<p>
[quote]
The night began with alcohol, athletes and a group of freshman women. Before sunrise last Halloween, two female students would say they were sexually attacked by Marquette University athletes, </p>
<p>... </p>
<p>The woman's account and the revelation of a second possible attack at the Halloween weekend party raise fresh questions about the university's response to alleged sex crimes and whether the school squelched information to shield its athletic program.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>All told, five Marquette athletes were accused in sexual attacks last school year by three female students. University officials have said the athletes all were punished for breaking the student code of conduct and team rules, and none was barred from competition due to the allegations.</p>
<p>"Marquette administrators clearly thought the law was that you protect your (athletes) if they're having a good year," said Bob Baizer, a lawyer for one of the women.
<p>I don’t understand your comment. Do you have a similar incident to share about a university overlooking sexual assault charges against their female athletes?</p>
<p>All students should be made aware, before leaving for college, that in the case of any criminal behavior, they must go to the local police and not campus security. Campus securities first mission is to protect the school’s reputation, not the individual. Real criminal behavior requires a police investigation.</p>
<p>And even then, the deck may be stacked. For those interested in the topic, I suggest the excellent and deeply disturbing, Scoreboard, Baby. It is a well written, well documented account of a season of crime, mayhem, violence, and Rose Bowl victory for Washington Huskies under Rick Neuheisel. As a coach, a father, and a (somewhat) decent person, I found the account to be shocking. I met Neuheislel more than once and hope to meet him again, I have a few questions for him.</p>
<p>The other extreme: If boy and girl are drunk and have sex, boy is found guilty of sexual assault because per definition ‘intoxicated’ girl’s cannot consent. BTW, we’re not talking incapacitated but rather ‘under the influence.’ And yes, by that definition (drunk, therefore no consent, therefore assault), women may assault men, too.
[Stanford</a> Trains Student Jurors That ‘Acting Persuasive and Logical’ is Sign of Guilt; Story of Student Judicial Nightmare in Today’s ‘New York Post’ - FIRE](<a href=“http://thefire.org/article/13401.html]Stanford”>Newsdesk | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)</p>
<p>i was assaulted once by a not so attractive girl when i was intoxicated back in the day. I ended up following through. however, i assure you that had I been sober I never would have consented, but I suppose I did that night.</p>
<p>@beenthere2, if you read the linked article, the allegations are that (a) the girl in question was induced to overindulge by the alleged assailants, and (b) force was then used.</p>
<p>@annasdad
I don’t see where you read that violence was involved. In fact, “In the Stanford student’s case, the disciplinary panel had all the information it needed when it found that his accuser had been intoxicated. The panel did not even bother to determine whether the sex was actually consensual. Stanford’s findings of fact merely conclude that “the impacted party was intoxicated by alcohol.” Per Stanford’s policy, the sex therefore could not be consensual.”</p>
<p>Finally, I find it strange to blame someone else for “inducing a female” of presumably the same age to “overindulge in alcohol.” This policy absolves women of any kind of responsibility or even worse, suggests that women need to be protected from themselves. (They drink, any consent is null and void?)</p>
<p>Also, this case is not unique. Google, student sues University of the South, Sewanee.</p>
<p>I absolutely do not want to minimize any kind of sexual assault or harassment, which is devastating to the victim. However, examples like these do a huge disservice to women who are truly assaulted or were indeed so drunk that they were incapacitated.</p>
<p>Bad situation. No question. Questionable acts of sexual nature are committed by both genders. The vast majority of “boys” (and girls ) are not guilty of this though. As a parent , i abhor what i read As the parent of a boy , I wince at the gender characterization that boys will be boys.</p>
<p>Setting aside the predictable issues that occur in a campus environment, where on any given Friday or Saturday night most thoughts are less than clear; a meaningful problem exists with regard accountability of Division I athletic programs.</p>
<p>The NCAA, and following the laws of causality, athletic departments, is/are of late, obsessing over the amateur status of athletes. So the bad guys are agents, memorabilia collectors, professional scouts (cue Nick Saban). Problematically, high profile athletic programs are fielding teams with sorted criminal histories (statistics on which, I note with interest, are often excluded from university view books). The NCAA, and therefore university athletic departments simply don’t care, so long as the player maintains a less than awful GPA in a nonsense curriclum, and does not leave a money trail, all is well. Rapes, assaults, threats of violence, acts of violence - all fine; we can sweep it under the rug, delay trial/sentencing until after the season or better yet until eligibility runs out. So in too many cases athletes, aware that full weight of the university has their collective back, act accordingly.</p>
<p>So while Urban Meyer was winning 2 National Champonships at Florida, 25 of his players were arrested, many for serious offenses. That’s a steep price for athletic success.</p>
<p>These cases are tough because serious crimes look a lot like non-crimes that frequently occur. This is an important difference from most crimes. When somebody takes your laptop, it rarely becomes a “he said, she said” case. Because of these proof problems, we seem to bounce between letting the boys off with mild or no punishment on the one hand, and treating ambiguous situations like crimes on the other.</p>
<p>"All students should be made aware, before leaving for college, that in the case of any criminal behavior, they must go to the local police and not campus security. "</p>
<p>That’s why we have police departments with people trained to investigate these matters, and a court system where the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. But matters like this sometimes do not get reported to the police and instead are handled internally by a university administration more interested in covering its tail and protecting its valuable athletes than in truly getting to the bottom of what happened.</p>
<p>(Cue the predictable chorus about corrupt cops and overbearing prosecutors …)</p>
<p>Have we forgotten the Duke “rape” case? National news!
Male athletes were accused of sex misconduct(and worse) and were nearly hung by the public, until it came to light it was all false accusations.
In that case, the accusations sure weren’t swept under the rug, but once it was deemed false there was little or no college action or court action taken against the real perpetrator, the false accusor.
Posts 7 and 8 have it right, in that example, imo. Saying Yes, when we would normally say No doesn’t make sex a crime. Choosing to drink so much we lose good judgment doesn’t make it a crime, either. As post 7 pointed out, force or incapacitated is a different issue.
Some believe the male, who is also drinking, should still have such excellent judgment that he should just “know” that if the female’s judgment is SO impaired that he should “not take ‘Yes’ for an answer”. No means No, but sometimes Yes means No? I say No.</p>
<p>When you look at the odds, a case like this is more likely to result in SOME punishment by the college than by the courts. Even in the case in the first article, which sounds really bad, it would be extremely difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed. Most likely, the athletes would be arrested, or maybe just questioned, and then the prosecutors would drop the case. It’s just really, really hard to prove.</p>