Emma Sulkowicz's Alleged Attacker speaks again in new article

[awcntdb]

My point AWC, is the recent newsworthy cases notwithstanding, the history on rape convictions was very much against the women and that had to change.

Agreed. I am a law and order person and if you saw my other posts in other threads, you would have seen that I am all for charging, prosecuting, and locking all guys up, after they have been found guilty of rape. Increasing law enforcement resources in that area is all fine by me.

Similarly, I am not for harassing anyone (male or female) who has been found not responsible for anything he was charged with, much less publicly called a name for a crime for which the accused was never even charged.

Emma just happened to accuse someone who either did not have the money to fight back properly or who got a lawyer that advised a tempered response or who is not an American citizen, so he kind of felt disconnected from it in terms of social impact on him. I bet though if it were an American with money, I doubt she would still be able to act this brash, as she would have been been in legal proceeding a long time ago.

And interestingly enough, she still might be in court. One thing that is not being discussed is the lawyer may be playing the “let her hang herself with more of her own rope” game. And this wait is worth it if her family does have real money.

Another possibility is a new enterprising attorney steps in - I was involved in a case like that in the late 80s and it was the second attorney team that cleaned up and won. The first team was way too tepid in its approach and responses, and I knew it. I searched out a HLS grad who had a similar go get them attitude (even took it on contingency) - said person is now a big-time federal judge, so the lead attorney does matter a whole lot.

But it is true that her mattress has brought needed attention to the issue,

I understand that is one way to look at it, as it is a serious social issue. However, this is not Hollywood where any publicity is good publicity.

Bringing attention to the issue does not mean a positive outcome, per se, and especially given that Emma lost twice and is coming of as a whiny loser. And her not filing a real rape case in civil court, but yet calling him a serial rapist really damages credibility of the issue for her. I do agree with the term weak-kneed feminist - she wants to make all the noise and get the attention, but does not want to do the hard legal work of proving her case in real court, like other alleged crime victims must do. I do not see this effect as a positive outcome for the cause.

This is real life and a very real possible outcome is the general public takes much a harder line scrutiny on these college cases and the policies advocates want and decides that since females cannot even handle when they lose in college tribunals then best to just hand everything over to the real police and courts because advocates are just complaining about both processes. And since males are already suing over the tribunals, then just end the adjudication charade. I do believe this is where all this is headed. That is what overreaching, creating false stats and making up fake cultural terms gets you, a wisely skeptical public that will not trust the policies you advocate.

[Cardinal_Fang]

especially given that Emma lost twice and is coming of as a whiny loser

To you… but is she coming off as a whiny loser to the women she’s talking to? I think not. I understand that you don’t like that a US Senator invited her to the State of the Union-- but a US Senator did invite her to the State of the Union. That doesn’t say “whiny loser” to me.

[marie1234]

Well, I do think a more appealing poster girl could help the cause. Her case is muddy at best and her mattress is not universally admired.

[mom2and]

Dastark at a specific college you can never assume with any certainty that two accusations are completely independent. Kids talk. With social media and gossip there is just no way to make that assumption. That doesn’t mean that multiple accusations shouldn’t be considered by a college, if substantiated or at least some level of certainty that both are real. In certain cases the accusations could be clearly independent and similar enough in nature as to show a pattern and should be admitted. But in that scenario the odds would be more than 50/50.

In statistics, a 25% false positive rate would not be considered statistically acceptable. You think that unconfirmed accusations should be used against an accused and, even by your own flawed analysis would result I’m being wrong 25% of the time. How is that remotely helpful to a fair system? How is that not a kangaroo court. And by the way if the guy really is innocent, the chances that he actually did it are 0. Of course if he did it, the odds are 100%. In the aggregate that comes out to 50%, but not in any individual case.

[Cardinal_Fang]

I was thinking about al2simon’s idea that the Carry the Weight project is harassment, and that Columbia ought to act if Nungesser complains (which I don’t think he has done so far).

The problem here, from Nungesser’s point of view, is that the project has, improbably, gone viral. Let’s say Nungesser’s lawyers had approached Columbia just when the project was announced. Seems like Columbia likely would say, “She’s not using your name, she’s just schlepping a mattress around campus, what are we going to do, forbid students from carrying bedding? She’s allowed to say she was raped. She’s allowed to say she doesn’t like the result of the college discipline system. Look, this is just going to blow over, kids do stunts like this all the time, just wait a bit.” So he would have been unlikely to have gotten any response then, because it seemed like just another stunt that wouldn’t go anywhere.

But it did. Now, suppose Nungesser’s lawyers come and demand that the project be stopped. Columbia could do that-- but if they stopped the project today, four mattresses would appear in the quad tomorrow. They could stop Sulcowicz, but they can’t stop other students from carrying mattresses. And if they did, they couldn’t stop them from carrying navy blue rectangular pillows, or laptop cases, or navy blue posters the shape and size of a twin mattress. Stopping Sulcowicz wouldn’t make it go away; it’d probably make things worse, as far as Nungesser was concerned.

Women don’t see the mattress as a symbol of Nungesser raping Sulcowicz. It’s a symbol of women refusing to sit down and shut up. It’s a symbol of refusing to be silenced, refusing to be shamed. If Columbia tries to silence something that is the very symbol of refusing to be silenced, it’s likely to backfire on them.

[Cardinal_Fang]

In statistics, a 25% false positive rate would not be considered statistically acceptable.

But that’s roughly the definition of “clear and convincing evidence”: a 75% certainty.

[Cardinal_Fang]

Yes, he did file a “real claim”. He has a pending Title IX complaint for alleged sexaul assault by Nungesser filed last Fall.

Do we have any confirmation of this besides the Jezebel article?

[HarvestMoon1]

I do not buy into this whole “collusion” theory at all. So the thinking is that Emma somehow got 2 women and now 1 male to make up stories about Nungesser to lend support to her allegations of sexual assault? Why on earth would 3 Columbia students disrupt their own lives and entangle themselves unless they had good reason to do so? Does Emma have some magical power over people where they just do what she tells them to do?

And it seems that many are overlooking that with “Josie’s” allegation (followed her into a room, switched off the lights and then groped her) the tribunal did in fact find him “responsible.” He appealed the ruling. Josie is on record stating that by the time the appeal was active, she had already graduated, had a full time job and could not get back to Columbia to do the necessary interviews and testimony. She advised Columbia of that and the tribunal then reversed it’s original decision.

[dstark]

Mom2and,

I don’t know how to answer you. The guy is probably guilty. This was under the scenario I presented That is what I said.

I want the schools to consider this.

I didn’t say what the punishmments should be.

[HarvestMoon1]

NY Magazine reported it as well but referred back to the Jezebel article.

[ilovethecity]

@HarvestMoon1 I agree. It’s hard to believe that now 4 people have all accused the same guy just because they dislike him. That’s why I believe Emma and the others involved.

[al2simon]

However, if two independent accusations increase the chances the accused is guilty, in this scenario I presented, the accused is guilty if we use an above 50% standard.

dstark - By “guilty”, I’m sure you mean the accuser is guilty of at least one of the two offenses.

A few problems with this:

1. Sorry, this isn’t the way our legal system works. You can’t even admit past convictions as evidence to prove guilt, much less past accusations found not credible. Google seems to think you can sometimes admit past convictions as evidence to prove a defendant’s testimony isn’t credible. Colleges may be able to something different than courts, but can they do something this different? We need to ask a lawyer.
2. You now need juror / hearing panels to return a probability. I don’t think we can train them to do that well. Maybe they thought Paul was not guilty with probability 50.1%, maybe they thought it was 99%. Who knows.
3. What do you do if you have 3 people maliciously and falsely accuse someone of raping them in a he said/she said situation, with absolutely no evidence. Then your process would kick them out. Maybe that’s why courts don’t allow it.

I’m now thinking that “Adam” pranked Jezebel.

CF - Why do you think this? @HarvestMoon1 doesn’t seem to think that is true. Just curious.

CF - I think all the following is qualitatively right, but I need to check it versus your specific model. I have to go soon, let’s resume later please. If after checking it turns out I’ve exaggerated things I’ll correct my response tomorrow. I promise Leave it as an exercise to the reader.

First let’s consider a simple model, where we have a population of men, of whom r fraction are rapists

CF - YES!! Wonderful start at a model. Simplest reasonable one. Roughly speaking, this would be between scenarios 1 and 2 in my post 467. But I think you’ve snuck in the serial rapist thing in this form (imagine limit r → 0). Can’t fool me. Did you realize / intend it?

But the legal system doesn’t allow you to think like this. Our tradition of fairness insists we use scenario 2, even with a prior conviction (See my response to dstark above).

you didn’t include an important parameter in your model, but we need it: f, the fraction of accusations that are false accusations.

CF - YES AGAIN ! But again you’re thinking just like a mathematician. I don’t think the legal system allows you to do this. It’s not considered fair. Here’s the problem (from my post 477)

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say dstark believes only 2% of women lie, 98% are telling the truth. 98% > 50%, so why are we even bothering to have a hearing. Just get the rubber stamp out and grab an early lunch. Are you allowed to use the 98/2 fact? Why not? Where do you start from?

Where I live (NYC), your logic rapidly leads to racial profiling by cops. I’m sure you realize this. Not allowed.

From my post 477 again:

But the Prosecutor’s Fallacy stuff is actually the trivial stuff. There are lots of genuine issues, most of which I’ve forgotten or was never aware of. And that’s if you ignore all our concepts of due process and presumption of innocence, all of which introduce jurisprudence based overrides into the equations.

Also, just to show you al2simon didn’t fall off no turnip truck, I alluded to this possible response in my post 491 when I mentioned odds going up by a factor of 100. It’s hard to have a reasonable value of your r variable that gives this. You’d have to move more towards my scenario 1 than I think is justified. You needed to introduce your f variable (I think? Now that we’re doing math my voice dictation software is going haywire and it’s slowing me down). Now you’ve fallen into the trap …

Are we allowed to do this? We need to ask a lawyer. I really doubt it though. “Judge Fang, you really decided all these guys were pretty much guilty before hearing any evidence???” Just back the truck up and have the college shovel money into it from legal settlements. Hell, men might be begging their girlfriends to accuse them of rape just so they can retire at age 20! Like I said, it’s going down the path of a “Kill them all and let God sort them out” mentality.

CF & dstark - I really enjoy your responses. I’d love to discuss math with you. But I’m afraid we’re annoying everyone else. I think we should stop or go to another thread.

[mom2and]

Yes but clear and convincing is evidence in a particular case, not because of other unsubstantiated accusations.

I am not arguing for his guilt or innocence, just that the statical argument using 50/50 chance to conclude a 75% likelihood of guilt is not valid in most cases.

[momrath]

Yes, he did file a “real claim”. He has a pending Title IX complaint for alleged sexaul assault by Nungesser filed last Fall.

The wording is a little unclear. I may be incorrect here, but my understanding is that “Adam” can’t file a complaint directly with the DE OCR unless his case has already been heard by Columbia’s office of sexual misconduct (or whatever they call it) and it doesn’t appear that that’s happened. Once he’s gone through Columbia’s process he can complain to the OCR if he’s dissatisfied with Columbia’s decision or any aspect of the way they handled the hearing. If he has filed a complaint with Columbia, then it wouldn’t be pending: Columbia would be obligated to investigate it. Or maybe what’s meant by “pending” is “under investigation” by Columbia?

Once more into the fray . . .

[Cardinal_Fang]

I’m wondering what outlet is confirming the Jezebel story.

[marie1234]

CF doesn’t think he exists. That got my attention. And, I do think the details of the reporting are a little fuzzy which always causes problems.

[dstark]

Alsimon2, i want the schools to consider the cases. I am not talking about the courts.

I agree with pittsburghscribe. Post 476.

Alsimon2, we get to talk about numbers here. Threads go where they go…

If we can talk about people being vindictive we can talk about numbers.

You are using extreme cases. I asked you before. Is this how you decide cases?

The accusations should be independent of each other. What is the possibilty of three fake independent accusations? Nobody consulted each other.

What are the odds of somebody being accused three times?

It did happen at UCLA. Has to be pretty rare.

I am talking one relationship the guy accused is probably guilty. That’s it unless I say otherwise.

[HarvestMoon1]

@momrath this is what is published on the OCR website. Complaints involving educational institutions are handled differently under Title IX:

“Prior to filing a complaint with OCR against an institution, a potential complainant may want to find out about the institution’s grievance process and use that process to have the complaint resolved. However, a complainant is not required by law to use the institutional grievance process before filing a complaint with OCR. If a complainant uses an institutional grievance process and also chooses to file the complaint with OCR, the complaint must be filed with OCR within 60 days after completion of the institutional grievance process.”

@CF I viewed the Jezebel article as somewhat credible as they actually quoted “Adam.” Are you saying that Jezebel fabricated the story or that “Adam” simply contacted them with a bogus story as some sort of prank?

[Cardinal_Fang]

Are we allowed to do this? We need to ask a lawyer. I really doubt it though. “Judge Fang, you really decided all these guys were pretty much guilty before hearing any evidence???”

The court rules that in college disciplinary hearings, prior accusations can be introduced as evidence of guilt. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to demonstrate that the prior accusations are independent. Be it so ordered.

[Cardinal_Fang]

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say dstark believes only 2% of women lie, 98% are telling the truth. 98% > 50%, so why are we even bothering to have a hearing. Just get the rubber stamp out and grab an early lunch. Are you allowed to use the 98/2 fact? Why not? Where do you start from?

Good point. Although we think that most women are truthtellers, we must demonstrate that this particular woman is a truthteller. Otherwise, as you say, for every woman who appeared before us, we would brand her a truthteller. And that cannot work.

However, we can look for evidence that this particular woman is a truthteller. And the fact that other women are saying what she is saying is evidence that she is telling the truth.