I am virtually certain that my university will not take action on third-party complaints, either. Is that part of CSU-Pueblo’s process?
“I am virtually certain that my university will not take action on third-party complaints”
I see quite a number of them.
I have the impression that she was called as a witness. Do you think that a young woman called on the carpet by the officials at her university is likely to just decide not to go? Do you think that she was informed that the prosecution would simply be dropped if she didn’t go? I strongly doubt it. She probably went A) because she hoped she could stop the witch hunt by telling her story and reiterating that she wasn’t raped or assaulted and the sex was consensual, and B) the authority figures at her school demanded her presence and she was afraid to defy them. Little did she know that the witch hunt would seize upon a wholly irrelevant technicality to prosecute an innocent man.
As to the explanation of her remark, every knows about the phenomenon of rape victims being in denial. She seemed to be saying that her story could be viewed as denial, and in fact WAS being viewed as denial by the witch burners. It seems quite likely that she was told that she wasn’t qualified to describe her own experience because she was a traumatized victim.
I post quite abit about the plight of men in this mess mostly because many of them are truly egregious behavior by unis , but this article really resonated for me. I too, decry the infatilization of women under the current system, the lack of due process, the inability to investigate and I cringe at how sexual assault is sometimes not sexual assault and wonder how that makes true rape survivors feel. It’s a pretty good op-ed piece. The comments are mostly bleh or off topic.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449759/betsy-devos-campus-sexual-assault-end-kangaroo-courts
@QuantMech I am going to bet that if you read your University’s policy you will find that it does reserve the right to initiate a complaint independent of the victim. The lack of a formal complaint by a victim of any misconduct (sexual or non-sexual) does not diminish a University’s obligation to respond to information that suggests a breach of their conduct code occurred. That right is essential for them since they are charged with the responsibility of campus safety. I know Yale, MIT and Princeton have language in their policies that allows them to proceed without the victim of the alleged misconduct. The language in CSU-Pueblo’s policy is pretty straightforward:
@momofthreeboys it is a terrible op ed piece. The National Review is about as biased as they come.
Also criminal cases are brought by the government not by the victim
This puts a different face on why Colorado’s position was the way it was. They had to pay out about 3 million because they were too lax and it involves the football teams actions
I did not feel that this particular op-ed had conservative political bias which is why I posted. I found it a refreshing. Plus my father said well educated people read all sides which I do.
Frankly I think it’s even MORE repugnant when colleges try to “fix” previous errors by making new errors. They really have no busy dealing with this stuff.
Sorry for the typos…my phone auto-corrects after I push send. I turned it off but that is sometimes worse.
I checked my university’s policy. Participation of witnesses is voluntary here and cannot be compelled by the university. So if the woman was called as a witness, she would not have needed to go, at my university.
So far, I have not determined whether a third party could file a complaint of this type or not, at my university. I am guessing not, but haven’t seen that addressed in print.
It may interest (by which I mean “annoy”) some on this thread to know that faculty at my university are specifically directed not to bring up the possibility of a complaint to the police, if a student tells the faculty member about being raped.
Finally, do the posters who take a different view of this situation than I do think that “No means no” the second time one says it, but anything goes between the first and second times that “No” is said, as long as there is compliance the second time?
Re HarvestMoon1’s post above: If someone else can bring a complaint against a student, in place of the woman who was directly involved (don’t know that about my university yet), it is possible that the university could call the woman as a witness and proceed in her absence. I think it would be pointless, though, because no faculty or staff member I know here could possibly find the man responsible for rape if the woman did not show up.
Actually, that would be pretty similar to the other Nungesser case, where Nungesser was initially found responsible, but the charges were dropped when the other woman did not show up for the reconsideration on appeal. The same scenario is overwhelmingly likely here.
All Grant’s partner had to do was to say that it was private and consensual. Then nothing would have happened. Or she could have just declined to show up at the hearing.
I have located more information on my university’s policy. The university will accept a report from a third party, as Hanna surmised. The relevant office invites the student who was allegedly assaulted to a meeting. If the student chooses not to attend, then the matter will be dropped, unless it is determined that there is a risk to the safety of the people at the university. I am very confident that no safety risk would have been found, given the apparent facts in the CSU-Pueblo case. (The safety risk clause is included to cover weapons, etc.)
Maybe someone else would like to hunt around in CSU-Pueblo’s policy, to see what holds there.
Added: Plenty of agency for the woman on offer here. If CSU-Pueblo has a similar policy, the woman ought to have used it. Being called as a witness is not the same as being “called on the carpet.” The balance of power between the university and the woman as portrayed by Consolation in #262 does not apply at my university. The woman is free to decline to proceed, if a third party reports something.
@Quant when a University receives information about possible misconduct they have the obligation to investigate that information. Doesn’t really matter who it comes from, they want to reserve the right to investigate and get more information to ensure there isn’t an issue that puts a student or students at risk.
In the CSU-Pueblo case the information was reported to Dr. Clark who was the Medical Director of the Athletic Training Department. The woman who had the encounters with Grant Neal was enrolled in CSU’s Athletic Training Program. Dr. Clark is a mandatory reporter and so it was he who had the obligation to report something of concern to a Title IX Coordinator for investigation.
My understanding is that the friend sought his counsel and it was he as a mandatory reporter who then took that information to the Title IX Office. I have to assume that the friend was probably called upon to provide info in their investigation of the matter.
“I think it would be pointless, though, because no faculty or staff member I know here could possibly find the man responsible for rape if the woman did not show up.”
That makes sense if the two parties are the only witnesses. That’s not always the case. There have been several cases where a roommate walked in on a couple, or where the whole case was built on texts rather than on testimony.
I am also a mandatory reporter. I have occasionally reported an instance to the appropriate office and been told “We already know.”
What will happen here: the relevant office will contact the person who may have been raped. If that person declines to pursue the case, it will be dropped. So definitely there will be no finding of rape in that circumstance. It would not matter if there were texts or other witnesses–except, I suppose, in a case where the man was said to be armed . . . quite different from either of the cases being discussed here.
An aspect of the CSU-Pueblo case that seems relevant to me: Can CSU-Pueblo compel Grant’s partner to serve as a witness, or not? My university can’t. It would have been purely voluntary on the woman’s part.
Will CSU-Pueblo hold a hearing if the woman doesn’t show up (absent very unusual circumstances such as the possession of weapons)? My university would not. Columbia did not, in the Nungesser appeal at the university level, with a different complainant.
Aside from the comments I have already made, how I think about this case depends to some extent on what CSU-Pueblo’s rules are. Did Grant’s partner have the options to decline to pursue, or not show up? If she had those options, why didn’t she use one of them?
Because she was 18 or 19. She was embarrassed that her friends saw her having sex in a car and now that was all coming out to adults, and even more about her sex life. These are not mature, experienced sexual beings (thankfully they HAD condoms), they are kids fumbling around in the dark. There might have been alcohol involved, loud music, a little passion. I doubt it was all calm and mature when they were actually having sex. Did she say ‘stop’, and could he hear her? Did he stop immediately? Does he remember it like she does?
I doubt she was getting a lot of advise about what her options were (to not show up, to hire a lawyer, to rephrase her statement so the timing was all very clear). Even in criminal cases most witnesses don’t have their own lawyers, don’t get more than a few minutes with the prosecutors before they are witnesses. She just wanted it to go away. He’s from an all boy high school, and while there are a lot of wealthy, well connected kids who attended that school, I don’t know if he’s one of them. He might have been on scholarship in high school too as he was at college and it’s the kind of place where discipline is swift but fair. He might have expected the same from a CSU hearing panel. Not many from that school end up at CSU-Pueblo, and it would not surprise me if he was the only one for his year, and maybe for a few years. I’m sure he did because of the scholarship money and the ability to be a two sport athlete.
@Quant I do not believe the woman was present at the hearing. She was interviewed once and maybe even twice by Roosevelt Wilson who was the Title IX investigator. I think CSU uses a hearing model where an investigator interviews all the witnesses, gathers the facts and then writes up a report with his/her findings including whether or not in their view a violation occurred. Roosevelt Wilson stated he believed a violation occurred. That report goes to a hearing officer who then holds a hearing and decides whether to support the findings of the investigator.
This case is difficult to discuss intelligently because the University cannot release their version of the events. Usually when these cases are litigated you can get some idea of what their version is from the court file --especially from their Answer to the Complaint. That info usually finds it’s way into the press. I read the file last Fall and the University never filed an Answer, they went straight to a Motion to Dismiss --so no specifics on how they respond to each allegation. So keep in mind that everything you read is based on the Plaintiff’s characterization of events. We really have no idea what was actually reported to Dr. Clark or why it was reported.
One thing I did think was significant from what I read last Fall was that 4 individuals made a report to the Title IX Office relative to this couple and the alleged incident. It was not specified who those 4 people were – one we know was Dr. Clark.
I’d like to think that an 18 or 19 year old who thought that nothing wrong had happened in her interactions with a young man would have the sense to decline to pursue a case, and if a hearing went ahead anyway, to avoid showing up.
In my view, a point that needs to be recognized, twoinanddone, is that before the woman might have had the occasion to say “stop,” she had already said “not without a condom.” That’s a “no.” So the real question is not whether he heard her stay “stop,” it’s whether he heard her say “no” the first time. He clearly heard it the second time.
Given that she went ahead with the hearing: She could have mentioned that her partner did not hear her say “not without a condom,” of might not have heard it, if she thought he didn’t. If he did not hear her the first time, he is totally in the clear. If she did not think to comment on whether she believed that he heard her or not, it should have been asked. If it was not asked, that’s a fault in the process. She may have overlooked some issues due to inexperience (but they’re not exactly rocket science to think of). The university staffers in the case should know enough to ask potentially exculpatory questions–no excuse for them, if they didn’t.
Also, to clarify: I may not be a mandatory reporter under the laws of my state, but the University considers all faculty members in whom a student may confide to be mandatory reporters.
Hello? Hello?
In my opinion it is moot, in the absence of an alleged victim and accusation by that alleged victim reasonable university employees should have concluded he was not a risk to other students on campus. It was gross over reach. They both had free agency to manage their own sex lives and it was not the university’s business to frame the health of that relationship. Whether she said this or that and he did this or not is irrelevant. Neither had concerns and it beyond pale that the uni felt the need to interject themselves.
They were both victims in this case IMO.