It sounds like the inappropriate comments were made as a part of a presentation at their initiation ceremony. To me, that’s more serious than some comment that one guy makes to another in their room, because remarks made at an initiation would normally be thought to reflect the positions, policies and beliefs of the organization. Some brother must have told someone about these remarks, because how else would they have come to the attention of the authorities?
“The incident last spring does not represent the values of our fraternity,” the members of Yale’s SAE chapter wrote in the letter."
It probably was representative. Where I went to school, SAE stood for “sex above all else” or “sexual assault expected.”
Sexual Assault Experts, Somebody Anybody Everybody & Same A*********s Everywhere are also nicknames bestowed on SAE.
That is just awful and quite frightening (my D will be a college freshman next fall.) So, if it is common knowledge that this particular fraternity has those tendencies why on earth are they permitted a presence on any college campus?
This is where the Capt Renault quote from Casablanca is applicable.
I don’t understand. People know about some of these frats and nothing happens…
Maybe things will change now…
“If between 5 - 20 % of men engage in non consensual sex, do you really believe that all those parents dropped the ball?”
Yep. I think that a whole lot of parents do a really terrible job instilling human values in their sons. There’s some low-single-digit percentage of these men who were born psychopaths, without empathy. There’s nothing parents can do about that. But the rest of them? Somebody either taught them that this was OK, or else was silent and let the culture teach the child.
Now, maybe some of the parents who dropped the ball did the best they could; maybe they were single parents who had to work 80 hours a week, maybe they were in a war zone, whatever. But whether or not they tried hard, they dropped the ball. Psychopaths aside, there’s really no other measure of parental failure in my book besides raising a child who violently hurts a vulnerable person. I mean, you can argue that there is no such thing as parental failure, but if it exists, that’s it.
Good for Yale. Too bad it took a year! Seems like it was partially the incident itself and partially the cover up.
I would first encourage the OCR to revoke their prohibition of mediation for cases that fall into the category of he said/she said, ambiguous consent, no witnesses, no extreme incapacitation. I think counselling – plus physical separation if necessary – would be a better long term solution than automatic suspension or expulsion.
Of course an understanding of right vs wrong, common decency and common sense begins at home, or certainly at pre-college school. Once in college there are several entry points for refresher courses including those scenarios involving the students with the non-gender specific names. First year orientation is an excellent opportunity for inculcating college norms and reinforcing penalties. My son was an RA and I know the college’s expectation of sexual conduct was a big part of the orientation program.
I think coaches and fraternity leadership could also play a role in reinforcing what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Both the team and the frat should put peer pressure on violators, and elucidate very clearly the consequences of bad decisions. Guys who don’t get it should be ostracized by the team or by the frat.
Would courses like Columbia’s sexual respect seminars be a positive? My guess is that they will end up being more entertaining than elucidating, but I’m not opposed to them. At least they can spell out black and white the risks of violating the colleges’ sexual misconduct rules.
I’m not convinced that yes means yes is better than no means no, but young men need to be taught again and again, that these are very real, very serious rules. They also need to understand that in cases of two intoxicated people, the onus of responsibility will fall on the male’s shoulders. This is somewhat of a counter intuitive concept that may come as a surprise to many guys who think “we were all drunk so what the heck.”
And then there’s the alcohol factor. Prohibition of hard alcohol would help, though the girls that especially favor those super sweet and super lethal flavored vodkas will need an alternative. I’d also be in favor of reducing the drinking age to 18 for beer and wine, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen in the short term.
Without blaming the victims, young women have to be taught how not to put themselves in victim-vulnerable situations. To know their alcohol tolerance, buddy-up, trust less, learn how to say NO!, learn how to say yes with conviction.
And so does Kirsten Gillibrand! That was the point that leapt out at me in her statement about Emma Sulkowicz. Four years post Dear Colleague, and victim advocates have now lost confidence in the college tribunals that they expected would be the end all and be all, terrible swift sword of justice (and vengeance). Gillibrand’s and Congress’s solution is to force the colleges to pour even more funds into their Title IX bureaucracy. I guess it really comes down to the Big Government / Small Government debate. No question where I stand there.
My own personal bugbears are the misogynistic lyrics of rap and hip-hop that have become so mainstream that many people don’t even realize what they’re listening to. I thought it was oddly disingenuous for President Obama to make an anti-violence against women pitch at the Grammys – an event that has heaped accolades on artists known for misogynistic lyrics like Eminem, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Rick Ross, Kanye West, R. Kelly. These guys are pop culture super-stars. I mean, read some of this stuff! Whatever was said in the Yale SAE presentation couldn’t have been any worse. No wonder the youth of America are conflicted.
And as for the Yale SAE penalty: Surely I’m not the only one curious to know what was actually said at that presentation. Was it thoroughly vile or just politically incorrect? Hard to comment on the punishment without knowing the particulars.
Re Post 847 and my initial post:
For the record, I would like to make an official correction. I missed a word.
Additionally, Emma is fundamentally different than an accused appealing because the burden of proof is on the accuser, unlike some third world approach where one is assumed guilty upon an accusation. Thus, Emma carries much more weight in her disapproval than a disaffected accused male, as her objection goes to the very heart of the matter, i.e., something that was supposed to empower females supposedly does not, at least according to her.
But, this is highlights another political salemanahip error by advocates that was unfortunately and aggregiously reinforced by Senator Gillibrand, as @momrath notes above. That being, the equating of justice with findings of guilt. That makes no sense unless you believe in guilt by accusation.
Philosophically, the entire idea of justice being the same as increased findings of guilt is erroneous because in the same cases if the accused is innocent then one can equally say justice is a finding not guilty. Therefore, it is false to equate justice with guilty findings. Justice, in general, then means a finding that best represents the known facts in a case. Therefore, it could said that true justice really is the overall process to make one’s case as best you can, not the outcome.
Hence, what the tribunals should have been presented as is a way for females to have their cases heard / adjudicated, something they say the police never got to, as many cases never made it past the initial report. Justice then would actually be the opportunity to get heard and to present one’s case, but there should have been no quid pro quo sell that it was easier to get a conviction in a tribunal.
And this what I believe really animates Emma. She fell for the “its easier” message (I would think many accusers did), and she is finding it difficult to accept that if the tribunal is run fairly as possible then easier does not mean weak cases get some special help over the finish line to get a finding of responsibility, conviction or, whatever the term used. The easier should be that it is easier to get the opportunity to present your case, but not that your case gets some special treatment at the expense of the accused.
Overall though, I do think one underlying aspect of major distrust is driving the public against tribunals, but is not the upfront issue people are talking about, yet fuels the distaste. If you look at what happened at the frat and its members at UVA (members went into hiding for a while and house got bricked) and at Columbia (Emma allowed to call Paul rapist even after losing), there is this open hostility toward the accused without any proof whatsoever that anything happened at all (UVA) and harassment of an accused who was twice not found responsible (Emma). The public see this as guilt by accusation and subsequent silence or cheering of advocates of these activities and are instinctively unsettled by it, as that is stuff of rogue people and is directly counter to our system of justice.
The above, of course, assumes tribunals could consistently function, but they never got that far, so they suffer from functional issues, as well as a false message / expectation issues.
I have 4 kids ages 17 to 22 (two boys and two girls). I think this article is a good one to share with them as part of ongoing conversations regarding respect and appropriate behavior. I feel like there are so many mixed messages out there these days.
http://www.megmeekermd.com/2015/02/a-psychiatrists-letter-to-young-people-about-fifty-shades-of-grey/
Curiousmother, that is a great article. Excellent advice from the md. Thanks for posting the article. I am not going to see the movie.
I have also been concerned about the false messages - that it is a college/university problem and not a societal problem, that it is an easier, kinder, gentler route for accusers to take and that the results will be swift and punitive, that the process is fair and “condoned and encouraged” by the federal government, that it is “easier” to get “justice - whatever that is in the mind of the accuser” and that it is OK to call someone a rapist before, during and after even when the accused has never been branded a rapist by any criminal investigation and proceeding. I do think Emma was caught up in the misunderstanding of what it was really all about and for that I do feel somewhat sorry for her naivety.
I was wondering when someone was going to bring up 50 Shades, but in a perverse sense this is what yes means yes is all about. Consensual, clear agreement to what will and won’t occur during sex…and in writing. Kind of ironic actually. Dominant man, submissive naive college woman, pursuit of girl by man, written agreement, she gets the guy. I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten foot pole because it is after all a fictional story. The feministas as well as the mental health folks must be tearing out their hair. I haven’t strolled over to the cafe, but someone will probably start a thread.
Let’s say we transpose her statements from Columbia’s campus to incidents that occur in our nation as a whole. How do her statements differ from the Goldman family doing the talk show circuit after OJ’s acquittal, continually referring to him as “murderer?” There was more than a 3 year window between that acquittal and the judgment in the civil case. But yet during that period the Goldman family (rightfully so) did not hold back. OJ had the best legal team one could put together. Why do you think it is they did not proceed against the Goldman family?
And how do Emma’s statements differ from those of all the people nationwide who have banished Casey Anthony into oblivion, despite an acquittal in a murder case? The harassment basically necessitated that she assume a new identity. Now I don’t particularly have a problem with that, but apparently in some instances people feel that same right to publicly disagree vanishes into thin air. Again Casey Anthony had a very strong legal team but no one proceeded against anyone for their pubic statements or actions after her acquittal. Why do all these people get a free pass but you think Emma is somehow different?
There are certainly laws against harassment and defamation in the U.S. Why are those laws not enforced against those that insist on expressing their opinion even though it is contrary to an “official finding.” I think the answer is rather obvious.
I think that is the reason Columbia did not come down on Emma - her free speech rights. Isn’t the difference that Columbia is a University that has bullying and harassment policies in place that perhaps limit free speech that bashes another person in a way that the public at large does not? In the OJ case, he was a public figure in a way that perhaps Nungesser was not. Both his case and the Casey Anthony case were widely discussed in the media. I would imagine both OJ and Casey’s lawyers told them it would just generate more negative publicity to try to fight the public commentary.
Every state has statutes that deal with both harassment and defamation. The parameters for the “public at large” are pretty clear.
However, there are no free speech rights on a private college campus, as that right applies only as a limit to government on a person. Therefore, for Columbia, that excuse would really be a ruse. There is nothing stopping Columbia from saying she cannot use the word rapist, which is legally inaccurate and, according to Columbia itself, not accurate as to how they determined the facts as well. Even a public college efforts to limit certain words - see University of Michigan’s new list of banned words.
Pretty much, I way see it this way: Emma cannot go around campus calling Paul a “rapist” anymore than Paul should be able to walk around calling Emma a “vindictive slut.”
And ironically, according to the Columbia’s own tribunal, he has more legal grounds to call her a “vindictive slut” based on the tribunal’s dual decisions in his favor than she has to call him a rapist, for which he was never charged or found guilty of anyway.
But he could never get away with calling her that name, but Emma can do the reverse? That is just wrong, and as I said before, rubs against public sensibilities. And as for politicians supporting Emma, well, they are politicians and they are just using her and will drop her like a hot rock if the public sentiment becomes more critical and vocal.
On another note, I even understand that colleges are in their right to blow off due process, in many respects, in the tribunals if they want, because due process is also an issue of government, not of a college or company. However, just because something can be done, does not mean it passes the smell test.
And where the problem comes in for colleges is that they and the DOJ presented tribunals as a replacement essentially for going to the police and the actual courts by selling the tribunals as a real adjudication process. Well, the public heard that and thought, “OK, that might work,” assuming all the time that the tribunals would have similar safeguards and fair representation processes as the courts they were supposed to be replacing. However, the tribunals turned out not be like courts, but more of an undependable, back room, non-transparent system, with very few consistent processes. Result - a public fail because of their misrepresentation, as a real court replacement, but they turned out like anything but.
And that same “smell test” applies equally if not more so to freedom of expression rights. But moreover, the federal government tells private universities all the time that they are private entities and have all the right in the world to regulate themselves without government interference. And then what happens?
Well then the government says “Oh but wait one minute, you are a recipient of all those federal funds, right? So maybe where we really want to interfere you might want to reconsider letting us do so.” The federal government has unilaterally enabled itself to regulate much private university activity that the Constitution cannot reach directly. You only need to look as far at Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act, the Higher Education Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the American Disabilities Act of 1990. And it is no coincidence that many universities file amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases that have the potential to affect admissions policies of public universities. Why not just say “who cares? We are a private institution operating outside the purview of the federal government.” Because thats not the way it really works.
The truth of the matter is that the many elite private universities hold themselves out to be havens of free speech and academic freedom. Thats what most students sign up for when they enroll. It is going to take a whole lot for a university to start shutting down speech that is generally allowed in the public at large. Usually, the speech that reaches the level of having a university interfere is speech that incites or threatens violence.
Absolutely fascinating article that was posted by CaliCash in another thread. Crossposting here with credit to him - http://www.neontommy.com/news/2015/02/price-sex-usc
“The Price of Sex at USC” - Discusses sexual assault and Greek culture at USC.
Lots of good stuff. Based on a 90 page master thesis by an economics student (Sean Hernandez) at USC (FYI - master’s theses can vary greatly in quality and I don’t have time to even skim his writeup to form an opinion, but this student picked a fascinating question. Plaudits to him).
He took an economist’s perspective on the “sexual economy” of fraternities and sororities. The great thing about this is that it allows us to analyze theories based on data rather than everyone’s personal anecdotes.
No surprise here. Fraternities like SAE and Sigma Chi whose chapters are upper tier at many campuses allow their members greater access to more attractive females or to take greater advantage of less attractive females.
But one fascinating claim is the following -
So high status females supply more sex whereas one might think their higher status would enable them to ration supply. The article speculates this is due to the way the Greek system is setup - its rules are structured to shift leverage from the sororities to the fraternities. One might even call this “rape culture”.
That may be true, but this part of the logic seems incomplete to me. I’d have to dig into the thesis to understand this. You could imagine other contributing factors - even 22 year old women may be under pressure to start to finding potential high-status spouses, being sexually available is required in order to have status among females, or (horrors!) the girls actually like sex with high status men. Or maybe human society or Greek life is like chimpanzee society, where the highest status males get vastly more potential mating opportunities than even medium status males.
Still, the data answers an interesting question - but like all good results it instantly suggests 10 more questions. Wish I understood the historical evolution of hookup culture better.
FYI - Article says USC had a hard alcohol ban at frat parties. Didn’t work.
Other quotes from the article -
- “Sociological research corroborates the connection between male-dominated spaces and sexual assault”
- “study at the University of Oregon in September 2014, which found that 48.1 percent of Greek females experienced nonconsensual sexual contact, compared to 33.1 percent of non-Greek females. Even more shocking was the study’s finding that Greek females (38 percent) were two times more likely than non-Greek females (15.3 percent) to experience rape or attempted rape.”
You’re burying the lede here, @al2simon.
(my bold, my extra punctuation)
Also, there seems to be a bit of tiptoeing around the obvious: high-status guys (frat guys and athletes) are more likely to rape.
Well, also frats and sororities and alcohol fueled parties are inextricably linked. Just days ago I listened to a lovely young college student complain about the dumb drunk sorority girls arriving late causing havoc during a campus show.