<p>Mother of three boys, I do understand the issue, but I differ from you in how I perceive rape. For example,I am not so vested in the value of boys as to define myself by my male progeny. Rather my position is based on 4 decades of experience on U.S. campuses and years on campuses in other countries. Given my experience with college students and research on rape, its reporting, and its prosecution, I am sympathetic with the White House guidelines. You don’t have to be sympathetic, but don’t assume that people who disagree are unaware.</p>
<p>This article (linked through the Slate Stanford article posted previously) discusses false reporting–how frequent and the effects it can have:</p>
<p><a href=“Why it's so hard to quantify false rape charges.”>http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html</a></p>
<p>From the article, a quote from an Army prosecutor:</p>
<p>" False reports have an incredibly corrosive impact on how sexual assault accusations are policed. Police treat sexual assault accusers badly—much worse than the lawyers do—much worse than the courtroom does. Forget what you see on “Law and Order SVU,” the police end absolutely discourages victims from reporting. Why is this so? Because cops suspect just about every victim is another false accuser, because either he/she has personally dealt with such a problem, or has heard stories from his or her cop buddies to this effect (and yes, in my experience female cops can be even worse offenders). This police behavior is bad, and counterproductive—but it’s real. Putting a real stigma on false reports might combat this a bit—and make it a little easier for actual victims at the police station.</p>
<pre><code>False reports also have a disproportionate impact on juries. How I’d hate to be prosecuting a sexual assault right now. Often in sexual assault prosecutions there’s no debate as to the sex, but everything falls on proving lack of consent—and can only be proven through a convincing and persuasive victim’s testimony. Often, that victim’s testimony has to overcome some less than ideal circumstances—she was drinking, people observed her flirting with the perpetrator etc. That’s something she can own up to, and overcome on her own. What she can’t do on her own is extinguish jury members’ memory of reading of some spectacular false accusation case in the newspaper last month. Every false accusation that makes it into the news makes it that much harder for the real victims to receive justice."
</code></pre>
<p>That last sentence is what I keep thinking about. With every male student who files a lawsuit against his college, the public perception only grows that colleges are kicking out men with little evidence under shoddy procedures that differ from place to place and don’t pass the smell test, certainly as far as most people understand a court system to work. This does nothing to improve the perception of college women who are assaulted and bring complaints. The colleges are not giving anyone justice here. I think I agree with the author of the Stanford article that colleges should use “clear and convincing” as the standard, because I think with “preponderance of evidence” these types of lawsuits will just multiply. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It might be premature to see the DOJ as effective here. For accuracy sake, the DOJ is not bringing suit; it has opened an investigation.</p>
<p>Schools know the DOJ position is a political one. They also know the DOJ will be nowhere in sight if and when the school gets sued for libel and slander and lack of fair hearings etc. So schools are still going to be in CYA mode.</p>
<p>Specifically, nothing the DOJ has instructed changes the fact that none of these students are being found guilty of a crime. Yet, even you call them rapists; that is libelous. They may be rapists, but they were never convicted of that anywhere. </p>
<p>Even the schools know they cannot call them either guilty or a rapist. But, if the schools’ actions encourage others to do that or if the schools do not make it publicly clear that these students are not guilty of rape, then it is a big legal problem for the schools. They know that.</p>
<p>What is even more bizarre is none of these male students ever have to file or register as a sex offender, so the net effect of this quasi-legal school system is to hide / protect an alleged assaulter from society, even if the male is found culpable. The schools are really making it possible to be able to assault again once he leaves schools. Not sure that makes much sense if the goal is protect other females in society as well. It is only kicking the can down the road into the larger population.</p>
<p>Therefore, I do not see the DOJ helping here, as much as you might think; what it should have said is please send rape complaints to real courts, get real justice, and if found guilty, the offending party is truly branded a rapist.</p>
<p>Well, unfortunately for you, nobody from DOJ thought they needed your opinion on the matter. I highly doubt any administration is going to come in and instruct the DOJ to be softer on campus rape. The group you think might do that already has enough problems with women. They can’t afford to
Alienate the mothers of college age women, as well. </p>
<p><a href=“More college men are fighting back against sexual misconduct cases”>More college men are fighting back against sexual misconduct cases;
<p>Men are filing lawsuits against the colleges based on due process violations. In one case the panel was composed of faculty who were colleagues of the woman’s father who was also a faculty member at the college. </p>
<p>Cases filed one year later. No attorney permitted at the proceedings. No notice and no right to know the witnesses against the accused. </p>
<p>No one should be branded as a rapist based on kangaroo court proceedings.</p>
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</p>
<p>The problem is it is not the DOJ acting or being harder or softer; it is the schools instructed to do so. And the schools are the ones that will get the blame and lawsuits, as is happening now. </p>
<p>The DOJ gets a free pass if the schools gets sued, so it is all a political gain for the administration, but adds little muscle to the schools, and worse, opens up schools to more lawsuits.</p>
<p>And again, the fact that none of these students are being found guilty of a crime anywhere only makes the world less safe for woman, if these guys are rapists. I do not intellectually get how that is helpful to women in general.</p>
<p>Best to fry the alleged assaulters in real court, make them register as a sex offenders, take away their voting rights and rights to own a gun etc. If a person did commit rape, make him pay a real price, not just receive some pseudo slap on the wrist from a school, as compared to a real rape conviction.</p>
<p>I agree. And I agree with the article in slate. But I think campuses have a responsibility also. I think we will have to see how this all plays out in court. Neither of us knows the outcome. </p>
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</p>
<p>That is a low blow.</p>
<p>Your screen name appears to define you as a mother. Others of us have screen names that do not define us by our parental status or even gender. Should we invalidate what you have to say on gender-related questions because yours does? I think not.</p>
<p>@poetgrl </p>
<p>This is where we differ - we do know the potential outcomes. </p>
<p>If the school system is allowed to stay, no one is ever convicted of a crime, much less rape. Plus, schools are going to be spending money on court cases that really should be going towards education. It is a lose-lose for the females and the schools.</p>
<p>And even if the first few court cases are won by schools, that does not stop the cases from being filed. In fact, it just teaches future litigants how to file tighter, better cases that have a greater chance of being successful. Schools cannot win the war here at all, even if they initially win a few battles.</p>
<p>However, if the school quasi-legal system is scraped, then cases go to a real court designed to handle these cases.</p>
<p>What is fascinating to me intellectually is there is court system already in place to inflict maximum punishment on alleged assaulters, yet female students are choosing a newer system that, by definition, can only deliver the least punishment. Why would someone choose a lesser punishment option for their attacker is my question? I do not get it. </p>
<p>@awcntdb
"Much2learn said:
However, you can’t hold up a judicial system that is convicting no one, as the model for justice. Justice has to have the ability to discern the guilty from the innocent. Currently, that is not happening in these types of cases since there are essentially no convictions. Therefore, it is not really a “criminal justice system” since there is no discernment of guilt from innocence.</p>
<p>awcntdb replied:
Let me posit another interpretation: the courts are finding exactly those guilty who should be found guilty when the statements and stories of both the female and male are put under the SAME level of scrutiny.</p>
<p>Much2learn said:
In your mind, virtually all of these situations are really mutually consented to and the female regrets it later, or the charges were just made up by the accuser entirely.</p>
<p>awcntdb replied:
I have nothing made up in my mind, and I am making no judgment as to what happened between the people, as I was not there."</p>
<p>My Response
As I read your words more carefully, you are right. </p>
<p>You are not saying that actual rape is not occurring. You are saying that you do not know whether actual rapes are occurring because you and I weren’t there, and there have been so few convictions.</p>
<p>I agree with you and have said before that more comprehensive data needs to be collected. I agree that the studies that I have seen are not as comprehensive as I would like to see. </p>
<p>However, there is more than enough evidence, based on the studies that have been done and the consistent reports from college campuses across the country, that there is in fact a serious problem with actual rapes on college campuses. That fact will not change. More comprehensive data will only provide us with a more precise picture of what is happening. </p>
<p>There is a big difference between what can be determined in individual cases and what can be determined in aggregate. If a court is only 70% - 95% sure that individual defendants are guilty, they have to find the defendant “not guilty” because they are not proven guilty beyond a “reasonable doubt”. That is how it should be because while convicting them would put criminals in prison, it will also put some innocent people in prison. </p>
<p>However, when the number of reports and cases are so high, we can know with a very high degree of confidence, well beyond a reasonable doubt, that the number of alleged perpetrators who were actually guilty is high. The problem is that there is not a good way to separate out the ones that are innocent, so it is difficult to convict in court. But it is not reasonable to suggest that therefore, we can not know whether an actual problem of college rape even exists. </p>
<p>What is challenging for me, is trying to have an honest discussion about what can be done to ameliorate this problem of campus rape, when you are still questioning whether there is really an issue at all, at every turn. Or as you put it “making no judgment as to what happened”. The reality is that in claiming that you can’t make a judgment about the existence of a campus rape problem, you are making a judgment. </p>
<p>If you would acknowledge, that campus rape is in fact a real problem, then it would be much easier to consider possible responses to the issue and the benefits and consequences that they imply. However, when we are attempting to discuss potential solutions, and you continue to maintain the perspective that the entire issue may be an entirely imagined problem conjured up by rabid feminists and the pc police railroading the rest of us in a rush to judgment, that makes the discussion difficult.</p>
<p>Image trying to teach a class about the history of the Ancient Romans and having a student in the class respond to every thing you say with “How do you know? You and I weren’t there.” and “Maybe they existed and maybe they didn’t, I am keeping an open mind. I don’t want to rush to judgment.” If there is not acceptance that the Ancient Romans ever existed then making progress in a discussion of their history will be very difficult. That is essentially what I see happening here. </p>
<p>Consolation, if I wrote at length about the value of mothering day after day, one might question my identity politics and whether I was overly invested and incapable of considering other standpoints. Now I’m not opposed to identity politics; all politics are probably identity politics. Still when I get accused of not understanding the issue, certainly a low blow and a condescending one at that, I think it makes some sense to respond from the perspective of standpoints and identity-formation. </p>
<p>@Much2learn</p>
<p>I see your post. I have a few things I need to go do. However, I will respond later. Do not want you to think I was ignoring your post. </p>
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</p>
<p>I was reacting to these comments mamalion and was trying to catch you (and others) up on the nuances of the thread and the overlapping discussions that were occurring since you had stopped reading all the posts." It was not a condescending post - you chose to interpret it that way.</p>
<p>I actually deep inside think colleges should be required to call the police when a student charges sexual assault or forcible rape or whatever that particular jurisdiction uses for language…I really do think they need to be considered mandatory reporters like healthcare workers, etc. and I really think the universities have a societal and moral obligation to try and get criminal sex offenders off the streets (in addition to their particular campuses). Again if universities and the DOJ can define better what is behavior that is not criminal but violates school codes I think there would be less lawsuits forthcoming.</p>
<p>“For mamalion and others that are confused by the issues” This sounds condescending to me . . . I guess I’m not accustomed to being called “confused.” </p>
<p>I think you make an excellent point, mom3. Not all behavior an employer or college will fire you for will send you to prison. A pattern of reporting can create a rule of conduct. The schools can use this. Cheating on a test will not put you in prison. Nobody questions the right of a school to remove a cheater. Preponderance of evidence prevails. </p>
<p>I might be OK with preponderance of evidence if it were really EVIDENCE. But what colleges sometimes seem to be calling evidence is the girl’s story combined with the absence of a reason to doubt it. It’s not DNA evidence we’re talking about, or witnesses to the crime, or surveillance video. By “evidence” they mean a girl saying she was assaulted and the accused not being able to prove he didn’t do it. IMO, that’s just not good enough to ruin someone’s life over.</p>
<p>Take the following real life scenario. Your S stays in on Friday night to study, and then goes to sleep in his room of a 2-room double. His roommate and a girl come back to the roommate’s section of the room after a party. They had been drinking. When she wakes up in the morning, she discovers her underwear has been removed. She freaks out, suspecting she has been violated. The roommate–her “friend”–swears he is innocent. Your S is not someone she knows, so now he is a suspect too. Yet all he did was study and then sleep in his own room all night. If that were your S, wouldn’t you want a little more “evidence” to be shown than the mere fact her underwear was removed and your S can’t prove he didn’t touch her, before he gets charged by the college with rape and is expelled? </p>
<p>Here are two more older cases from my alma mater, one from 1996 and the other 10 years later:</p>
<p><a href=“He said, she can’t remember: the Adam Lack case - The Brown Daily Herald”>He said, she can’t remember: the Adam Lack case - The Brown Daily Herald;
<p><a href=“Former Student Sues Brown University Over Rape Accusation - The New York Times”>Former Student Sues Brown University Over Rape Accusation - The New York Times;
more details here:
<a href=“Brown Spectator”>http://brown-spectator.com/2012/05/a-universitys-shame-how-brown-betrayed-one-of-its-students/</a></p>
<p>The first is notable I think because it seems to be the first time “drunk sex as rape” caught national attention (see 20/20’s John Stossel saying he thought “rape was being held at knifepoint or gunpoint.”) Also that the woman says she remembers nothing about the night and the man says he carried on a lucid conversation with her.</p>
<p>The second I post because of its implications of a wealthy parent allegedly applying financial/other pressure both to the accused and the university, the accuser allegedly being pressured to “amend her complaint to include rape”, an inability to present witnesses and evidence in his defense, and–speaking to this “What is even more bizarre is none of these male students ever have to file or register as a sex offender, so the net effect of this quasi-legal school system is to hide / protect an alleged assaulter from society, even if the male is found culpable. The schools are really making it possible to be able to assault again once he leaves schools. Not sure that makes much sense if the goal is protect other females in society as well. It is only kicking the can down the road into the larger population.” posted by awcntdb— that the accused ended up at Bucknell to finish his education.</p>
<p>Now, if he is a rapist, Brown was right to kick him out. But shouldn’t they have warned other schools? If he is such a bad guy, why let him go on and enroll in another college, free to prey on that unsuspecting campus? </p>
<p>Of course, if he is not a bad guy, and raped no one, and is safe to enroll at another university, wasn’t then Brown wrong to expel him in the first place? </p>
<p>According to the article, Lack was found guilty by the school of “sexual misconduct”, fair result or not, but certainly not what I would say is equal to rape.
I find it very interesting that according to the article, the only evidence against Lack was his own statement to the young woman that they had had consentual sex. I am surprised that Luck didn’t recant his claim of sex(honestly or not) to make it all go away, but nowhere in the article does it ay he did so…
I don’t see what Stossel said as odd. Let’s remember as an opinion journalist, it is not unusual for him to make a statement intending to get passioned responses. Such a comment as part of his question does not necessarily mean he believes it to be true.</p>
<p>@awcntdb
“If the school system is allowed to stay, no one is ever convicted of a crime, much less rape.”</p>
<p>“What is fascinating to me intellectually is there is court system already in place to inflict maximum punishment on alleged assaulters, yet female students are choosing a newer system that, by definition, can only deliver the least punishment. Why would someone choose a lesser punishment option for their attacker is my question? I do not get it.”</p>
<p>Reply
I am not suggesting that I think the “newer system” is a good one. I do not know enough about it yet. </p>
<p>What is clear is why many people prefer the newer system. The reason is that the old court system has been almost completely ineffective at identifying the guilty. The protection of the innocent in these cases has led to a failure to achieve justice for nearly all real victims. </p>
<p>The stiff penalties for rape are well intended, but they actually make matters worse because juries are even more hesitant to convict anyone. </p>
<p>Getting your rapist successfully removed from the college you are attending protects you and your peers. It is not optimal, but in the current legal system where even when you do everything you should do there is no punishment at all. The Michigan kicker rape case is a good example.</p>
<p>In that case, the report says that there was:
- No ambiguous consent signal given by the victim
- No delay in reporting
- A victim who was despondent immediately
- An immediate call to police who arrested the alleged rapist
- A rape kit executed that showed evidence of intercourse as well as physical injury to the victim</p>
<p>Result: The alleged assailant said it was consensual and the DA refused to take it to court at all.</p>
<p>This is the problem. The current system is not working even if the victim does everything right. People like to shift the discussion to cases where there were delays in reporting the incident, or the victim did not appear upset at the time, or there was no rape kit or the police were not called, or whether was a consent when a victim said “Whatever” instead of “Yes” or “No”. However, in reality, all of those discussions are pointless because even when the victim manages to do all of those things correctly, they can’t even get to court let alone get a conviction. How can that be justice?</p>
<p>The current system is also not the level playing field that you worry about so much. This standard is not applied in any other type of case.</p>
<p>In a robbery case, if a store keeper/victim: calls the police immediately, is despondent about being robbed, can demonstrate that items were taken and that they suffered physical injury at the hands of the assailant, the thief will be arrested and there will be a trial. </p>
<p>A DA will not refuse to go to trial for robbery just because the thief says “It was consensual. He said I could have this stuff.” The store keeper will not be discounted and grilled repeatedly because he admits giving gifts at Christmas, and donating to church and other charities, so how can we know that you did not donate to this person also? Maybe you wanted to donate and regretted it later. We can’t know for sure. The store owner does not have to prove that he did not say the thief could have these things before anything can be done. </p>
<p>If two people are in an office alone, and one of them shoots and kills the other one, that person will not get off by just saying that the victim threatened them and it was self-defense. Few people will say there is nothing we can do because he claims self defense and “We can’t know for sure because we were not there”. </p>
<p>The standards for proof and the level of skepticism and disbelief that women who are victims receive in rape cases is significantly higher than in any other type of crime.</p>
<p>How is that a level playing field? Why aren’t these standards consistent across varying types of crimes? Why do so many people see this happening and say nothing, but if there is even the slightest chance that a woman gets a break that a man does not receive, they are telling everyone that this proves women are inferior to men? Why is it acceptable that women who claim they have been victims of rape are treated as more dishonest and greeted with more skepticism than victims of any other crime. </p>
<p>How is that a level playing field? Why aren’t you posting that this higher standard shows that men are inferior?</p>