@“Cardinal Fang” I can only speak to what I know first hand.
Well said @SJ2727
We’ve told our daughter never to leave drinks unattended, including pop, and to never accept a drink that she doesn’t open herself (or to take a flask if she wants to drink). It’s crazy that we have to even have theses discussions.
There was a rape on the campus near my home this year of a very inebriated woman. The college was very quick to act against the rapist, even before the trial. He was suspended and banned from campus. There was video evidence in this case from the campus blue light system but it was heartening to see how quickly the university acted. It’s not like that everywhere.
I can easily see making this mistake stone cold sober.
You do not blame her for getting drugged by a predator, but you do tell her in the discussion beforehand that drugging someone is a common way that predators operate, and that leaving your drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) unattended, or drinking anything not out of its original unopened container (particularly mixed drinks made by someone without a liquor license) at a large party, increases the risk.
I.e. when talking crime prevention tips, be sure to include actual risk scenarios that allow for preventive action rather than just conveying generalized non-specific fear.
Then be aware that you should not use ride sharing services, Cardinal Fang
@“Cardinal Fang” funny you say that…my husband was picking me up at a rental car location and a girl walked out of the building and got into his car with out asking if he was the Uber driver. Worth mentioning to your kids…sons and daughters, that they should check the name of their driver before driving off with a stranger.
Presumably, the video evidence made it a lot more clear to third parties what happened, compared to the more limited information that may be gotten from someone who was very drunk at the time. The video may also have been the way the suspect was identified.
Yeah no, I’ll still use ridesharing when traveling. I don’t drive.
@“Cardinal Fang” All great questions and with respect to my son things we have discussed at length. He absolutely made an impact on his friend and in reality it was not earth shattering knowledge that he passed along but got his friend thinking about his past and future actions which is really all anyone could hope for.
That said it has changed my son. He will still intervene when he sees things going sideways but not to a larger audience, which is sad. His relationships with women have also changed dramatically and he has far fewer female friends as a result. The accuser was a woman he lived next door to, met on move in day and really considered a good friend (as good as you can be 3 weeks after meeting). All of her accusations came from what I would call group “horsing around” where everyone, male and female, were equal participants. Twerking contests, playful flirting, etc. that any young adults would participate in. What ultimately exonerated my son was that everyone they interviewed stated that nothing he was accused of was a one to one interaction and all parties were equal participants and some gave examples where the accusers actions towards others were more overtly sexual than anything my son was accused of. It seems to have been this woman’s way of defending an error in judgement she made in mischaracterizing the conversation about staying safe. The really sad thing is I think he consciously avoids social situations with women and dating in general out of fear now.
The real question we still have is why this took so long. I spoke to the investigator one week after our first meeting and he told me at that time he could already tell this was going no where but he couldn’t submit his report until all parties had been interviewed. Through friends my son was aware that the accuser delayed scheduling her interview, tried to refuse to schedule an interview, and cancelled multiple times. She was the cause of the long delay in adjudication.
I also spoke at length to the investigator about my son’s living situation. From day one all he wanted was to get back in his room, with his roommate, and move on with life; his goal all along was to get back to normal. After that conversation one week in the investigator allowed him to move back into the same building but not his room. Once everything was finalized we pushed to get him back into his original room and the dean of students made the decision not to allow it. The answer we were given was “in spite of him being found not responsible (title IX language) the accuser states she would be uncomfortable living near him. She has pushed for him to be moved out of the building but we disagree with that but in consideration of her feelings we will leave him in the room he has been in temporarily.”
Overall, to your other questions, I don’t think there is a perfect solution. Had this been a valid complaint I think the process is the only one that would be fair. The problem is the school can’t know the results before the process runs it’s course which unfortunately puts the innocent through the ringer. Not really that much different than our legal system.
In the end my son got through it, not unscathed but a stronger person. His academic record suffered and it has taken the better part of 3 semesters to get him back on firm academic footing but he is “back”. The accuser on the other hand lost all of her friends over this, her roommate moved out at semester once the final report saw the light of day, and ultimately transferred schools after the first year. She did not escape unscathed and I believe if she knew what the ramifications were going to be for both my son and herself she would have handled this whole situation differently.
One false report is one too many. However, the percentage of claims that end up being false are in alignment with those of all other crimes(I believe it’s somewhere around 4-5%). Schools have different policies on reporting claims of sexual assault to police, but failure to investigate claims is a clear violation of Title IX, and opens them up to serious consequences.
Thanks for the information. Your son showed good character, which is more valuable than gold.
I’m still a little bit confused. If your son had been guilty, what would he have been guilty of? And why were the accuser’s feelings taken into consideration? Even if he were guilty, would the accuser have been the aggrieved party whose feelings should be taken into consideration? Was she the young woman who was drunk and went off with the friend?
The whole thing is awful. The young woman sounds like a clueless ideologue whose mouth got her in a lot of trouble, rather than a malicious fabricator, but that’s no defense for making false accusations.
You are certainly right about her mouth getting her in trouble.
In a nutshell the “charges” were sexual harassment, assault, and stalking. The actions that fell into these were: jokes with a sexual overtone in a group situation where everyone was sharing jokes, “unwelcome touching” in a group twerking contest, and asking her how her date went when she returned home on 2 different occasions. Essentially her feelings were taken into account because that is what all of these accusations were, she felt he was over a line. She was not the woman from the party but was a part of the conversation the next day about why their dorm mate made a bad decision to leave with the drunk woman, she misconstrued this to claim my son called the dorm mate a rapist and then piled on to prove that my son was a sexual threat (makes no sense but oh well).
Had he been found “guilty” the ultimate penalty was suspension/expulsion from the school but much more likely (based on the accused actions) campus restrictions around housing (no dorm room) and building/class restrictions around her schedule, kind of a restraining order of sorts. Ultimately the investigator shared with me he did nothing wrong but probably showed some poor judgement, trying to be a comedian in a group with people he didn’t know and didn’t know their sense of humor. The school looked at this whole scenario as a learning experience he could grow from.
Once this was all over I wrote the Dean of Students an email laying out our experience. There were a lot of procedural mistakes the school made (not germane here) that I wanted to point out so someone else didn’t have to experience the same thing. Surprisingly the dean contacted me and set up a meeting. She was impressed with the letter and asked to use it as a training tool as she agreed that the school did not put their best foot forward. Granted I included in the letter that my wife and I have 3 degrees from the school and my in-laws have 5, and my FIL was the former president of the alumni association so that may have gotten me a more courteous response but I like to think I have done a little to help future students in this situation.
@roycroftmom , If professional men “have become very guarded” around women in the workplace, that’s fantastic. I spent a lot of time on trading floors in the 90s and it was every bit as bad as the books and movies make out in that regard. I don’t need to get into too many details, but you could be totally sober in the workplace and still be the victim of physical sexual harassment by a sober colleague, much to the amusement of other sober colleagues. So yes, maybe we are all coming at this with different experiences of how people behave and who takes responsibility when. It’s not just drunk young women who get groped.
I didn’t previously understand. So your son was accused of conduct that had nothing to do with his confronting the friend when the friend was leaving with the drunk student. I now understand better what was going on: she was accusing him of doing and saying things to her.
And the ultimate resolution, it sounds like, is that he didn’t do anything that would merit serious consequences like suspension or expulsion, but he did say some things he shouldn’t have said and therefore it was reasonable to separate them. More of a “That was a little over the line, let’s keep those two apart.” What I couldn’t understand was why the authorities would do anything to separate the two students if they determined he hadn’t done anything the least bit suspect, but that’s not what happened. They determined he showed poor judgment in what he said, made jokes that were slightly offensive in the context in which he told them, and the authorities decided to keep the two students apart. It’s not that he faced no disciplinary action: he did; he was barred from his room.
It’s too bad that minor misjudgments blew up. It’s easy for anyone to get the tone wrong, and particularly easy for 18-year-olds.
Some of the inflammatory langue is crazy. Not all assaulters are predators. Some situations are no doubt mistakes about consent. We are turning sexual interaction into a legal transaction to be negotiated with a team of lawyers and a 20 page contract. I don’t think it works that way.
^I read somewhere that an app is in the works where both participants have to affirm their consent prior to the interaction…wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not but we could be moving in that direction.
In these conversations, did you teach your daughters not to be predators? As I already posted earlier, in #23, girls in college are as likely to commit sexual assault as boys.
As I posted earlier, I don’t believe the guys. For one thing, the technique of force that male predators use is largely unavailable to women who assault men.
On edit: but you should teach your daughters not to be predators.
@roethlisburger
After watching the hunting ground together, we absolutely had a conversation about appropriate vs inappropriate behavior, as well as responsibility to keep oneself from situations where sexual assaults frequently occur. Not sure where in the study you got your information from in post 23, but sexual assault as defined in the study includes an unwanted touch, grab, or kiss (sexual battery). While unacceptable, this is a different crime than rape, and the stats presented tell a much different story about who commits that.
They do have apps. But many have been “banned” by apple and google due to sexual content. Go figure. And many commentators say they aren’t legit, as well as written “agreements” because consent has to be “at the moment” and can be withdrawn. Basically, heads I win, tails you loose.