<p>Absolutely agree^^. The fact that it took an article like this about a horrific event that was reported (even belatedly) to get UVA to act speaks volumes. And UVA is not alone. Bystander education is critical along with taking accusations seriously and working with the woman to find any evidence there is. Further, colleges should be keeping records (which can be sealed to outsiders but used by the college to look for those accused more than once). Colleges can also crack down on misogynistic fraternity practices, as well as doing a better job of policing the early-in-freshman-year frat parties when girls are at highest risk. Much can and should be done. </p>
<p>great post.</p>
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<p>I have said that in their process of discovery, colleges should use the very same standard of proof that is used in civil courts all across the country, and in many areas of dispute. I don’t know why a standard of proof that’s good enough for the courts is not good enough for universities. </p>
<p>You may think it’s just fine and dandy that 1000 women have to face their attackers on campus just so that we can make absolutely certain sure that one innocent guy is not punished. I don’t. I don’t agree with that standard. Expulsion from school is not a criminal punishment, and we don’t have to meet criminal standards for it. </p>
<p>Why are we bending over backwards to be fair to the guys, and ignoring all rules of fairness for the women? </p>
<p>And let’s also consider how many of the falsely accused men would be suspended under the regime of, let’s say, clear and convincing evidence. How often is there clear and convincing evidence that a guy raped a college student when he didn’t?</p>
<p>I’m not talking about expelling a guy on the bare accusation of rape. I’m talking about expelling the guy when there is evidence: she is bruised and bleeding, or her friends say she was incoherent when he walked off with her, or she sent texts beforehand indicating she was afraid, or he sent threatening texts afterwards. Accused rapists routinely go unexpelled in those circumstances.</p>
<p>You guys have to understand that greek life is VERY different at different schools. The schools you hear about are the bad cases (i admit there are too many bad cases). I talked about this in another post but my school has great policies including required sexual assault/rape classes for everybody in greek life, among a few other good policies. </p>
<p>Unfortunately there are alot of bad eggs in the greek system. These bad eggs overshadow all the benefits of greek life.</p>
<p>Picking up on poetgrl’s post, if the bad apple fraternities don’t get there act together, all fraternities are going to get lumped together and suffer the consequences because of the bad apples. </p>
<p>I don’t want to hear any ccmplaining from frats.</p>
<p>Victims of rape have been suffering the consequences caused by a few bad apples since forever.</p>
<p>Frats… Change the culture or bye bye.</p>
<p>Edit…I had to change this post slightly. </p>
<p>this is what my husband said.</p>
<p>he said if the fraternities can’t get this under control then the whole thing is going to have to be shut down. </p>
<p>he tells his guys, “It is in your best interest to kick out any guy in this place who would assault a woman. It is in the entire greek system’s best interest for fraternity men to start to report rapes and rapists and to cooperate fully with police investigations.”</p>
<p>One thing schools could do to create cooperation is to create a system in which if fraternity members themselves come forward and report the rapist, they are not sanctioned as a whole. If they are rooting out the criminals themselves, right now, they will still be punished.</p>
<p>it would be better to offer them reasons to cooperate the way the police do with witnesses.</p>
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<p>And what are national fraternities and non-bad eggs doing to root out the bad eggs that are giving everyone a bad reputation? Which fraternity chapter has had its charter pulled because of rape?</p>
<p>Let me give you an example of a national fraternity that is turning a blind eye to practices that the rest of us think are disgusting: Alpha Tau Omega national org seems to be, as far as I can tell, perfectly happy to continue to associate themselves with the Georgia Tech fraternity that sent out rape bait emails, sang rape songs and (allegedly) harbored rapists. Brotherhood, yay. </p>
<p>What does it take to sever the bonds?</p>
<p>Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale went around chanting “No means Yes! Yes means anal!” and “My name is Jack. I’m a necrophiliac. I f— dead women and fill them with my semen.” The chapter <em>required the pledges</em> to do this. It has not been booted out by the national org, and in fact the national org fought DKE’s Yale suspension. So I guess DKEs at other houses are perfectly willing to associate with men who gleefully express such sentiments. </p>
<p>Let’s give it the KKK test. Suppose the Yale DKEs had marched around campus chanting about how they love to lynch black men. Would other chapters be willing to associate themselves with such sentiments? Jeez, I sure hope not.</p>
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<p>But that isn’t the standard of evidence in use now. As I said before, I have no doubt that if UVA had actually investigated and pursued cases IN GOOD FAITH using the “clear and convincing” standard, there would have been expulsions and suspensions.</p>
<p>The problem is that they didn’t investigate them. The police didn’t investigate them. Victims were routinely discouraged from filing a formal charge. By everyone, including other students. If accusations were routinely investigated in a professional and thorough manner, I doubt that anyone would be talking about reducing the standard of evidence.</p>
<p>And I am sick and tired of being accused of wanting to “privilege” rapists. I’m not concerned about the rapists. I’m concerned about the unfortunately large number of victims and the small number of falsely-accused truly innocent. It is obvious to everyone that there are FAR, FAR MORE of the former than there are of the latter. The scale has been tilted all the other way. ( In fact, it is almost ludicrous to refer to a “scale” since one side of it has been sitting firmly on the ground.) But it seems as if the lower standard of proof combined with a doctrine that in the “two drunk kids” scenario the woman can never give consent, even if she says “Yes” as many time as Molly Bloom, there is the potential for more of the latter to start appearing. The kids at Occidental, Columbia, and Brown who have brought law suits appear to me to be innocent. It’s good for them that they have been able to bring suit to try to recover their lives and reputations. Can everyone? How much is it costing their families?</p>
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<p>Fine and dandy? Really? How to distort the words of anyone who expresses the slightest concern about the innocent. You know, do you really think that the people who work for The Innocence Project are in favor of murder? Do you really think that people here think it is “fine and dandy”? Maybe “extremely unfortunate but necessary” is what they think. (Not me, because I am willing to bet that if cases were vigorously investigated there wouldn’t <em>be</em> 100 women with attackers on the loose on campus.)</p>
<p>The more we’ve talked about this who thing, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that they key thing is investigation, investigation, investigation. The more investigations take place, the fewer rapes there will be and the more rapists will be expelled with it on their record forever, the more will be actually jailed. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. </p>
<p>How to get more victims to report and report sooner is another matter.</p>
<p>BTW, my S’s house threw out a guy whose behavior towards women was suspect. </p>
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<p>I agree. I also agree that this is the answer to your question of how to get women to report and witnesses to corroborate. The more investigations take place in good faith, the more reports you will see. College women happen to be pretty smart. </p>
<p>I think you are right, poetgrl, but then I look at something like the Parker Gilbert case where a jury found him not guilty. The woman was obviously supported by the college and by the local police and prosecutor. I don’t know what may have been done internally at the college, in terms of discipline, but AFAIK, he is no longer there. I am assuming that he was expelled, whether formally or informally. But she took the risk and it didn’t work out too well for her. Frankly, I was surprised that he wasn’t convicted, despite some problems with her testimony. But will this outcome encourage more women to report, or discourage them? I guess if it is known that they guy is history as far as the college is concerned, that is something.</p>
<p>@CF can you provide a link to DKE nationals fighting the suspension? It looks like they aren’t being booted because they didn’t do anything illegal and because DKE will already be dead after the 5 year suspension. They will be completely starting from scratch with totally new members and leaders. If this situation happened to a chapter associated with mine I would be fine with the outcome. </p>
<p>I guarantee you if this suspension didn’t happen, that chapter would’ve gone through a pretty strenuous review. This means nationals would have came in a kicked out the bad apples. (Usually at least 1/3 of the chapter)</p>
<p><em>If</em> DKE Nationals fought the suspension it was because they could have kicked out all the bad apples themselves still leaving a decent chapter. This is the first DKE chapter and same chapter that 5 US presidents came from. They didn’t want it to die. </p>
<p>Investigation, investigation, investigation is one key thing. A second key thing (and I expect you agree with this, Consolation) is to interview the accusers in, at the very least, a neutral way, rather than interviewing them as if they are probably liars. If the first few questions out of the interviewer’s mouth are “Were you drinking? What were you wearing? Did you go upstairs voluntarily?” and other such skeptical questions, the accuser is going to get the idea that the investigator thinks she’s lying. And victims are not going to report to people who don’t believe them, because it’s a waste of time.</p>
<p>@CF Georgia Tech ATO underwent membership review as well. I can fully assume that everybody involved in the activities you talked about was swiftly kicked out. </p>
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<p>As far as I’m concerned, this is integral to an INVESTIGATION IN GOOD FAITH. </p>
<p>Agree with Consolation. Investigation is key. Along with education and support of the victims, witnesses and kids that raise concerns about what is going on in their frat (or on their dorm floor or on a team or even at a debate club). </p>
<p>And CF if this is what you think:</p>
<p><<i’m not="" talking="" about="" expelling="" a="" guy="" on="" the="" bare="" accusation="" of="" rape.="" i’m="" when="" there="" is="" evidence:="" she="" bruised="" and="" bleeding,="" or="" her="" friends="" say="" was="" incoherent="" he="" walked="" off="" with="" her,="" sent="" texts="" beforehand="" indicating="" afraid,="" threatening="" afterwards.="" accused="" rapists="" routinely="" go="" unexpelled="" in="" those="" circumstances.="">></i’m></p>
<p>I agree with you as well. IF that was the standard, then few would disagree. Those are not the cases in dispute. One can agree that colleges need to do everything they can to find out the truth and support victims and even the women whose cases cannot be proved, without agreeing that every time a woman says she did not give consent in the absence of any other evidence, the man should be expelled. </p>
<p>The best situation is for an accused to have concomitant actions, which I actually tend to think was what the DOE had in mind when they put this mess on colleges and universities. If victims don’t want to report to the police, in my opinion, in cases for sexual assault (with force) the schools should report and it should be mandatory, if the student doesn’t want to report to the police in a case that is not sexual assault then the college could handle alone. If it’s a serious enough accusation it deserves criminal sanctions. If it’s not so serious that it doesn’t require criminal investigation then the accuser needs to understand that the punishment will be dependent on the investigation and evidence. I do think colleges and universities investigate or at least I thought they did otherwise they would not be able to figure out what degree of punishment should be given. If someone doesn’t feel that what happened is serious enough to engage the police, then it’s not surprising the the universitiy is going to be very conservative with it’s decision and punishment. The question is do they investigate if the accuser/victim wants to do “nothing” because frankly 2 years is 2 late…I’m guessing most of the guys in that frat house in the UVa story have graduated and moved on.</p>
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<p>Exactly. This question right here tells the whole story. </p>
<p>Are you saying that by going upstairs I am consenting ? Cuz, um, no. </p>
<p>"The first idea is that all fraternities as of Jan. 6 are co-ed. That would certainly change the dynamic. "</p>
<p>This is insane. How do you “mandate” that voluntary social organizations change these things? Are you going to randomly assign 50 girls to each fraternity? Does this apply to sororities too - do you assign them each 50 guys?</p>
<p>"How about installing cameras in all the bedrooms in all the frat houses with the understanding that during parties they will be monitored? Or even the understanding that they won’t unless later there is an allegation of some sort. How about turning each one into a ‘smart house’ where they’re hooked into a computer – during a party, you could set the settings so that all the lights stayed on in each room, and the doors wouldn’t lock. Put a panic button in each room of the frat house that anyone could trigger at any time. PUt in some sort of device that records an audio tape of whatever goes on in every room. "</p>
<p>Again, this is insane. How about not violating people’s right to privacy when they haven’t committed a crime? If you want to “bug” the public areas of a living space, fine … but the bedroom? Really? How many of you would be ok if your school had a camera or audio tape in your kid’s dorm room … “oh, but really, no one will watch it unless there’s a crime”? Yeah, right. </p>
<p>My son lived in his fraternity house junior year. Like all the other kids, sometimes he didn’t go to the parties - he stayed up in his room, studying or sleeping. You’re seriously suggesting he would be forced to have his lights on and not lock his door just because he lived in a fraternity house? Talk about trying people before they’ve done a crime.</p>
<p>Anyway, people who are up to no good can just as easily take a young woman outdoors, or to an off-campus apartment, or whatever. </p>