<p>male student recently expelled from Occidental college, even though the police report indicates:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Who were the witnesses, one wonders. If they were all his buddies, maybe not wildly convincing. If they were friends or acquaintances of both, more convincing. </p>
<p>Well, they were convincing enough for the police, and that is the problem. He was expelled. She wasn’t. It’s awful.</p>
<p>We also don’t know if there were other circumstances such as previous accusations or a probation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My, let’s just dismiss the issue out of hand?</p>
<p>But the investigators hired by the College interviewed what looks like 4 females and 4 male “witnesses”, but my quick read is just that they were ALL pre-gaming drunk.</p>
<p>As to the second, the date in question was September, a few weeks after school had just started, and both male and female were Frosh. (So highly unlikely that there was anything previous.)</p>
<p>of course, this is the pleading from the male plaintiff, but you can read the drunkeness of all in the Investigator’s report, the Investigator hired by the college.
<a href=“FIRE | Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression”>http://d28htnjz2elwuj.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/John-Doe-Full-Lawsuit-against-Occidental-Part-1.pdf</a></p>
<p>In my mind, sober enough to text “I’m going to have sex now” is sober enough to consent.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Guess the second part is not surprising, in that the new frosh (both of them) apparently showed very poor judgement and discretion with respect to both alcohol and sex.</p>
<p>@Much2learn wrote:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No one will argue that a sober guy has any right to a drunk female. So, no need to even address that aspect any further. Just lock him up.</p>
<p>However, that is not the situation that seems to be occurring most on colleges, so I would like to address the quote in the context of what seems to be happening on colleges.</p>
<p>As much as I would like to agree with the quote above, for the current college issue, its premise strikes me as too isolationist and, as in most college cases, excludes the fact that BOTH parties are drunk. The statement just seems caught up in legalities, while ignoring realties.</p>
<p>Consent or non-consent does not happen in some bubble; that situation arises from events prior and those events have consequences, i.e., sex is not an isolated incident. It arises from actions beforehand between the two parties.</p>
<p>If I am reading the statement correctly, to me, it flies in the face of logic when BOTH parties are drunk in that: 1) the drunk girl cannot consent, even if she clearly says yes (a drunk yes, but she said it), and 2) the drunk guy cannot say he heard a definite yes or got definite OK signals, even if he did (even though he was drunk, he heard yes or the message was sent because the girl took off his clothes). Both “yes” actions can easily occur. But, based on your statement, the male is the offending party. </p>
<p>I find this a huge problem in that if BOTH parties are drunk, then BOTH parties should be responsible for what they say and hear, not just one. They are BOTH drunk, yet only the male is being held to an actual cognitive standard of understanding of what is going on? I repeat the condition - both inebriated, but only one party is held accountable for understanding the actions that occur between two people who are doing things to each other. That is one-sided, holds females to lower standards of responsibility, while in the exact same condition (drunk), as a male. Does not seem fair or equitable.</p>
<p>I understand this is how it is legally written, but legal does not mean smart or correct or fair. And, let’s face the fact that legal can also be wrong and that is why laws are changed and amended all the time.</p>
<ol>
<li>The issue of consent is the one I see as the big problem. Frankly, I have no idea what it means simply because there seems to be this expectation of someone saying yes and someone saying no in some stark terms, which we all know is rarely ever the case. </li>
</ol>
<p>I met my wife her first day on campus several decades ago. In today’s world, I would be up a creek if she decided to mess with me because I never heard or yes or a no or anything like that. And she admits, she never said anything like a yes either, but admits she acted “yes.” Today, a female can now say she never said yes, even though she acted yes, and I would be up a creek. </p>
<p>To expect that consent is some clear concept and some clear understood action is reaching at straws. This is where I think the statement / quote above is weak. It assumes some understood concrete concept of consent exists that BOTH parties interpret on the same wavelength, and in reality, there is no such concrete interpretation of consent.</p>
<p>awcntdb, the argument you are using, that there is a gray area about consent, is true as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go very far, and in my opinion, it’s a distraction from the reality. Yes, there are some cases, like (apparently) this Occidental case, where innocent young men are penalized. But those cases are vastly, hugely overwhelmed by the cases where rapists use this supposed gray area as a defense when they weren’t even in the same solar system as the gray area.</p>
<p>Look at the Steubenville case. This is not a case of one or two young men in the gray area of consent. It’s a matter of a large group of young men aiding and abetting rapists, and many adults in the community backing them up. When we have entire communities defending and sheltering rapists, it’s a distraction to talk about one rare miscarriage of justice (which should be fixed).</p>
<p>What’s more likely for a CC member with a daughter and a son: that their daughter will be raped, or that that their son will be unjustly accused of rape? It’s hundreds of times more likely that their daughter will be raped. So bringing up males unjustly accused looks like ignoring and covering up the real, huge, serious problem of rape, by bringing up the tangential issue of false punishment that is much less prevalent. People who bring this issue up are in the unsavory company of rape apologists, even when they themselves aren’t rape apologists.</p>
<p>tl;dr We need to consider what is representative of the true situation of rape on campus. A student being unjustly expelled is not representative. What is representative is thousands of women on thousands of campus having to attend classes with their rapist.</p>
<p>
I disagree and think it IS reality. I think the percentage of rapes and assaults is much lower than the media is lobbing out there. And we only hear about the unjust decisions when the young men turn around and sue the colleges. I think rape and assault are serious issues and I think women need not be afraid to report and I think colleges and universities should be supportive and assist young people who have reported rape and assault. That is a world of difference from colleges and universities deciding what is and isn’t rape and assault and determining judgements and outcomes - a world of difference. And the outcome of these fake-courts is that lawsuits against colleges are being filed and will continue to be filed when common sense is ignored. And worse yet women are thinking that university fake-courts can take the place of dealing with police and criminal or civil courts and getting appropriate counseling. Thankfully what happens in our country is that when institutions and people react in knee-jerk ways and the courts muddle through the knee-jerk reactions and clarify things in a legal way that most people in a society can ultimately live with and function. So I think at some point all this university fake-court stuff will get sorted out and universities will realize that their “job” is to assist and support students in using existing channels for physical, behavioral and legal supports. </p>
<p>The total number of men thrown out of college for rape, including the true rapists and the unjustly accused, is a tiny percentage of the true number of women raped at college. Lots of rapes happen, and hardly any men are thrown out of college because of it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The mounting court cases that address this very vein of argument refutes your opinion that it is a distraction.</p>
<p>There seems to be this reflex to keep going back to Steubenville. However, Steubenville was adjudicated in a court of law and done properly. And one community sheltering rapists is not a reason to reduce the rights of other defendants in a wholly separate case. </p>
<p>The problem with these college cases is that they are being done, not by the law, but by adhoc disciplinary boards that have political purposes that seem to outweigh the purposes of true justice.</p>
<p>I might buy into your argument if females in colleges would enter the real legal system AND get the SAME outcomes as the disciplinary boards, instead of depending on extra-legal means to get a guy punished. </p>
<p>Something is not right in Kansas when someone bypasses an already established judicial system for something else.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wrong, wrong , wrong - being accused of rape is not equivalent of being guilty of rape. And it is not fair, in the least, to call the guy a rapist who has NEVER been convicted of rape. </p>
<p>May I suggest that this automatic guilt by accusation approach is nothing more than a codified witch hunt, and it damages legitimate cases because, after a while, it is tough to even believe the real cases. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The number of guys fighting back now seems to indicate such a situation is happening with enough regularity, as to be representative, because guys (and their families) have decided that enough is enough. I can only imagine the number of guys who do not fight back, so we know the number is even larger. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Only because there were damning videos. How many similar cases didn’t have any video?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s where we disagree. I feel quite comfortable saying that someone who rapes is a rapist. About ten million students are enrolled in four-year schools. More than half of them, but we’ll say five million, are women. About 3% of those women, 150,000, are raped every year. Let’s be generous here, and say (ridiculously) that every college rapist rapes ten women. That gives us 15,000 rapists on campus, and that’s an exceedingly conservative estimate.</p>
<p>How many men are thrown out of college each year for being rapists? Is it even in the four figures?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where are all these guilty verdicts to back up these lots of rapes, as opposed to lots of drunk sex by both parties?</p>
<p>Just because a guy is involved in drunk sex does not mean he is guilty of rape, especially if the girl is as drunk as he is. To me, that is just wrong to conclude.</p>
<p>@awcntdb </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I agree with @Cardinal Fang. This is not the problem scenario that plays out every day on college campuses.It is ignoring 99.9% of the problem while we focus on the 0.1%. </p></li>
<li><p>In my mind, there is a difference between drunk and too drunk to consent. It is possible for a woman to be legally drunk but still capable of understanding what is happening and what she is doing, and enthusiastically participating in sex.That is not what I am talking about. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I mean if she is so drunk that her speech is slurred and/or limited, and her motor skills are impaired, such that she may not be able to walk around unaided without staggering. She may not be passed out, but she is not able to converse clearly, understand what is happening around her, or enthusiastically participate in sex. </p>
<p>In substance, I am not sure that there really is any difference this definition, because if a guy is that drunk, he can probably not perform. It is much more likely that they have both had a similar amount to drink and that he is legally drunk, but not incapacitated, and has a much lower blood alcohol level than the woman he is with, who may be incapacitated.</p>
<ol>
<li>You made a point in a couple of places that any law that favors women make women seem weak/inferior and not a man’s equal.</li>
</ol>
<p>It is interesting that I have never heard that position raised as a reason to remove a law that favors men. That such laws are a problem for men because they reveal that men are weak/inferior and not a woman’s equal, and that makes them feel bad about themselves. </p>
<p>Why do you think it is never raised in that context? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And this is exactly where we are headed.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, rapists tend to be predatory so the assumption might be that they would strike more than once which would mean more abused women than predatory males. We don’t know how many men are being expelled as the only time it’s widely known is when the male sues the college and it feels like there are at least 7 or 8 of those with widespread media reporting crawling thorugh the courts. I cannot support any person being expelled from college on hearsay and lacking evidence whether it is plagiarism or something of a criminal nature… </p>
<p>My observation is that people’s preconceptions seem to drive their opinions on what kind of situation happens more often on campus (mutually drunk sex or predatory sex). And the statistics are murky, and can be manipulated to support different views.</p>
<p>Let me ask this question, though: does anybody here think that if two students get very drunk–to the same extent–and then go off together and have sex, that only one of them should be punished for this? Note that I’m not asking what the law is–but what you think would be the right way of handling such a situation.</p>
<p>As a followup question: would your answer change if neither of them complained, but somebody else witnessed the event and reported it?</p>
<p>I’m seeing more sexual-assault expellees in my counseling practice this year – they come to me because I specialize in serving students with problems on their records (drug arrests, cheating scandals, psychiatric issues, etc.). The alleged facts of cases that result in expulsion, and the internal procedures of universities, vary enormously. It’s very hard to make any generalizations about what’s going on nationally.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I simply do not see anything to back up this statement. You can believe it, but it does not make it reality. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with this, and therein lies the problem - the college disciplinary boards do not take this into account and seem not care about this distinction. Therefore, based on the operating standards of colleges today, this distinction is irrelevant. All a female has to say is, “I was drunk,” and the guy has a good chance of being toast. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Care to give an example? I just have never run into that scenario of a law favoring men to have the reason to analyze, but if I did, I cannot see why the reverse cannot be true. What is good for the goose is good for the gander type of thing.</p>
<p>However, this equality in the law argument is salient for an important societal reason - it is women who are saying equal rights do not exist and that is what they want. No argument from me there. But, if you say you want something, best not to be upset if people decide to give it to you. You cannot have it both ways. </p>