QuantMech’s posts about women out at night by themselves reminded me of this essay, by a philosophy professor, describing different kinds of risk.
I agree with the second paragraph, at the same time as believing drunkenness shouldn’t be part of campus culture, and while continuing to warn any young women I know to be very cautious and responsible drinkers, to watch their drinks and never, ever, ever drink the punch.
“When we tell young women to stay sober in order to avoid getting raped”
Is that what the message has to be? Couldn’t we say “stay sober in order to look after your own health and safety”? In a world where we eradicate sexual assault, it will still be unsafe to get wasted.
I thought she dealt with that question in the essay?
I can’t pull out more quotes. In my opinion the essay, in its entirety, is fairly thought provoking.
“I thought she dealt with that question in the essay?”
No, she didn’t, unless by “dealt with” you mean “dismissed the question without justification.”
“the first kind of connection is sustained by mere biology; the second is not”
The first kind of connection goes way beyond mere biology (whatever the author thinks that means). There are all kinds of external, non-biological ways for drunkenness to hurt you. If you walk in front of a train when you’re drunk, is your injury somehow more “biological” than the injury of being raped?
I wonder if the author would say of the late Timothy Piazza, who died in his fraternity at Penn State, that “mere biology” caused his death, or that men only have to worry about “nausea, the headache, the loss of concentration” when they abuse alcohol.
I absolutely agree the risk of physical harm due to hazing increase with binge drinking. And also risk of auto accidents. And falling and sustaining a serious head injury.
Excessive alcohol consumption is risky behavior for everyone or any age and for both men and women the chance of very real physical harm increases the drunker you are. It’s sort of silly to isolate it with regard to sex, I would say that massive alcohol consumption by women yes, increases their risk of sexual assault but even greater increases their risk of having sex they might have wished they hadn’t. Neither is a desirable outcome - one is criminal and one might possibly might make you really depressed along with your hangover.
What seems even sillier is that when you do isolate and address the risks of alcohol to sex – which you did in your last 2 sentences – you address only women. Do you think that with some population of men excessive alcohol consumption might make them more aggressive? How does that affect assault rates?
You have one person who agrees with you @alh ! Yes – if any of the top 20 universities decided to enforce drinking laws for those under 21 – and those who illegally make alcohol available to those under 21 – such that there were a few high-profile cases of expulsions, the culture at those schools would change almost overnight. And they wouldn’t even see a blip in their application volumes the following year.
I think that you do not see it happening because our culture is somewhat obsessed with drug and alcohol abuse as a type of freedom of expression. Even for the sake of student safety, this is just not the kind of “socially conservative” stand that is popular among university administrators. Regardless, I believe that if someone had the courage to go first, others would follow when the results were obvious. And, lo-and-behold, a future generation would discover that, in fact, the freedom to get wasted wasn’t actually the end-all/be-all of the college experience, and they somehow figured out how to enjoy life without it.
Georgia is doing something interesting. There are been a couple articles lately in the chronicles of high ed. I am still trying to figure out what the state is going but it sounds like they are centralizing cases that have probation or expulsion as s potential outcome. I can’t tell yet if they are centralizing the actual case or just reviewing those cases. But it seems reasonable to have all public unis under the same governance for the egregious cases leaving mediation and other restrictions at the college level for the issues that are akin to relationship troubles. Still seems to me that a case so allegedly egregious it warrants expulsion or probation should just get adjudicated in criminal courts but can understand the need for a separate organization to perform review as long as the Title IX recommendations are in effect.
Update on Boermeester case. USC’s court filing reveals upon what basis they suspended and then expelled Boermeester:
Katz’s initial report to USC on the January 21st incident:
USC’s filing also goes on to detail additional statements that Katz made to them:
As required by applicable law and its policies, USC began investigating the incident on January 23, 2017. During the investigation, Petitioner was temporarily suspended. Jane Roe’s initial statements to USC, the statements of the two male students who observed the assault, the statements of witnesses who observed Jane Roe after the assault, text messages between Jane Roe and her friends,** and a surveillance video all supported USC’s finding**.
http://documents.latimes.com/usc-court-filing-matt-boermeester-case-20170822/
Thank you for this update. Now we have a much clearer idea what this story is all about. Looks like Title IX worked correctly to me. I hope she can stay safe.
I was struck by the fact friends had already contacted her father with concerns about her bruising before this incident.
They have video. That’s pretty compelling. imho.
I think asking for a “no contact” order and accepting “emergency housing” (they shared a house) is compelling as well. Judge didn’t buy all the backtracking either, Boermeester’s request to be re-instated to campus was denied.
She sounded very frightened in the reports. Even if all the quotes are fabricated or exaggerated, and the witnesses overreacted, there is still video evidence of one violent episode.
And this is the kind of case that is unlikely to result in a criminal conviction because she would not testify against him. Moreover, if the two males who intervened were seniors, they may have moved away.
^Two eyewitnesses and a video recording seems like beyond reasonable doubt even without the victim’s testimony unless the camera or the eyewitnesses didn’t have a clear view of the incident.
The only way I know what information university officials were looking at when they made their decision is because of HarvestMoon’s post and link. If the only information available to me was media reports like in the OP, I would think he had been treated unjustly.
If the friends who reported the violence had called the police, I guess there would have been a report and the information would be more publicly available. Would he have faced criminal charges? I am comparing this to the Brock Turner case. If no police had been called in that case, and it had only been reported to the university, what narrative would we have had?
With regard to witnesses being available for the appeal, that seems to me what happened when Paul Nungesser’s appeal was successful. The accuser had graduated and stated she didn’t feel she could take off work to appear for the hearing. She had already been through the process, which was “initially decided against Nungesser, with an assigned punishment of disciplinary probation”. (copied from wikipedia) His appeal was successful because she didn’t show up, if I understand correctly.
HarvestMoon: Thank you again for that link. I would never have known what happened here.
Thank you very much, HarvestMoon1, for finding the USC court filing in this case. I have read it and agree that “Petitioner cannot demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.”
If other posters are in doubt about this particular case, I strongly suggest reading the USC legal brief, “Opposition to ex parte application for stay.”
On the basis of the contents of the court filing, I think this thread is titled incorrectly. Admittedly, “weirdness” does cover a lot of territory, but the weirdness in this particular case does not seem to be in the operation of Title IX.
When I read about “rough-housing” initially, I assumed that the issue was “rough-housing.” I did not assume that the immediate issue was pushing the victim’s head into a wall twice, while holding her neck–actions that were only interrupted by the arrival of witnesses. Nor did I assume that the victim’s father had been previously notified by the victim’s friends that they were concerned about earlier bruising. Nor did I assume that there was a surveillance video. Nor would I have guessed that the accused was represented by an attorney from the get-go.
Whether any charges would have been filed had the situation been reported to the police, rather than to the university, I cannot say. Lawyers would know this better. I am guessing not, though.
We may or may not have the opportunity to see what various universities have to say about alleged injustices under Title IX, because the university’s process and the factual basis for the decision will not be laid out in this form, unless the accused seeks legal relief subsequently.
Agree, doesn’t sound like the guy is going to get his degree. I don’t know what you do when you are 2 classes short. It’s a conundrum. Let’s hope he starts treating her better. Maybe she can get him into anger management counseling.
Let’s hope they have split up.
To add: Anger management is a fine approach for someone who understands that he has a problem. Someone who is still characterizing hitting another person’s head into a wall (twice) as rough-housing needs Introduction to Fact 101, to understand what he has done. Then maybe anger management would work. I still hope they will split up if they have not.