“This just reinforces anti-affirmative action thinking.”
Getting whiny white kids interviews they didn’t earn reinforces anti-affirmative action thinking? I think it was an outstanding example of white entitlement. I went out of my way to make sure the employer saw her, even though they didn’t select her in the first round, and then they didn’t hire her following the interview I set up. Their commitment to diverse hiring is no secret, so I’m not going to lie to candidates about it. Of course, that employer regularly hires white candidates; this one just wasn’t good enough. She wanted someone to blame for the fact that the employer didn’t choose her, and so she tried to make me the bad guy. It happens. And it’s one way that shocking alleged statements might end up in a complaint, whether they happened or not.
Back to the original topic, this doesn’t seem credible to me, unless the “university official” was some undergrad doing work study or maybe an RA. Even if someone thought that, I can’t believe anyone in a position of authority at Stanford would be dumb enough to say it aloud.
Hanna, instead of telling her that she was not a sufficiently strong candidate, you referred to the commitment of the employer to diverse hiring. Their commitment to diverse hiring was irrelevant in that case. Since you mentioned diverse hiring, the student no doubt assumed that it was relevant. Getting the interview for the student did not dispel that idea.
I do realize that statements are open to misinterpretation. However, with regard to the Stanford “beach” comment, I think it is important to factor in the severity of the assault on Ms. A, and the fact that it is not all that easy to get to the beach from Stanford. It’s nothing like UC Santa Barbara, where you can just walk over to the beach, nor UC Santa Cruz, where you could bicycle to the beach. Currently, mapquest says that it takes about 38 minutes to get to Half Moon Bay from Palo Alto (and traffic is heavy),46-49 minutes to get to San Gregorio State Beach, and 55 minutes to get to the beach boardwalk at Santa Cruz (light traffic there, I have definitely known it to take longer). I don’t believe you can do it casually from Stanford, and it would tend to disrupt your academic work to try doing it multiple times.
If there is some explanation of what the person actually said, I would be quite interested in that.
Wanted to add: I recognize the impulse to be kind, by not telling the person directly that she was not strong enough as a candidate, and deflecting attention to something else. The person who advised the student to go to the beach may also have been trying to be kind. It’s hard to tell.
Just checking the time cost of reaching the beach from Palo Alto, for someone who cannot rent a car:
To Half Moon Bay (bus may stop in the town, not at the state part at the beach)
Caltrain + bus, 1 hour and 57 minutes
Bus only, 2 hours and 33 minutes
Uber, 30 minutes, but it costs $35-$40
To San Gregorio
Bus, 6 hours, 51 minutes
Uber, 41 minutes, $35-$50
Taxis are about twice the cost of Uber.
I also tried looking at two car rental companies: Enterprise does not rent to anyone under 25. Hertz has a menu option for someone 18-19, but it appears to be illusory. They have 4 locations in Palo Alto. I tried at least three of them, and every category of car comes up as “Not Available.” This is rather odd, and would certainly be frustrating to a student.
Further clicking shows that a 20-24 year old can rent a car from Hertz in Palo Alto, with an age differential charge. The extra charge is $27-$30 per day, and it only applies to cars in certain classes. Others are completely unrentable.
The staff member at Stanford appeared to be advising from his/her own experience, and not the experience a student might have. And I have a lot of trouble seeing how it could be the right response to a student who reported being choked to the brink of unconsciousness.
Shocking as it may be to many of you, things written in a complaint are not always true. This applies to both claims which support your world view and those which conflict with it. As always, time will tell at least some of what the true facts here are.
The problem here with both Stanford and this thread is that people are trying to give Stanford an incredible benefit of the doubt, not the victims. People are making up all of these complex tales, with no backing other than plausibility, that try to make this better than it is. This is not one victim with a “he said she said” - this is four cases, some very violent and emotionally manipulative. At what point is there ever enough evidence? What excuse is there for Stanford not immediately removing the student after the second case?
Going to police versus the university is a very common problem, because while you can pursue criminal charges, a rape conviction of any sort is incredibly hard to get. Even when you get one, it could just be 3 months (Brock Turner anyone? Full witnesses on the scene?) and without the university involved, they could just return back to campus. That is why the university must be involved. They are the only ones that can make your life at college easier. Cases can even take years sometimes, all the while you will have to see this person possibly. So if you were a victim, what do you do? Go for the criminal charges and have to see this person on campus for a year, maybe have them gone for a few months, then back again, or go through the university and try to get them off of campus and out of your life, with a record of the incident that sticks?
The best answer IMO is to do both, as they can be done in parallel, but the one at the university level is far more effective.
This is the really the key thing that blows me away here. Stanford decided that someone who they could not allow back on their campus deserved two degrees. As a private institution, they have the right to do as they please generally, and they chose this. There is plenty of backing in student conduct policies that would have allowed them to not grant the degrees. But instead, this person will likely be hired by a top-level company or university and be successful, as well as continuing this pattern.
I wanted to highlight this because I think it is a good expression of the single most significant difference between the legal system and the college system. The focus in the legal system is to a large degree on the rights of the accused. The college system flips that, and focuses on the more amorphous “rights” of the accuser. Unless you understand that significant distinction, none of this makes even the remotest sense.
“instead of telling her that she was not a sufficiently strong candidate, you referred to the commitment of the employer to diverse hiring.”
Ah, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You don’t have all the context, and you’re guessing what else was in the conversation. The student ASKED me the employer’s selection criteria, and I told her what I knew, which included their diversity priorities, among other factors. I was only answering her question.
I DID tell her she wasn’t sufficiently strong academically. And then I got her the interview anyway. But she didn’t remember, or report to the dean, either of those parts of the conversation.
While I agree that the highlighted difference is important, they do not ‘flip’ it, but rather go for a median. Most colleges use a reasonable doubt standard when it comes to all disciplinary proceedings (which this falls under), not one that focuses on the rights of the accused. This is the same standard that universities use for cases of cheating and plagiarism. The problem here is exactly that they did not give reasonable belief to the four victims. Any adjustment in these cases is burdened on the victims: for example, if two people with no contact orders enroll in the same course, the victim is the one that must change classes. This also applies to housing. The accused’s life is not affected in any way beyond not being able to contact the accuser. This is another area of large debate.
“Most colleges use a reasonable doubt standard when it comes to all disciplinary proceedings”
What? No colleges may use this standard for sexual misconduct proceedings, and I don’t know of any that use it for other types of discipline like cheating. Reasonable doubt is used in the criminal justice system and not much of anywhere else. The 2011 Dear Colleague letter requires colleges to use the “more likely than not” standard in cases involving Title IX.
Sorry, that is what I meant. Got the terms mixed up. The point being that “More likely than not” boils down to an even chance for each side often, which is not a complete flip.
Well regardless of whether they’re supposed to they don’t seem to. I know 5-6 women who were sexually assaulted by people at their schools, sometimes in their own dorm rooms and those perpetrators all got their degrees no problem.
“This is not one victim with a “he said she said” - this is four cases, some very violent and emotionally manipulative. At what point is there ever enough evidence? What excuse is there for Stanford not immediately removing the student after the second case?”
If four people reported their assaults to four different Stanford personnel - and those four people didn’t talk to each other - then I can see how officials failed to connect the dots. I did look on Stanford’s website and saw that they now have a system with a central reporting official. This is key. If one person has all of the evidence, it makes it much easier for Stanford (or any other university) to understand the scope of the accusations and take the necessary actions to remove the accused and protect the victims.
There’s still a lot of unknowns here. Did any of the alleged victims report the crimes to the police? If not, why not? If so, what did the police reports say? If the victims went to the police, why did the DA decide not to prosecute?
It shouldn’t matter. If you have a system that builds the expectation that the college as a whole is responsible for stopping the conduct at issue, which colleges at least arguably have done, then it’s on the administration to route complaints to the appropriate dept., which is one of many behind the scenes problems with building this alternate system.
Again though, I share others skepticism that every word in the complaint is the literal truth. We will have to see how it plays out.
I work at a university. It does not come as a surprise to me that students may file complaints that are not true. Nevertheless, this situation looks pretty bad to me. I agree, we can see how it works out.
Best to wait and see what the stories are…and what their beef really is with the college…I’m assuming they all have a beef with the guy…but that’s not what is happening here that isn’t what is being alleged…these women have a beef with the university and its processes, procedures and decisions it sounds like.
Yes, to the remark that the women have a complaint about the university. Your usage may vary, but I would use the term “beef” in a slightly pejorative sense, to refer to complaints that make the complainer seem somewhat grumpy–e.g., a person in the army might have a “beef” about the quality of food being served in the mess hall.
The Stanford women have something other than a “beef” about the way the university treated their reports. It’s more serious than that. Even if it should turn out to be unfounded (which, frankly, I doubt), it would be an unfounded complaint, and not a “beef,” the way I use that term.