<p>“However, the crisis is really a crisis for colleges because young women finally believe they deserve the justice they used to be afraid to demand.”</p>
<p>So you claim to know what young women want on college campuses? I wonder how many college female students really think this has become such a problem that it requires vigilante justice by a vocal group of fanatics that now have representation in the Dept of Education.</p>
<p>Yes, GP, we do claim to know that young women want not to be raped, and if they are raped they want not to have to face their rapist on campus. </p>
<p>We’re not sticking our necks out here. This is not rocket science, nor does it require extraordinary empathy.</p>
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<p>Well said. </p>
<p>It would not be a problem IF this brand were not the brand to wield the most influence and political power. That is the problem. It is not even by all surveys and polls the most popular brand of feminism by far, but it gets the most voice even when its positions are simply just off the deep end. I am all for different voices, but not at the expense of others when dealing with serious issues such as this. </p>
<p>And this is why petitions, such as the below, weaken their cause. Just because someone has a different idea or approach than yours, you try to get them fired? The key is to silence other voices? No wonder students think they can shout down commencement speakers. Look at what the adults are doing in general.</p>
<p>Really, that is fascist thinking, not enlightened thinking. This is why I can never support groups like this. </p>
<p>There is a deep-seeded level of intellectual insecurity here when one has to try and get someone fired for a different idea or approach. </p>
<p><a href=“Tell The Washington Post: Fire George Will | UltraViolet”>Tell The Washington Post: Fire George Will | UltraViolet;
<p><a href=“Petition · Fire Columnist George Will and Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt · Change.org”>https://www.change.org/petitions/washington-post-fire-columnist-and-rape-apologist-george-will</a></p>
<p>It doesn’t weaken the cause. This is the first time anyone has listened to women on this issue at this level. Polite asking got nothing. Clearly there aren’t a lot of women who were on college campuses even 25 years ago who are shocked about the number of rapes. The only thing new here is that the victims are refusing to be silenced and more of the young men are standing by their side instead of protecting the rapists. </p>
<p>I don’t see how either of those petitions advocate for the position that an “open to anything” attitude is empowering.</p>
<p>Well, GP, 100% of the college age women I know would like to be able to go to college parties without worrying about rape. It probably correspond exactly to the number of college men who would like to go to parties without worrying someone will rape them. 100%</p>
<p>I wonder if they’ll be successful…</p>
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<p>Can you explain what you mean here? I am talking about the approach, not what the petitions are saying. </p>
<p>I think the approach is wrong; that is, the way to win an argument by trying to silence someone who presents a different opinion is not something a group of supposedly tolerant people should be doing. Therefore, it weakens their case. </p>
<p>It is hard for people who speak one thing and do the opposite to be taken seriously. People do figure that out, as the students who shouted down speakers this year found out. The students got very little support, and some serious public push-back in their faces.</p>
<p>Not really on topic. Women spent decades attempting to get schools to respond to campus rapes. It wasn’t until they began to involve the DOJ that they were taken seriously. Had they been taken seriously all those years? It would never have gotten to this point. </p>
<p>I agree with you, awcntdb. The approach was off and could have been handled better. </p>
<p>@poetgrl </p>
<p>However, if the chosen approach turns into a negative, then it does more harm than good.</p>
<p>But, more importantly, this cannot really be about being taken seriously. Something does not wash here or pass the smell test of common sense.</p>
<p>Simple, if a female student is raped, no need to worry about the college taking it seriously - Just file a police report with the real police and the matter, by definition, is taken seriously. Who cares about the college? </p>
<p>It is even strikes me as silly to even care what the college thinks. A few real rape convictions of male students in prison for 15 years to life will do more for this situation than 1000s of explusions. </p>
<p>The idiot who started the trend of directing women to report rape to a dean or an administrator is stupid. And it is even more stupid to follow that advice for a serious felony. </p>
<p>Agree and hopefully the screaming will slow down and everyone will figure out what the ‘rules’ are. Maybe it will help if the media posts less pictures of people screaming. I agree with Poet in that it matters not if you are male or female, you want to be treated fairly and you want to play by the rules. That is the basis for a ‘code of conduct.’ Those that don’t (play nicely) need to feel the wrath - and that goes for both males and females. </p>
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<p>Agreed as well.</p>
<p>No one takes seriously anyone who cannot tell them what the rules of a card game are before playing the game. And, let’s face it, part of the fun of college is playing the games of casual courtship and even serious courtship. </p>
<p>However, it is clear that currently the players. males and females. are not only playing by different rules, but even when the rules are known, interpretations are vastly different. Colleges are not helping either by writing rules so broadly, as to be useless to anyone.</p>
<p>And to be fair, the rules cannot be made up by a group of people with the same mindset; that just will lead to this again. It has to be a mixture of people with a mixture of views on the subject, all who agree that proven offenders should be punished severely, not just expelled and allowed to go to another campus to do the same thing.</p>
<p>“you want to play by the rules.”</p>
<p>As long as the rules make sense. When they don’t, you’re going to have a chaotic situation with many people pushing back against a system that has gone off the rails.</p>
<p>The idiot who decided women should report to schools is the administration of the various colleges and universities. This is what the schools themselves advise, unfortunately. Given a young woman is most at risk in her first year of college, the colleges bear responsibility for this paternalistic practice. Women are learning, and as colleges are put under pressure, they, too, are learning. </p>
<p>However, if a college has an interest in keeping rapists off campus, they will want these reports as well. Victims should file a police report and take a copy to
The dean of students. These are serial offenders. More than one report on the same criminal should lead to easy disciplinary action. Schools do not need a Felony conviction to expel. </p>
<p>I would add that it may well feel to some as if the “system” has gone off the rails, but for so many decades the “system” in place was there to protect the offender and not the victim. It is extremely recent that any system at all has been attempted in terms of getting rapists off campus. There is no system yet, but fortunately there may be one soon. It’s time </p>
<p>I agree with this Poet and always have. What builds trust the most quickly is a consistent experience. It’s a rocky road that has just begun…the fallout is females who don’t feel like they are getting a fair shake and males who feel they aren’t getting a fair shake - from both the colleges and the criminal system. But how can it be that both sides are saying the same thing? - that is actually an excellent point from which to build. The outcome has to make sense to the majority - not everyone - but the majority and it needs the perspective oof both sides which outcomes of court trials can take care of if colleges and universities can’t figure it out themselves. I’m sure women don’t want it to go so far that the universities decide to return to single sex dorms and house hours because women feel they aren’t protected enough and want greater protections and vice versa I’m sure men don’t want the pendulum to swing so far that they must take total responsibility for the progression of a relationship. Someone once said if you crank on the steering wheel too hard to correct a move you go in circles. </p>
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<p>You haven’t talked to a lot of women who have reported rapes to police, or read their accounts, then, have you? The most frequent comment I’ve read is, it was like being raped again. Women report the opposite of being taken seriously.</p>
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<p>I have not talked to any women who have reported such. However, not sure what you are expecting here. Someone makes a charge, which can put someone away for life, he or she better be ready to back it up and answer some intense questions.</p>
<p>This is why I think this is entire thing is not about being taken seriously because seriousness is about putting the guy away, not expelling him from school or suspended. This situation is really about outcome. </p>
<p>It really seems that some women are trying to get a system where they can make a charge and get an outcome they want without actually having to defend and prove the charge. That is the very thing the college system is in court for; proof seems not to be necessary; just the charge. And due process, what’s that? </p>
<p>I do think people are figuring this out, and it will not fly publicly. Hence the articles by George Will, Thomas Sowell etc. These are intense social thinkers who really study situations in-depth and for them to reach the “outcome” conclusion means something is amiss.</p>
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<p>Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.</p>
<p>Or as someone dear to me says, “some things are just right, and some are just wrong” - period. </p>
<p>This is a very important point CF is making and might assist some of you in understanding the outrage women currently feel regarding the “system”. No other crime reporter will be scrutinized in such a way as a young woman reporting acquaintance rape. There were earlier posts on this in this thread, so I won’t reiterate. But woman are only shouting right now because speaking in a less adament tone got them nowhere. </p>
<p>This is what revolution looks like. When a group refuses to accept second class treatment. Nobody asks a man who had his watch stolen to prove he didn’t actually give it away. In fact, if a man is conned out of his bank numbers he will still be considered the victim of a con artist. </p>
<p>We need a big course correction on this issue. It will take time to arrive at a stasis. </p>