@OhioDad51 go back and review Princeton’s policy – the committee governs all student conduct under their student regulations. The committee hears all academic infractions and any “serious infractions” – minor infractions are handled somewhat differently.
It is unclear to me what distinction you are trying to make-- the committees and tribunals are investigating matters that can also be criminal in nature. Assault/battery, vandalism, drug and weapons offenses are all potentially criminal in nature and like sexual assault can also be pursued through the criminal justice system. IF you look at these hearings you are likely to come up with the same complaints you have with the Title IX hearings. They are set up very much the same.
I agree with those that say there is not enough information on this case to really understand what happened. Were they fooling around and he knocked her to the ground or did she trip? Did he actively push her or hit her? Where they both inebriated? Was she injured in any way? Or were the multiple witnesses for multiple incidents? It seems like the kid that witnessed this was upset enough to go to a coach,which suggests this at least looked pretty bad.
I don’t know if there is always a bright line to define a victim of domestic abuse. This young woman could be correct that her boyfriend did nothing wrong, or there could be enough evidence that he was abusing her, even if she does not understand that his actions are abusive. Certainly, there can be criminal cases brought even if the victim does not want to press charges, but those are difficult to prove without a victim who is willing to testify.
Boormester appears to be represented by counsel and is probably being told not to say anything at this point, especially if they are preparing to sue USC.
@HarvestMoon1, I am making (or trying to make) the same distinction @Hanna is making. There is a difference between fact finding/investigating and determining sanction. Maybe I am misreading this, but my assumption is that in the non sexual assault type cases the investigation is done somewhere else and then brought to the disciplinary tribunal to determine the consequences. In other words, fire safety examines a dorm room and finds a bag of pot. That gets reported to the appropriate disciplinary committee and sanction is determined. That is very different from someone in the dorm saying that six months ago they saw student x buy a dime bag (if those even exist anymore) and then some university agency (not the police) starts conducting interviews and doing fact finding to determine whether in fact an illicit sale occured.
@Hanna I can think of many cases where everyone would not agree about the facts. If a student reports that he was punched in the stomach by his roommate but there are no visible signs of assault and the roommate denies it, there is clearly not agreement on the facts. I am sure many cases of regular assault on college campuses are disputed.
Same with racial harassment – this is not something that someone will readily admit to and again a hearing committee has to rely on witness statements and statements from the parties themselves.
I have a friend whose S eventually reported his roommate for basically running a drug business our of their dorm room. The roommate simply denied it. It did go to a hearing and my understanding is that all they would discipline him for was possession because their S could not prove the sales. He had pics of the drugs but apparently that was not enough.
Certainly. We should always have that debate, and decide what the appropriate balance between protecting against wrongful sanction while providing appropriate redress is. Unfortunately, the prior adminstration chose not to follow that path and pushed through a lot of these changes through the DCL, rather than subjecting their position to public hearing and debate. So now we are probably going to start all over.
And FWIW, I would have much less of a problem with these threads if people would admit that they were ok with a certain level of harm being done to innocent men because they felt the potential harm to female victims is higher. It is the hypocrisy I really disagree with.
In every policy I have ever read this is not the case. Students, faculty, admin or anyone else can bring a report to the designated individual and it will be looked into. Normally, a hearing will result in those cases where the inquiry into the report bears fruit and no informal resolution is reached.
^ So you are saying that colleges have full blown investigative law enforcement type agencies now? Or who exactly is doing the factual investigation to see if a crime was committed?
@ohiodad51 you can read the policies and draw your own conclusions about how they investigate and adjudicate these matters. I imagine the extent of the investigation is dependent on the nature of the offense and the consequences that might result to the accused student. Probably very similar to the Title IX investigations - some are farmed out to outside lawyers or investigators some are done in-house.
You have to look at each policy to see what they do in both Title IX cases and non Title IX cases. But yes, they investigate and adjudicate.
Re the comment by Ohiodad51: “And FWIW, I would have much less of a problem with these threads if people would admit that they were ok with a certain level of harm being done to innocent men because they felt the potential harm to female victims is higher. It is the hypocrisy I really disagree with.”
I would hope that no harm is done to innocent men. I support the “clear and convincing” standard for college campuses and the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for criminal conviction. One knows that people can be wrongly convicted of various crimes even when the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is applied (in practice). (My notion of reasonable doubt is probably more extensive than most people’s–the defense wants me on the jury.)
So, consider a case where there is clear and convincing proof that a man assaulted a woman on campus, and he is suspended or expelled. If the man is innocent despite the “clear and convincing proof,” I would see this as very regrettable. But in my view, the potential burden on an innocent man is less than the potential burden on an assaulted woman who has no redress, provided that the standard of “clear and convincing” proof was met. I should probably add “at this point in time” and “in my region” to this statement, because I am probably subconsciously factoring in the likelihood of both burdensome outcomes, locally. To be completely upfront about it, I’d be willing to have the man forced to move to a different dorm at the “preponderance” level of proof.
Of course, one needs to have fair-minded people making the determination.
I see a distance between “clear and convincing” and “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and would guess that you do also. This is why I find the calls that allegations of sexual assault should be left to the legal system distressing. That is practically a guarantee that nothing will happen.
@QuantMech there are a few schools that do use “clear and convincing” for the non Title IX violations. They are in the minority though. All Title IX violations are “preponderance” because of the DCL. I am not sure whether the outcomes would be all that much different in the cases that actually go to hearings. My “clear and convincing” might actually be someone else’s" preponderance." There is no way of getting into people’s heads and determining what standard they actually apply.
@HarvestMoon1, I read portions of the policies you linked. I don’t believe I draw the same conclusions from them that you do.
@QuantMech, I agree, particularly with your comments on the burden of proof, with one proviso. I think that someone who actually rapes/assaults another should go to prison. I think the idea that colleges are somehow capable of handling and sanctioning egregious crimes like that is farcical. So if I were king for a day I would require that serious allegations of rape/assault be reported to the police, and only after that process completes should the college move forward.
These are well defined terms. My experience has been that juries generally act differently and require different proof for claims tried under either standard. I would assume it would be the same here. Of course this presupposes that the fact finder is a person of open mind and good will. That is why the OCR went so hard at forcing the change.
OK fair enough but I am not sure what other conclusions you can draw from the point you made that I was responding to. You stated universities do not have panels that hear non-sexual conduct code violations – they do. You then questioned whether they undertake investigations-- under all the policies I have read they do. For the 3 schools I linked above, investigations are conducted by the following individuals according to the policies:
Princeton: an assistant or associate dean investigates
CSU-Pueblo: Director of Student Conduct and Case Management investigates
Yale: A “factfinder” investigates – ordinarily a tenured member of the Yale College Faculty.
The thread has moved way on, but I had to do some work at the office today LOL. Anyway, if a person shows up at the hospital with a stab wound (requiring surgery or not) and the hospital calls the police because they suspect something (although I didn’t think hospitals did that except in the case of minors) and the police came and interviewed the person and the prosecutor decided to prosecute so be it…they would not have a “victim” if the person who was stabbed claimed it was an accident or something. They would probably not really have a winnable case. I think it would be incredibly rare that anyone would attempt a case - if prosecution would happen at all. Again makes me intensely squeamish to think that someone else gets to define your personal relationship and your personal boundaries. Ohh, and stop, ,stop, stop during a tickling match is pretty normal…unless of course you prefer uncle, uncle, uncle. Unfortunately tickling is one of those activities that diminishes in life as we age, according to research it diminishes ten-fold.
@HarvestMoon1, yes. I guess my perspective is that the “investigation” of pot possession is that somebody got caught having weed in their room, and the dean has to decide what to do about it. I just don’t see where the dean is running some type of quasi narc squad. I certainly don’t get that from the policies you linked. But I have no knowledge of that part of it at all.
I erroneously pulled an old Princeton policy from my computer file when I provided the earlier link. This is their current policy for non Title IX hearings:
I too doubt it was any sort of quasi narc squad. But before it proceeds to a hearing someone has to investigate the substance of the complaint and make a determination that there is enough to proceed. I assume the extent of the investigation is very much dependent on the nature of the crime.
Back to the original topic - looks like the non-victim-victim has a lawyer. Doesn’t surprise me, if the uni treated her the way she claims, like she doesn’t know up from down and is a miserable dumb woman who has no clue she’s a battered woman, she might want a lawyer just to get the record straight about herself. Heavens, that is the type of noisy neighbor you hope you never ever have in life.
Agreeing in part with Ohiodad51’s post #90 and disagreeing in part. If a rape occurs when two people are alone, I think it is very rare that any proof could be established beyond a reasonable doubt. I am not sure I see any point in reporting it to the police, if one knows there is no proof at that level. What would be the reason? Working on a college campus, I know of multiple cases of alleged rape. I personally know of no case prosecution occurred, even though where a rape kit was taken and the alleged assault was reported to the police.
Also, Ohiodad51 says “only after that process [the judicial process] completes should the college move forward.” But if you look at the Owen Labrie case, it is still under appeal years later.
I see no reason that a college proceeding with its range of sanctions should not move forward in parallel with the criminal proceedings (if there are any). The standards of proof are different and the potential sanctions are different.