Saturday, August 20, 2011
The presumption of male guilt
Peter Berkowitz uses academic freedom for its intended purpose, which is to indict and morally convict American universities of having thrown away the rights of male students at the behest of the Obama administration. It is chilling stuff, and the most important article you will read all day:
Our universities impair liberal education not only by what they teach and do not teach in classrooms but also by the illiberal rules they promulgate to regulate speech and conduct outside of class.
The Obama administration has aggravated the problem. On April 4, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali, head of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), distributed a 19-page "Dear Colleague" letter to "provide recipients with information to assist them in meeting their obligations."
At the cost of losing federal funding—on which all major institutions of higher education have grown dependent—colleges and universities are obliged under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act (which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex) to thoroughly investigate all allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus, including the felony of rape. They are also obliged, according to Ms. Ali, to curtail due process rights of the accused.
OCR's new interpretation of Title IX "strongly discourages" universities from permitting the accused "to question or cross-examine the accuser" during the hearing. In addition, if universities provide an appeals process, it must be available to both parties—which subjects the accused to double jeopardy.
Most egregiously, OCR requires universities to render judgment using "a preponderance of the evidence" standard. This means that in a rape case, a campus disciplinary board of faculty, administrators and perhaps students serves as both judge and jury. Few if any of these judges are likely to have professional competence in fact-gathering, evidence analysis or judicial procedure. Yet to deliver a verdict of guilty, they need only believe that the accused is more likely than not to have committed the crime.
This is the lowest standard. It is much less demanding than "beyond a reasonable doubt," which is used in the criminal justice system, and the intermediate standard of "clear and convincing proof." Yale, Stanford and many other universities have rushed to comply with OCR's directives....
In short, universities are institutionalizing a presumption of guilt in sexual assault cases. This implements the doctrine developed in the 1980s and '90s by postmodernists, radical feminists and critical legal studies scholars that inspired the ruinous campus speech codes. That doctrine teaches that the American political order is designed to oppress the weak; that racial minorities and women, whether they realize it or not, are victims; and that the truth, except for the first two propositions, is infinitely malleable.
These teachings—and the disdain for the rights of the accused and liberty of thought and discussion that they sustain—are animated by illiberal convictions shared by many faculty and administrators, as well as the Obama administration Department of Education. Notwithstanding their selective appeal to the relativity of truth to neutralize alternative views, they are convinced that in practice all the hard questions about right and wrong have been finally settled and that faculty and administrators are uniquely in possession of the correct answers. Such dogmatism and imperviousness to evidence are hallmarks of the authoritarian mind.
All of that is scary and yet well-known to conservative bloggers. The question is, where are the professors who ought to stand up?
Where are the professors of literature who will patiently point out that, particularly where erotic desire is involved, intentions can be obscure, passions conflicting, the heart murky and the soul divided?
Where are the professors of natural science who will declare that OCR-dictated hearings are antithetical to the spirit of the scientific method, which depends on respect for the facts and testing claims through rational procedures?
Where are the professors of history, political science and law who will insist clearly and in public that due process is a fundamental component of American political institutions and culture, a cornerstone of our legal system, and indispensable in a free society to the fair administration of justice?
Where are the professors of moral philosophy and practical ethics who will stand up and declare that the presumption of innocence rightly gives expression to both the belief in the dignity of the individual and the awareness of human fallibility?
And where are the deans, provosts and university presidents who will explain in no uncertain terms to their campus communities and to the wider public that weakening due process and freedom of speech protections erodes the framework within which free inquiry flourishes?
So far such professors and high university officials are nowhere to be found.
One might reasonably ask, if the privilege of tenure is not used by professors to speak against offenses against the use of federal power to oppress a subset of the university community, what is it good for?
38 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Aug 20, 09:11:00 AM:
From Harvey Silvergate at the WSJ (15 July) Yes Means Yes -- Except on Campus. An excerpt follows.
For a glimpse into the treacherous territory of sexual relationships on college campuses, consider the case of Caleb Warner.
On Jan. 27, 2010, Mr. Warner learned he was accused of sexual assault by another student at the University of North Dakota. Mr. Warner insisted that the episode, which occurred the month prior, was entirely consensual. No matter to the university: He was charged with violating the student code and suspended for three years. Three months later, state police lodged criminal charges against his accuser for filing a false police report. A warrant for her arrest remains outstanding.
Among several reasons the police gave for crediting Mr. Warner's claim of innocence was evidence of a text message sent to him by the woman indicating that she wanted to have intercourse with him. This invitation, combined with other evidence that police believe indicates her untruthfulness, has obvious implications for her charge of rape.
Nevertheless, university officials have refused to allow Mr. Warner a re-hearing -- much less a reversal of their guilty verdict. When the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a civil liberties group of which I am board chairman, wrote to University President Robert O. Kelley to protest, the school's counsel, Julie Ann Evans, responded. She wrote that the university didn't believe that the fact that Mr. Warner's accuser was charged with lying to police, and has not answered her arrest warrant, represented "substantial new information." In any event, she argued, the campus proceeding "was not a legal process but an educational one."
Six weeks before FIRE received this letter, Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education, sent her own letter to every college and university in the country that accepts federal money (virtually all of them). In it, she essentially ordered them to scrap fundamental fairness in campus disciplinary procedures for adjudicating claims of sexual assault or harassment.....
It is interesting that such examples of universities unjustly wielding power are concurrent with many opining that higher education is the next bubble, given the cost of a university education greatly outpacing inflation.
TH: One might reasonably ask, if the privilege of tenure is not used by professors to speak against offenses against the use of federal power to oppress a subset of the university community, what is it good for?
"Speaking truth to power" occurrs among the libs only when the power does not bite back. The Feds bite back. That is why so many denounce Bible-thumpers, but remain silent about Islamofascists: Bible-thumpers do not endanger libs.
By 
TOF, at
Sat Aug 20, 09:37:00 AM:
The whole objective is to corrupt the culture and to indoctrinate a generation into the notion that constitutional rights are at the pleasure of those in power.
By W.LindsayWheeler, at
Sat Aug 20, 10:35:00 AM:
What else is new. I attended a small supposedly Christian college in Midwestern Kentucky. It started in the 1850s by an abolitionist.
At one convocation, the student body had to watch Schindler's List. Because that is politically correct. I'm sitting next to a Black friend, talking. During the intermission, an ex-Marine, who was taking medication for various things, came down from the second floor. I'm talking to this guy, and out of the blue, this guy starts wailing on me. I, also a former Marine, stand up and pin him to the seat in front of me.
Things got settled and the students moved him out of the theatre. After the show, the security guard comes up and asks if I wanted to press charges. Doing the Christian thing, I said no.
The next day, I found out that I am charged with violence against another student. I protest. I write a tome on self-defense.
All to NO avail.
I was then in court----AND FOUND GUILTY. given two months of probation along with the guy that hit me. They said, I had to get on my hands and knees and crawl away.
This was a total travesty and upended the whole of what Western Culture taught or anything in Western culture jurisprudence.
It didn't stop there. One more times I was accused by a woman of sexual harassment because of what I wrote about women in politics. The third time, I got a professor. It went all the way to court. The only thing that got me off was the professor sitting next to me.
A Catholic High School principal got fired from his job because of he wrote an article for American Renaissance. A teacher in Florida, lost his job because of tweeting on the stupidity of homosexual marriage in New York.
Needless to say, I left that college. I am highly intelligent, but I can't get a college degree nor could I work in any college/university. I know I will be attacked and won't even be hired anyway. I used to labor in construction, concrete, fencing, and I worked at a Christmas Tree Farm for room and board. Now, I'm homeless.
My intelligence is wasted, because I refuse to be politically correct. If you are NOT politically correct, you don't get hired. At the age of 50, I am unemployable---by anybody!
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 11:24:00 AM:
I'm a politically center-left academic and I do find this story alarming. I support FIRE, which I think is a credible and appropriate organization to draw attention to and combat this injustice.
In my experience, engineering, mathematics, and physical/life sciences faculty are much more likely to support individual rights on campus than their counterparts in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, which tend to be more politically correct disciplines. (On the other hand, those of us in the former group are also less political in general.) This division was quite obvious in some recent skirmishes on my campus, where a group of faculty organized as a local chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a moderate faculty-oriented pro-Israel group (see spme.net) . We ran an open letter in the campus newspaper (which had first agreed to print - but then rejected - our submission in the form of an opinion piece, requiring us to pay for it as an advertisement), challenging the Muslim Students Association and related groups, which put on an annual "Israel Apartheid / Justice in Palestine Week", why they had been so silent on the brutal repression of Arabs and muslims in many of their own countries, especially during the "Arab spring" revolts. With one exception, all 28 faculty which signed our document were from engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, and the medical school. I think all were Jewish too. The faculty who supported the anti-Israel groups are from departments like Ethnic Studies, Communications, etc. This year for the first time the pro-Israel student groups mounted a strong response to the propaganda, in part with our support. I think overall the climate was much better during the "Justice in Palestine Week" since both sides were represented.
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 11:48:00 AM:
Jack asks, "where are the professors who ought to stand up?" The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has sent two letters to OCR expressing its concern that lowered evidentiary standards is problematic vis-a-vis free speech and individual due-process rights for both faculty and students. The second letter, which can be viewed here:
http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/be5df1a71d0eae6b7b840a2ecdb01bb9.pdf?direct
was signed by both the AAUP President Carey Nelson as well as by Ann Green, who chairs the AAUP's Committee on Women in the Academic Profession.
Does this count?
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Aug 20, 11:58:00 AM:
It does count. I respectfully suggest, though, that if the Bush Department of Education had directed universities to discipline students who bring false claims of sexual assault -- an obvious and chronic problem -- there would have been no end to the outrage of humanities professors.
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 12:10:00 PM:
I honestly don't know how much of a problem this is (i.e. false claims). I would hope my university would discipline any student who knowingly brought a false charge of sexual assault. So what evidentiary standard would you apply to this crime?
Berkowitz tipped his hand a bit with his gratuitous swipe at the faculty and administrators, which takes up the last 20% of his article. Apparently he wasn't aware of AAUP's position and the fact that they sent two letters to OCR. Oopsie.
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Aug 20, 12:23:00 PM:
Well, darovas, the AAUP response is collective. While that has some official power, it also has the advantage of spreading responsibility. No personal courage required. So while I applaud the AAUP response, it does not really "count" as an exercise in standing up on a matter of principle. The real question is, are you willing to put your grant or your invitations to the best faculty cocktail parties at risk? While I am not a professor, I was a faculty brat, and have many examples of professors not using their tenure for its most commonly cited justification.
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 12:42:00 PM:
It's a silly question, Jack. My NSF grant and my research are completely orthogonal to this matter, and I'm sure you get invited to many more cocktail parties. Like most of my colleagues, I spend almost all my work time (and a fair amount of my leisure time) on research, teaching, and committee work. I'm not about to launch a personal crusade for this or any other matter, especially when I have no knowledge of whether this has been a problem on my own campus. So I'm content to support organizations like AAUP and FIRE, which have much more weight.
You might also ask whether an average employee of a large bank or military contractor is willing to risk his or her job (and precious cocktail party invitations) to stand up to management retaliation against whistleblowers. Or a thousand other things.
I'd like to think that if there were an actual case relevant to this issue on my own campus, I would publicly oppose the trampling of individual rights.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Aug 20, 12:50:00 PM:
"You might also ask whether an average employee of a large bank or military contractor is willing to risk his or her job (and precious cocktail party invitations) to stand up to management retaliation against whistleblowers."
This comparison implies parity between general 'whistleblower' protections (which are limited) and academic tenure, which is explicitly justified on the grounds that an academic must be able to say what they think without risk of retaliation. The point is that even those academics who have such blanket protection, explicitly for things like this, are nowhere to be found.
Your overall response suggests that the reason may be apathy. Sorry, but that's damning as well.
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 12:59:00 PM:
Having tenure does not mean you can't be oppressed in some other ways: promotions, teaching and committee assignments, space, etc. At any rate, you are absolutely right, Dawnfire82, at least in some relative sense. I am relatively apathetic to issues which have not been problematic on my campus. The most I'll do in those cases is to support a group like AAUP or FIRE, or sign some petition, rather than engage in self-immolation in front of the university library (that would send a *real* message, eh?!).
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Aug 20, 01:07:00 PM:
The issue is not whether any individual is apathetic. The issue is whether academics who will take to the streets over one or another injustice, trivial or otherwise, move themselves to speak up as individuals when the origin of the injustice is the United States government under the direction of Barack Obama. That is interesting, and telling.
However, Dawnfire, I must speak up in defense of darovas. Not only does he contribute to FIRE (a very worthy cause that I also support), but unlike every other regular reader of this blog he has waged a successful political campaign calculated to mock and deride Elliot Spitzer. That right there basically earns a "lifetime free pass" in my book.
By , at
Sat Aug 20, 02:11:00 PM:
I am a college professor, a retired cop, and a conservative. Having said this, I want to point out that these procedures being discussed are ADMINISTRATIVE and not criminal. As such, lower standards of proof and appeals procedures have long been a part of the American system. Remember O.J.? During his CIVIL trial he was required to testify in a deposition (no 5th Amendment protection) and the burden of proof was the same, a preponderance of the evidence. I have to assume that, where criminal behavior is alleged (i.e. rape) that a SEPARATE criminal investigation will be conducted by an appropriate law enforcement agency where the Constitutional rights of the accused will be carefully protected. A court can throw someone in jail, a college administrative process, at best, can expel a student.
By , at
Sat Aug 20, 02:57:00 PM:
Some college disciplinary committees can be kangaroo courts (Double secret probation!). I don't know how much of a problem this really is, but I've heard a few stories.
But now the Department of Education is mandating that they all be kangaroo courts. That's the alarming thing.
Seriously, this is just one more reason for shutting the Department of Education down entirely, and then creating a new agency in its place with new personnel and a tighter, more focused mandate. There's a few other federal agencies I'd put on this list, including the EPA.
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 03:24:00 PM:
Thanks TH but I don't think anyone deserves a lifetime pass. If I have been egregiously hypocritical then by all means I should be called on it. (For ridiculing Eliot Spitzer and his minions, I will graciously accept an IPA over sushi with Sev next month, when I'll be back at the best-damned-place-of all for another conference.)
I am a bit alarmed though that your measure of my integrity apparently involves me "putting [my] grant ... at risk". My grant pays for my graduate student (who has no other source of support), for publication charges, for travel to scholarly meetings, and for my own salary during the summers (most research universities pay only 9 month salaries). So basically you are asking me to risk a significant fraction of my income, my PhD student's livelihood, and my career to make some sort of dramatic gesture about a government policy, and one which has yet (to my knowledge) to have resulted in any injustice at my own university. That seems a bit much to ask, don't you think? Not to mention all the fabulous Literature Department cocktail parties I will no longer be invited to. (We physicists don't do cocktails so much, though I do enjoy straight-up bourbon and of course high quality beer like the kind you are going to treat me to next month.)
By darovas, at
Sat Aug 20, 03:38:00 PM:
Getting back to Berkowitz's article, I'd say that college campuses should treat rape the same way they treat murder, which is to say not at all. As a friend says, "Rape is and ought to be treated as a Real Crime(tm), which means law enforcement, not college tribunals."
I suspect that the number of unreported rapes on college campuses vastly exceeds the number of false accusations.
By Stephen, at
Sun Aug 21, 12:47:00 AM:
darovas, supporting FIRE is nice but if you are liberal as opposed to leftist, why not take the lead to eliminate school policies which are anti-liberal? Remember the Duke 88 who had no problem prejudging the lacrosse players falsely accused of rape? These students deserve more than the support of FIRE. As far as I know the 88 have not been disciplined. What kind of message does that send?
By darovas, at
Sun Aug 21, 01:22:00 AM:
Stephen, when a specific problem arises at my university, I will get involved as I see appropriate. I'm not at Duke and I have no influence there, but I do know that a group of 17 Economics professors from Duke had drafted a letter of support for the lacrosse players at that time.
By Stephen, at
Sun Aug 21, 07:41:00 AM:
If the new policy at every school is to curtail the rights of the accused then any student who is accused is now being treated the same as the Duke lacrosse players. Not speaking up about it is a sin of omission vs a sin of commission.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Aug 21, 08:43:00 AM:
To be clear, I don't think every professor need fall on his sword on every point of principal. Everybody has their issue. And, yes, there were a few professors at Duke who stood up for the lacrosse players (far outnumbered by those who supported the accuser, however). But the point about the grant is not to say that you or any other particular professor is selfish. Rather, it is that the universities have sold their soul to the federal government, and now the federal government is using the lever of grant money to coerce universities. Quel surprise. I just think it is a mistake for professors to stand by silently when it is a Democrat who does it, because when President Perry insists that, say, all universities who receive federal funds permit the possession of firearms on campus to the limits of state law they will have lost all moral authority to object. You know, seeing as how they will have accepted the legitimacy of the feds using the monetary lever to effect social engineering on campus.
By Stephen, at
Sun Aug 21, 09:10:00 AM:
Interesting that you think right to carry is controversial the same as presumption of guilt. One might argue that the second amendment is a civil right and removing barriers is progress.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Aug 21, 09:18:00 AM:
@Stephen -- The right to carry is *obviously* controversial as a matter of popular opinion, especially on university campuses, and even in at least some gun-friendly states (see, e.g., Virginia). The case law and the patchwork of laws across the country also suggests that it is controversial as a legal matter.
As for the "presumption of guilt," even the Obama DOJ did not argue for that. Rather, it called for moving university disciplinary procedures to a "preponderance of the evidence" standard, which is almost certainly just fine as a constitutional matter as it is with all non-criminal proceedings. The problem, of course, is that charges of sexual assault, even in the civil setting, invoke a huge amount of reputational damage. Denying the accused of procedural benefits in this setting seems incredibly harsh, even if defensible as a legal matter.
By Stephen, at
Sun Aug 21, 10:01:00 AM:
If someone can have their life ruined based on 51% likelihood of having committed sexual assault, I see it as legally unfair. Anyone can be found liable by that standard. So it may not be presumption of guilt technically but it is practically. Again where are the liberals standing up for due process? University profs are guilty of omission if they remain silent.
Gun possession is controversial in universities but not in the general population. So universities have set themselves up as 'sensitive places' to get around the second amendment. That is a reason to change the policies at universities. Again university profs are not standing up for civil rights.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Aug 21, 10:05:00 AM:
"Gun possession is controversial in universities but not in the general population."
Depends where you live, Stephen. You cannot get a majority in favor of it in most of the northeast and mid-Atlantic, which is a huge percentage of the national population.
By Stephen, at
Sun Aug 21, 10:31:00 AM:
I think you are right that gun laws are stricter in 'liberal' states but as far as I know gun laws are mostly about waiting periods, child protection and background checks. Gun possession is not blocked in any state. So what do you mean when you say 'you cannot get a majority in favor of it?'
I think the real issue is that liberals are not really liberal. Liberalism has been taken over by leftists. They are not interested in defending freedom. They want top down control. This is especially evident in the attempts to codify political correctness at universities.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Aug 21, 11:07:00 AM:
I certainly agree with your second paragraph. As for the first, there are plenty of states (New York, for example) where you cannot carry many types of fire arms under most circumstances. Possess, yes, carry, no. The story of Brian Aitken is more than a little revealing...
http://articles.philly.com/2010-11-30/news/24954457_1_animal-cruelty-case-gun-laws-legal-team
By Stephen, at
Sun Aug 21, 12:56:00 PM:
It sounds like we are on the same page, the only difference being the source of controversy surrounding gun possession on campuses. It sounds like you think people in the northeast and mid-atlantic states are not inclined to support the right of students to have a gun. But the fact is that these states already allow people to have guns in their homes so it seems to me that the decision to deny students the right to possess a gun rests primarily with the universities which as we know are not run by people who want to advance freedom.
By darovas, at
Mon Aug 22, 11:37:00 AM:
I agree with my friend Antonia: rape is a violent felony which should be treated by law enforcement, not by college tribunals.
I am concerned about OCR's reduced evidentiary standards, and I am satisfied that organizations which I support such as AAUP and FIRE are taking appropriate steps to publicize and oppose them. In a broader context, I am far more concerned with the statistically much larger number of unreported rapes (as opposed to campus rape prosecutions) which take place on college campuses. Even so, I have never participated in a "Take Back the Night" demonstration. Another "sin of omission"? Perhaps.
TH, you seem to be doing a rhetorical pirouette here. Above you complained that professors were more concerned about invitations to cocktail parties, and on your fb page you write that it seems professors are more concerned "with social standing" than with "doing what is right". Now you say the issue is not selfishness but rather that professors should be concerned by the government's using loss of federal funding as a powerful club with which to enforce compliance with its attempts at "social engineering". I can tell you with some authority that loss of all federal funding for a university professor is a more serious matter than cocktail party invitations.
I could pose a similar question for you and your like-minded friends here: if you are so opposed to various government policies, why don't you just withhold your federal taxes and enclose an angry letter to the IRS instead?
That being said, TH, I do agree with you: colleges and universities have very much been intimidated by the threat of loss of funding, and this most recent OCR ruling is but one in a series of examples which stretch across both Republican and Democratic administrations. Perhaps the most well-publicized example it Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, enacted under Nixon, which has led to some questionable decisions by university athletic departments. Another example was Bush's ban on new fetal cell research. By the way, I was strongly opposed to the stem cell research ban, but I never rose up to oppose it, or even so much as signed a petition. As with this OCR matter, I was content to let the larger organizations I support do their work. And in the end I recognized that it was simply politics, and this was one of the reasons I voted for Obama.
Finally, I strongly suspect that at least 98% of university faculty have not even heard about OCR's reduced evidentiary standards. I myself first read about them here on your blog. (I consider the WSJ editorial page a big pile of poo, but I held my nose and read the link.) AAUP and FIRE, whose business it is to watch these things, responded in fairly short order. Perhaps now that the matter has received some press, it will receive more attention on the campuses. But Bernstein and the WSJ cleverly decided to print the piece in mid-August, when campuses are still on summer break, faculty are traveling to conferences, and students are out surfing (or shooting guns at tin cans, if they are in Texas). I doubt it will gain much traction, but who knows.
Finally, could you explain exactly how you and Bernstein know that individual faculty familiar with this matter have not taken action, say by writing a letter to OCR?
By darovas, at
Mon Aug 22, 11:41:00 AM:
Bad editing there:
"...is Title IX..."
"...fetal stem cell research..."
And kill the first of the two "Finally"s.
By Cassandra, at
Mon Aug 22, 04:57:00 PM:
I am a college professor, a retired cop, and a conservative. Having said this, I want to point out that these procedures being discussed are ADMINISTRATIVE and not criminal. As such, lower standards of proof and appeals procedures have long been a part of the American system. Remember O.J.? During his CIVIL trial he was required to testify in a deposition (no 5th Amendment protection) and the burden of proof was the same, a preponderance of the evidence. I have to assume that, where criminal behavior is alleged (i.e. rape) that a SEPARATE criminal investigation will be conducted by an appropriate law enforcement agency where the Constitutional rights of the accused will be carefully protected. A court can throw someone in jail, a college administrative process, at best, can expel a student.
As someone who has written more outraged posts about false rape reports than you can shake a stick at, all I can say is, "What Dr. Tom said."
It seems to me that back when colleges banned military recruiters from campus, conservatives (including yours truly) were all in favor of using the threat of withholding federal funds as leverage to ensure compliance with federal laws.
When I was in HS, our school had an honor court that regularly made recommendations that resulted in kids getting kicked out of school for various infringements of the honor code or of school regs. I was accused of an honor offense (of which I was entirely innocent) that could have gotten me kicked out of school. Oddly, I don't recall having a lawyer to represent me, nor did my parents sue the school. Imperfect processes designed and implemented by imperfect people were considered to be part of learning to live in a society with rules and often dire consequences for making even fairly minor mistakes in judgment, like accepting the word of a fellow student that it was OK to go to the library instead of checking with a teacher. Yes - I almost got kicked out of HS for that. I know people who had their lives rui...err... got kicked out for things that weren't much worse.
These days, their parents would lawyer up and sue the bejeezus out of the school, which explains a lot when you stop to think about it.
Do we REALLY want to force college administrators to follow criminal procedures when making administrative decisions? Really?
The WSJ was a particularly poorly reasoned bit of demagoguery. A kid who is kicked out of school (rightly or wrongly) has not "had his life ruined". He or she HAS had an extremely effective object lesson in what happens when people with an entitlement mentality think they have the "right" to engage in the thrill of risky behavior without being troubled by the pesky consequences that go along with the whole risk thingy.
The only difference is that casual sex has become just as risky for boys as it has always been for girls. It's not fair, but then lots of things in life aren't fair. Kind of makes our parents' warnings about being careful who we consort (let alone have sex with) look almost prescient.
By , at
Mon Aug 22, 06:59:00 PM:
In the mid 90's I was attending my first day in public school (9th grade)...the girl who had a locker next to mine was a huge janice joplin fan (later found acid in her locker), in home room I asked her if her dress was made of paper mache, and the homeroom teach (who had great dislike for my father as a student) said that was sexual harrassement. The girl had no problems with what I said. My parents were outraged, and if I kept a clean record till I was 18 the charges would be dropped. I did not really talk to any girls for the rest of high school, as I was fearfull of having my permanent record harmed. I still believe schools should be privatized to this day! Go Hillsdale College for not putting up with this crap!!!
By darovas, at
Mon Aug 22, 07:23:00 PM:
I agree with Tom and Cassandra that administrative procedures need not adhere to criminal law standards. But I don't think that is all there is to this story.
If the issue here were that a particular institution decided to adopt reduced standards of evidence in sexual harassment cases, then so be it -- each college and university should be free to establish its own set of administrative rules and procedures, and if you can't abide by them, you can study somewhere else. But I have to agree that there is something alarming about the federal government trying to impose such reduced evidentiary standards uniformly.
By , at
Mon Aug 22, 07:58:00 PM:
"there is something alarming about the federal government trying to impose such reduced evidentiary standards uniformly"
Exactly.
Some schools can be like West Point or BYU, or not.
By Stephen, at
Tue Aug 23, 10:18:00 AM:
"I could pose a similar question for you and your like-minded friends here: if you are so opposed to various government policies, why don't you just withhold your federal taxes and enclose an angry letter to the IRS instead?"
Great comparison. If you don't pay your taxes you can go to jail. A better comparison is if you think you should be taxed more, nothing is stopping you from sending the government your money.
By Cassandra, at
Tue Aug 23, 11:18:00 AM:
If the issue here were that a particular institution decided to adopt reduced standards of evidence in sexual harassment cases, then so be it -- each college and university should be free to establish its own set of administrative rules and procedures, and if you can't abide by them, you can study somewhere else. But I have to agree that there is something alarming about the federal government trying to impose such reduced evidentiary standards uniformly.
I'm actually quite sympathetic to this point (because I agree with it). Like you, I can't help wondering what wondrous new federal right is being conjured up from the nebulous ether emanating from our Executive
Branch Overlords. The Constitutional right to have your administrative rape complaints heard by the same standard pretty much any administrative complaint is ALREADY heard by, perhaps?
Likewise, I wonder what *federal* right is being violated by any school that uses a preponderance of the evidence to adjudicate non-criminal (i.e., civil) complaints that lead to neither a civil fine nor criminal conviction/incarceration?
Bonus points: where in the Constitution is such a right outlined (or even suggested)?
Finally, I think it's worth noting that few conservative bloggers - including myself! - had any qualms about the federal government using the horrible threat of withholding federal funding to force colleges to allow military recruiters to do their thing on campus.
Just sayin' :)
By darovas, at
Tue Aug 23, 01:18:00 PM:
Stephen, my remark over taxes was in response to TH's suggestion that I put my grant "at risk". I pointed out to him that loss of funding would have a significant adverse effect on my income and my career, and would leave my PhD student without any income at all. I agree incarceration is even more unpleasant, but that is simply a matter of degree. Apparently you are unwilling to risk arrest and imprisonment in order to stand up for what you believe is right.
But on a less severe level, I might ask you why you don't contribute just a little bit more to charity. An extra $100 a year would, statistically, save many lives in various afflicted regions throughout the globe. Is the reason you do not that you are unmoved by human suffering? Or you you think that you've "done enough already"? And of course donating to a charitable organization is a bit like my supporting AAUP and FIRE -- you just write a check and avoid any real involvement.
Cassandra, your example about campus military recruiters was apposite.
By Stephen, at
Tue Aug 23, 04:09:00 PM:
davoras, how do you know what i contribute to charity? Twit.
By darovas, at
Tue Aug 23, 04:34:00 PM:
Stephen, I don't know. But I'm quite sure you could contribute a little more nevertheless. I'm wondering if the reason you don't is indifference to human suffering. Or perhaps just another "sin of omission".
