Dumb question here, but how do you block quote? I’m a silly female and can’t figure it out! 
[ quote] insert text [/ quote]
remove the spaces in the quote brackets… It should work. Folks worked for hours one night trying to help me get it right.
I am not a good teacher. I have tried three times now.
emoticons took me even longer
eta:
Welcome to the thread/board:)
This is what I call seriously low projecting.
Changes are accepted in society all the time, but to label opposition as fear requires no logical opposition position at all or any requirement that one understands what the other is saying. It is the ultimate non-argument cop-out statement.
I see no one objecting to finding ways to put rapists in jail, whether on the college campus or outside in general society, so clearly appropriate changes to combat this crime is not the issue.
However, specific to the college environment, people are objecting to what they see as fundamentally flawed policy(s) and procedures, for both legal and philosophical reasons, as well as the hypocrisy of said promoters. Additionally, there are people who also oppose the bastardization of language, which devalues critical distinctions in meaning, in intent, and in how people communicate, relate and take decisions.
For example, in contrast to the New York Times linked to in Post #324, there are many women who view the current debate in this vein:
http://nypost.com/2015/02/08/columbia-mattress-rape-case-is-not-justice-its-shaming-without-proof/
(EDIT: Just as I was about to post I saw this was already linked to in Post #325.)
Similarly, there are also women who view Emma as a “weak-kneed feminist,” who does not want to be held to full legal scrutiny of her allegations; “too draining,” she says. Look up article about “Weak-kneed feminist,” which is also written by a female.
Evidently, there are many females who do not see her as courageous, and these same females do not feel like lower-class citizens who need special protections and the like. Not all females view themselves as less-than. That is the type of females I like, hire, hang out with, and married - Thank god they exist, in droves too.
Overall, in the real world, such logic and behavior, as Emma’s, only works in political circles and for show, but come crashing down when thinking people examine her actions.
There is also the hypocrisy of it all.
The same advocates who now want government dictating conversation and actions between two people in a bedroom are the same who 15 - 20 years ago were saying government should stay out of the bedroom. This is nothing but convenient duplicity.
So, it is OK to tell others that they cannot push their social beliefs in terms of legislation, and they should stay out of people’s bedrooms. However, now it is OK for government, re CA, to fully outline and legislate bedroom behavior and language for that matter. Consistent philosophical standards are wanting here, and more and more people are getting that message loud and clear and are very aware there are sectors of the population who are not morally or intellectually consistent in what they espouse.
And as for the corruption of the language, it is interesting the duplicity is at work here too. The term rape culture was created and threw out there to supposedly define and get attention. Now, even the creators call the same term that they invented provocative. This only happened because people called them on it, and did not let them get away with made-up data and stats. To be accurate, the term is now considered provocative not because of its meaning, but because of its inaccuracy. It’s like we will try this and if it fails we drop it. That is politics of low order, not a position of integrity.
Therefore, it is not fear of change that is driving this debate, but reasoned opposition on multiple fronts. And in the end, it will backfire pretty much like gun control and similar debates when people went overboard for what they were advocating and people just said hellno.
That is the NY Post.
And the quote above was the most accurate statement you wrote in your post. 
I do not know what you are talking about. Could you give examples of special protections and * females who view themselves as less-than*?
I don’t even know how to respond to a comparison of sodomy laws and affirmative consent. Where did this idea come from?
Again, what does this mean? What are people saying “hellno” to? Is there a threat? What is it?
I am arguing rape culture exists and we should eradicate it by education. What are you saying “hellno” to? Are you saying 'hellno" to Cardinal Fang’s post #319. Are you disputing what she writes there is true?
Are you disputing women have to be on guard to avoid being raped? You said (somewheres) I might have a good point about under-reporting of drugging and rape of women. In my opinion, drugging and raping women is what happens in rape culture. When women are taught not to drink the punch and guard their drinks because they have to protect themselves from rape - that is rape culture.
I agree it is an ugly concept. Living it is an even uglier experience.
From an oped written by a woman student in the Columbia Spectator (student newspaper) this week:
http://columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2015/02/05/our-role-unofficial-conviction-paul-nungesser
And goes on to conclude:
Given that both parties agree they engaged in consensual activity at first clearly means he was not in Antiqua at the time. Therefore, no way to clear his name, even if completely innocent. Somehow that seems fundamentally unfair. That doesn’t mean we should go back to the days when rape victims are not believed or their personal lives are torn apart. But looking for evidence should also not be considered victim shaming.
@momofthreeboys “I have no comments on the Vanderbilt case because it went how it should, evidence --, trial – conviction. What should i say - Yippee this proves that all men are rapists?”
Of course you should not say that and no one, and I repeat no one, on this thread would say that either. Why do you think in such extremes and take other posters’ comments to illogical conclusions? My point is that you are such a prolific poster in the threads where the facts are not so clear as those in the Vanderbilt case. Further you are pretty brutal in your condemnation of the women involved in those “hazier” cases. So it seems to me that the Vanderbilt case would be one where a “second wave feminist” might say “here is a bona fide case of sexual assault. It has all the elements that the other cases are missing. These are the type of men we want to root out of our college campuses and communities.” But you chose not to to participate at all in that thread leading me to question your impartiality.
@momofthreeboys “Why do you feel the need to change my mind with medicine?”
I don’t and again you misunderstand me. My only point here is that I am trying to communicate with you but am feeling that my responses to your posts are futile - “like administering medicine to the dead.” In other words you cannot really hear me as your mind is already made up.
@momofthreeboys “because heck we have to believe all accusers.”
I think what I am pointing out is that, at least on this board, although there is one thread where the facts are very clear, you have chosen not to express your belief in ANY accuser. That’s inherent bias to me.
I don’t know how you could possibly get to “fair” in this situation. Maybe he’s innocent. Then he is being unfairly targeted. Maybe he did it. Then people are unfairly criticizing her.
As I’ve said, if I had been judging the Nungesser/Sulkowicz case, I’d have found for him, because of dearth of evidence. But I think he probably did it. By the very nature of things, the majority of sexual assault accusers will be true accusers, and the majority of cases will be found for the accused person. That means that most people who accuse and whose accusations are not accepted will be denied justice. Is that fair?
We can’t get to fair. There’s no way to get to fair.
You’re right. There is no fair and no way to get to the truth. However, given that, what do you think of the mattress art project?
If there were a way to have separated it from this case and this guy’s name, I would be supportive as an innovative way to bring attention to a very real problem. As it is connected to him, it does seem like harassment at least on some level.
@mom2and your post #366 makes valid points, one that myself, al2simon and other posters have already acknowledged. I am very uncomfortable with a university professor approving and supervising that project when the very same university has a finding of “not responsible” on record.
But at the end of the day it comes down to balancing Paul’s rights against Emma’s First Amendment rights and as @al2simon pointed out, against the academic freedoms of the professor. Paul has chosen not to pursue that battle in court and it is unlikely that he will do so since graduation is about 12 weeks away. So in a sense it is a moot point though a valid one.
I appreciate al2simon’s criticism of the mattress project. He says that we should be consistent. If we would not allow a guy who had been disciplined for rape to mount a similar project, then we also should disallow Sulkowicz’s project. It’s the same thing, he says. We should be consistent.
I agree with him that we should be consistent. But where he errs is in asserting that it’s the same thing.
If a college decides a student committed sexual violence, then they believe he committed sexual violence. They believe he’s guilty. But if a college fails to decide he committed sexual violence, that doesn’t mean they believe he’s innocent. They might in some cases believe he’s innocent, but in most cases they believe that they don’t know whether he is guilty or innocent. There’s not enough evidence. There’s usually not enough evidence. It is right and proper that students not be convicted if there is not enough evidence.
But that means it’s very easy to get away with rape. Most of the students who are disciplined for rape are rapists-- some are not, of course, but most are. Even when the standard is merely “preponderance” most students who are found guilty exceed that standard by a lot. But most of the students who are acquitted are also guilty: nobody thinks the false accusation rate is anywhere near 50%.
That being the case, I would grant more latitude to students whose accusations were denied than I would to a student who had been accused and convicted.
Cardinal Fang – I completely disagree with your reasoning. It would work fine if Columbia’s code of conduct consisted of one line - “Ask Cardinal Fang to use her best judgment to decide any situation”. But your problem is that no one in the U.S. since Charles I was beheaded wants to submit to someone’s arbitrary judgments.
If you’re actually responsible for running an institution, you need to come up with written policies that people can know ahead of time. You ** can’t ** make a distinction between “innocent” and “not guilty / responsible”. Your policies need to treat someone found not guilty the same as someone found innocent. You can’t draw the distinction you want to make.
You can even imagine the following absurd scenario – the entire Columbia football team accuses Emma of raping all of them single-handedly during halftime of their football game on the 50 yard line in front of 10,000 people. There’s 10,000 witness and videotape to support her innocence. Of course, the hearing panel finds her not guilty. Does that give the football team license to harass her on campus? After all, they didn’t find her innocent, just not guilty. But perhaps you believe students should be free to harass each other as the default? You don’t strike me as that type of person.
It’s possible Paul didn’t file a complaint. But judging by the UNC case, accusers who’ve lost their cases appear to believe their actions should not be subject to any of the rules that other students have to live by and they should have special immunity from any disciplinary process, so it probably wouldn’t have done him any good anyway.
Do we know if Columbia university was even considering ‘rape’ as the offense? It would seem very strange to me for a university to have a hearing on a felony charge as part of a disciplinary hearing. For example, they would not handle a manslaughter or murder case, even if it happened on campus. Were they considering, under the honor code, if Paul harassed or assaulted Emma? What does the honor code say? What are the elements to proving the charge against him? I suspect, but do not know, that it was much less than rape and they did not find him responsible for this much lesser act.
On the other hand, I do think she would be guilty of harassing him IF she has made his name part of her project. If she specifically names him and brand him as a ‘rapist’ but he has not been convicted of any crime, he might have a claim for harassment under the honor code.
If a felony is committed on a college campus, I think it must be turned over to the public authority to handle - murder, manslaughter, rape, theft over a certain amount, arson. The hearing at Columbia is only as to whether Paul can stay in school; school has no authority to find him guilty of a crime, just whether he violated the school code. When a woman was murdered in student housing at my school, the campus cops arrived but immediately called the city police (and the campus cops did a great job with the evidence, the city cops not so much).
I don’t think you should make a distinction between “innocent” and “not guilty”. I think you should make a distinction between accused who are found guilty and accusers whose accusations are dismissed.
And if the entire football team wanted to carry around mattresses, I don’t think they’d be taken seriously, I don’t think it would be taken as harassment, and I don’t have a problem with it.
Why? Harvard expels for battery. That’s a felony. They expel for drugs-- that’s a felony. Why wouldn’t they expel for sexual violence?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/4/2/three-undergraduates-expelled-violence/
CF - Well, I’m sure the football team could figure out some way to persecute her effectively if mattresses don’t do the trick. I think where we differ is that I don’t think it’s appropriate behavior for a campus community and it isn’t the way I think students should be treated…
Since you seem to think it’s acceptable behavior, then I guess there’s no point in debating it further.
Of course, the whole point of Title IX is to prevent creating hostile environments with respect to gender. I guess other types of hostile environments don’t trouble you as much as they do me.
Added: also, as far as I know, no college has a “complaint completely bogus, so it’s dismissed” official finding. I trust you understand that my football example was crafted for humor. It wouldn’t be hard to craft one for maximum maliciousness so as to avoid a dismissal.
Do you mean the accused has no possibility of being considered completely innocent simply because he was accused? I agree with al2simon, that goes against every principle of our system of justice. We don’t convict someone because they are accused, we convict them with evidence. And if there is no evidence, there are free to go and the charges are dismissed, meaning they are considered innocent in the eyes of the law (and the college). In court, they can dismiss a case without prejudice, meaning there is not enough evidence now to convict, but not enough exculpatory evidence to permanently dismiss the case. The state, or the plaintiff, would be free to try again. Perhaps that is what you think colleges should do with these cases.
I don’t know…
Are you going to say that Sulkowicz can’t say she was raped? Or she can say she was raped, but she can’t name her attacker-- which she is not doing on campus or as part of her project? What is the rule going to be here? What are you proposing preventing her from doing?
I don’t know how to deal with the fact that it’s so easy to get away with rape.
CF - There’s no need for a special rule. There already are rules. I’m just saying she shouldn’t get special treatment or exemption from them.
There should be a hearing where he is the complaining party and she is the responding party. He then should present the evidence that her project is causing him to experience a hostile environment and harassment (or whatever Columbia’s rule is). I think dozens of newspaper articles (student newspaper and otherwise) mentioning him by name would carry a lot of weight. I’m sure he’s received nasty emails, social media etc that he can present as evidence. She can present her side … “I’m not mentioning anyone by name, don’t blame me, 1st amendment, etc.”.
To be honest, I think Paul wins easily except for the argument about the professor’s academic freedom.
For example, imagine a bunch of students running around in Ku Klux Klan outfits. I’m sure we’d all agree that would create a hostile environment for many students, but most especially black students. I wouldn’t let them hide behind the defense that they weren’t mentioning anyone by name, not bothering anybody, they were just wearing clothes, etc. I’d simply make them stop and give the maximum punishment that the circumstances allowed.
To me, I’m being perfectly consistent. Of course, I’m universally acknowledged to be the most reasonable person in the world, so what’s new 
I agree with your sentiment and understand your frustration. But as the cliche goes, the ends don’t always justify the means.