats to become coed, as happened to Princeton’s eating clubs. </p>
<p>@much2learn, even if that is the best of 4, I suspect she will be looking for a new job pretty soon. Someone had to take a fall and it should probably include the president and probably trusted who have defended the frat system but I suspect they will jettison her and hope they are then spared. </p>
<p>@shawbridge"@much2learn, even if that is the best of 4, I suspect she will be looking for a new job pretty soon. Someone had to take a fall and it should probably include the president and probably trusted who have defended the frat system but I suspect they will jettison her and hope they are then spared."</p>
<p>I agree completely. To me the administrators seem to be just playing politics. If that is the case, then what you propose is the next logical move, if forming a committee to conduct a review proves to be inadequate (always the initial favorite).</p>
<p>I think that for this to settle down, at a minimum, the administration has to say that the current “rape is not as bad as cheating on a test” position is a mistake and not acceptable. To me, the question is whether the President can credibly blame the Dean for that policy and avoid accepting personal responsibility? If so, then she may be able to save her own job. If not, then she may have to go too. I don’t see how anyone who thinks that is a reasonable view can remain. Oddly, this is not even a republican or democratic issue. I don’t think that anyone from either party thinks this view makes any sense. Even on these forums where someone will disagree with you about just about anything, I haven’t seen a single person try to defend that view. </p>
<p>The President might be able to blame someone for that policy, but I doubt she’ll be able to blame the Dean, simply because it’s been well known around UVa for a while that no rapists have been booted out in more than ten years. The Cossacks work for the Czar. If the President didn’t like the policy, she could have made changes or fired the Dean before now.</p>
<p>
I was surprised to find out that (according to whitepages.com) Nicole Eramo is in her mid-40s. (I think she looks younger.) In the interview she said that no sexual offenders have been expelled since 2007, which is when she said she took her current position. She changed the privacy of her FB page 11 hours ago, as I saw yesterday that she had pics of her family (young children) on her public page. </p>
<p>@NJSue said, "College students occupy a grey area. They are not children; legally they are adults. Yet there seems to be a sense that they should be given some of the same protections as minors get in the public school or public welfare system. This is a confusion that needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>We allow college students maximum personal freedom, yet when things go sour, we are supposed to protect them from the consequences of such freedom. Our thinking on how to handle 18-22-year-olds on campuses (when in other settings, as private-sector employees or, say, soldiers, they would be expected to assume full adult roles and responsibility) is very confused."</p>
<p>I agree with this completely, and with others who have said that solving the sexual misconduct (broader than felony forcible rape) issue actually needs to start with dealing with the drinking culture on campus. Deal with that, and require them to actually start acting like adults (as opposed to poorly behaved, unsupervised children in a candy/toy store), and alot of the other issues on campus are significantly reduced. I have a DS who is a college freshman, and a DD in high school, and the current environment on campus really scares me for both of them … while there may be a “rape culture” in some pockets of campus, which is obviously dangerous to girls, there is also a growing “accused=guilty” mindset, which is dangerous for guys. We’re having lots of conversations about taking responsibility for their personal safety by planning ahead and making smart decisions about who they are with, what they do, etc… I’ve cautioned DS to be very careful about putting himself in questionable situations with girls, because of the risk of “he said-she said”. Girls have to make smart decisions too – poor decisions are not the equivalent of “asking for it,” but guess what? Smart decisions can often avoid it. So, be smart, girls. And that applies now, in HS, and in all of life. </p>
<p>I suggest reading this Jezebel article, posted on one of the other threads, for a much more nuanced look at the UVa situation from a young woman who was raped and reported to both police and university:</p>
<p><a href=“'Law and Justice Aren't the Same': Interview With a UVA Rape Survivor”>http://jezebel.com/law-and-justice-arent-the-same-interview-with-a-uva-ra-1662629605</a></p>
<p>“Girls have to make smart decisions too – poor decisions are not the equivalent of “asking for it,” but guess what? Smart decisions can often avoid it. So, be smart, girls. And that applies now, in HS, and in all of life.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the Jackie / UVA case was not an example of dumb behavior. She was sober, and she was with her date whom she presumably was getting along with and didn’t anticipate would “deliver” her to his fraternity brothers.
And before we go there on the “she went upstairs willingly,” I don’t consider that awful behavior on the part of a college girl, to desire to make out with a boyfriend. She might have anticipated kissing, etc. but certainly didn’t anticipate or consent to being violated. </p>
<p>" I’ve cautioned DS to be very careful about putting himself in questionable situations with girls, because of the risk of “he said-she said”. Girls have to make smart decisions too – poor decisions are not the equivalent of “asking for it,” but guess what? Smart decisions can often avoid it. So, be smart, girls. And that applies now, in HS, and in all of life."</p>
<p>I agree that it is good to tell girls to be smart and avoid risky situations. However, the thing I struggled with in the past is that I never heard it applied to a guy. No one said that guy was expelled or put in jail for a rape he did not commit, “guess what? Smart decisions can often avoid it. So, be smart, girls. And that applies now, in HS, and in all of life” he was stupid, he pays the price, that’s life. Somehow that type of “that’s just the way life is” advice is was always reserved for the girls. I think it is good that that is changing and we now have to have those conversations with our sons too. The fact that there is any risk in these situations for boys is recent, and me at least, it suggests that we are moving in the right direction. Everyone in the room needs to take a level of responsibility. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Could you clarify what you mean by this? Surely you don’t mean that the increased risk of wrongful incarceration is a sign that we are moving in the right direction.</p>
<p>I think what he means is that being raped is often referred to as just a risk that you (as a female) should be accepted to manage the best you can and just accept as a part of life, while being falsely accused of rape (for a male) is unacceptable. </p>
<p>(That is, if someone gets raped the emphasis is talking about how they should have made smarter choices, not been drunk, not been alone with a male, not gone out to a party, etc. etc., but if someone is falsely accused or convicted of rape no one talks about how boys should not drink alcohol, should not go to parties, should not be around women, etc. and should have made smarter choices. See the Duke Lacrosse case – most of the coverage around their exoneration tends to focus on the prosecutor’s misconduct, the accuser’s lies, etc. rather than trying to blame the Duke Lacrosse players principally responsible for the fact their rights were violated and their lives almost got destroyed.)</p>
<p>If we’ve moving towards “equality” in this arena then that means we are treating <em>both</em> rape and false accusations of rape as being just an inevitable circumstance of life that we just cope with by “being smart” or making “smart decisions”, not as something that society principally needs to tackle. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing, but it is at least more fair than treating rape as primarily an individual problem and false accusations as primarily societal/legal.</p>
<p>“I agree that it is good to tell girls to be smart and avoid risky situations. However, the thing I struggled with in the past is that I never heard it applied to a guy.”</p>
<p>You don’t think people tell their sons to be smart and avoid risky situations? People who care about their sons certainly do. Who tells their son, “Go ahead and get drunk wherever you like - even in a bar on the rough side of town, where your buddies might abandon you and where you might be a target for assault”? Just because it’s not sexual assault doesn’t mean that we tell our sons they can get away with being stupid.</p>
<p>It’s been shown that drunk boys and men are bad at distinguishing non-consent from consent. Seems to me it makes sense to tell a young man, “When you are very drunk, you might delude yourself that her No, No or her pushing you away or turning away really means she consents. And you might end up raping her, though that is something you’d never do when sober.”</p>
<p>The important risk for our sons about sex while drunk is not the minuscule chance that they will be falsely accused of rape. Nor is it the non-existent chance that they will be convicted of rape because her consent didn’t count when she is drunk (nowhere is it the law that a woman can’t consent if she has been drinking). The real risk for a guy of sex while drunk is that he will fail to notice she doesn’t consent.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is because it is true, when it comes to discussing rape. Nature gave men the ability to rape women, and did not give women the tools to do the same back. So it makes sense that the <em>risk</em> really goes only one way. </p>
<p>Nature gives women the ability to lie, too.</p>