Title IX specifically says its purpose is to protect “women”? I thought the purpose was to protect ALL students.
Yes it prohibits any gender based discrimination. But the reality on college campuses today is that it is women reporting or individuals reporting on their behalf. In all of the cases we have discussed only one involved a male who reported. There was one other case where the facts as we knew them led me to believe a male was sexually assaulted by a woman – to my knowledge he never reported.
Edited to add: and the one case where the male reported, the woman was in fact expelled.
I’ve read many stories about young men who are victims of abuses of Title IX. Colleges have no business dabbling in what should be criminal cases.
This is almost a straw man. In how many Title IX investigations is there irrefutable video proof that a particular student committed a felony?
RE: #42 Well the law and their codes of conduct say they do. These cases can be also be prosecuted through the criminal justice system simultaneously. Sadly they rarely get beyond the report.
@alh, I think we are pretty much on the same page regarding this case. There isn’t enough public information to make a judgement, but on the face of it, if there isn’t more significant info to come, Katz would appear to be in the right regarding making her own decisions.
I have found the Ray Rice case difficult to deal with. I saw a TV show on which several black women discussed it, and they opined strongly that his wife was a college graduate, an athlete, and a woman who should be allowed to make up her own mind, and that enforcing penalties on him against her will was simply enforcing financial penalties on her and her children and paternalistic. I have a really hard time with that POV, although I also firmly believe that the only people who really know what goes on within a marriage are the two people who are married. Ray Rice clearly assaulted his wife. In assault cases, does it matter whether the victim wants to press charges? Is this one of those areas where black women part company with white women over feminist issues, feeling that support of black men is as, or almost as, or more than important that empowerment of women?
Tough questions.
I don’t think it is tough. I looked this couple up -Rice-and they are still married and his old football team just paid him some money. Doesn’t sound like there was a criminal case. I would have been gone gone if my H did something like that to me but it is her life to live and her decision to brand herself a victim or not. Feels alittle big brother-ish to allow other people to label someone a victim who doesn’t define themselves that way.
In some cases yes, @momofthreeboys , but in the Rice case there is actual video of him knocking her out and then dragging her unconscious body out of the elevator.
Have you seen it?
Can a person make a marital compact that it is okay to knock them unconscious?
I think that what was going on there was that she and her children depended on the big $$ he made from the NFL, and she didn’t want to forgo it. Perhaps this was an aberration on his part that she was willing to overlook, given the rest of their relationship and the financial security.
The argument is somewhat similar to that levied at one point against economic sanctions against South Africa: the oppressed black population would suffer. However, in that case the oppressed population supported sanctions nonetheless.
There were criminal charges but they were dropped after he agreed to enter a violence prevention program. He was suspended by the team for 2 games before Goodell saw the tape, and then suspended by the team. However, he fought that because he claimed a ‘double jeopardy’ type issue, and sued the team. Never underestimate the player’s union; he won a settlement.
The NFL (and the other sports’ governing bodies) have stepped in to discipline players because it seems they really don’t care about speeding tickets, domestic violence, drugs, other minor crimes. They’d just pay the fine. Being suspended or released has more of an effect on behavior than monetary fines.
Considering what HarvestMoon said regarding Title IX, I’m thinking it doesn’t matter what we think about the Rice case. The team had the right to get rid of him if they didn’t like his conduct. It isn’t up to his then fiance, now wife, to make the decision whether the team keeps him.
I am pretty comfortable having rules in my house that you can’t stay here if you hit someone. I don’t care if the person being hit doesn’t feel it was a big deal. I will still tell the one hitting to leave. That is my right.
I think it’s a good idea for universities to say they won’t allow violence.They should have that right.
Title IX isn’t applicable to the NFL. Their right to suspend or get rid of him would be governed by their contract with him.
Yes, I understand.
It isn’t up to Mrs. Rice whether the NFL suspends her husband.
It isn’t up to Zoe whether USC suspends her boyfriend.
That doesn’t mean USC may not have judged the case incorrectly. We have no way to know at this point.
Yes @ahl I think that sums it up quite nicely.
and we don’t even have to worry about whether we are infantalizing anyone, which is quite a relief to me
The relevance of the Rice case (which alh mentioned) to the current discussion has to do with respecting the rights of the “victim,” the “person attacked,” the “person who wasn’t attacked even though it looked like that,” or [other], take your choice–specifically the right or absence thereof to determine the outcome for the accused, and how serious an attack has to be before the wishes of the “victim” or “non-victim” no longer prevail. That seems to me to be the real issue in the Title IX case that Ohiodad51 used to start the thread.
I am writing about the Rice case, because it is clearer to me. The attack is reported to be on video. Rice’s wife can regard herself as a victim or not, as she sees fit. I call her a victim, without compunction. When a man is on videotape knocking a woman unconscious and dragging her out of an elevator, I think society has an interest in stopping that, with its response. I think it is wrong for the race of the people involved to enter into the discussion of the actions (though I do appreciate the overall complexity of this issue); yet guilt over racism ought not outweigh the facts of this situation. A person cannot knock another person unconscious with impunity except in very unusual circumstances (war zone, apprehending a murderer . . . ) The fact that the person who was attacked continues to associate with her attacker–and apparently to profit from it–is irrelevant to the issue of who gets to decide what happens to the attacker, given an attack this severe.
I believe in forgiveness. But I don’t believe in impunity of the rich or the powerful (or the athletically gifted).
That’s not quite what I said. I said that sometimes who have been abused deny it. It is not alway to protect the spouse. In many, if not most cases, the victim wants to protect herself (and sometimes her children.)
And, NO, we do not let the alleged victim decide whether she is the victim. We don’t even know in most of these cases whether the alleged victim is making the decision to deny the abuse of his or her own volition.
Again, I know nothing about this case.
But has this board forgotten Yeardley Love’s murder so soon?!!!Love never reported Huguely’s abuse. If she had, it’s unlikely anything would have happened to him. Heck, he assaulted a police officer while drunk and only got probation. And, at the time, under the law of Virginia, she wasn’t eligible to ask for an order of protection against him because they were not married nor living togehter. So, she did her best to get away from him and counted down the days until graduation when she could cut off all contact.
Of course, she died before that. Even after she DIED, when her roommate called the police, she said she thought Love had drunk too much alcohol. As if alcohol poisoning can bash in half of your face and make a gigantic hole in your door.
So, repeating yet again that it’s quite possible Zoe Katz was not really a victim, it’s not up to her to decide if USC should expel her alleged abuser.
And, yes, I think the Huguely/Love case illustrates why colleges shouldn’t just leave these cases to the police and wait until the verdict to get the accused off campus.
I am really curious, momofthreeboys: Is there any level of seriousness of an attack that would cause you to say that it is no longer up to the person who was attacked, whether charges should be filed?
Yes Yeardely Love was a tragic and heartbreaking case. And let’s not forget Hannah Graham either.
I think @QuantMech is right in that the Rice case is an easy one – we saw with our own eyes what transpired. This case is so much harder because we really only have one side of the story, quite similar to our discussion in the Grant Neal case. In both of these cases I am unwilling to cast stones at the universities until I know what information they actually acted upon. What did the witnesses see, was there any physical evidence of violence and did either have previous reports filed against them?
These are all unknowns in these cases.
“Do you find it believable”
Yes. It’s believable that this altercation was the straw that broke the camel’s back after a long history of problems with this student. It’s also believable that it was a playful fight that witnesses misinterpreted and that the school pushed for a harsh sanction even though it was an isolated “offense.”
There is almost no action on the part of a school that I have trouble believing any more.
I would think a prosecutor could take a case without a living cooperating person who claims to be a victim of a crime. I am sure that happens. Should they? I don’t know how I feel about that when the alleged victim is an adult. Again it feels alittle creepy just like it does to me when unis take action against an adult student without a alleged victim. There should be some free agency and modicum of self determination within a relationship that supercedes the interest of the state or uni or place of employment but I haven’t totally thought through my feelings. If an employment agreement says you get fired if you punch s teammate but the position would be thin in my mind in the absence of a clause regarding behavior outside the work environment. Perhaps the NFL had language in their contract regarding behavior not directly connected to their jobs that was the basis for his firing. If I was rolling around on a quad being tickled to death and saying stop stop stop or whatever was going on and the uni framed that as assault, I would be offended that the uni felt I had no free agency and needed to take control and punish my boyfriend.