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comment by _refugee_
_refugee_  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The college rape overcorrection  ·  

C'mon, gotta read both sides of the issue, this catty-corners quite nicely with yours.

An old high school friend whom I admire, look up to, and occasionally day-dream I'll marry (after he marries, whelps with, and divorces his fiance, who I'm sure is a very lovely girl, but things don't always work out in the long run SLASH JUST IN MY MILD DREAMS GUYS NOT SERIOUS) (also my brother's best friend, siblings are in favor of our nuptials, which I expect will occur in our 40s) put up a post on Facebook that also reminds me of this. "The mother of a UVA student who reported her rape summarized this position thusly: "In what world do you get kicked out for cheating, but if you rape someone, you can stay?" That sentiment makes for a great outrage quote, but it's entirely wrong. Cheating and raping are not related things. The former is an academic infraction deserving an academic punishment, like expulsion; the latter is a violent crime deserving a rigorous police investigation. Students who are confessed rapists shouldn't be expelled, they should be put in jail."

In my book club I'm infamous, perhaps, for expressing no sympathy towards a character who committed a crime and then was punished for it. Supposedly, the crime was justified (book club didn't agree) and admittedly, the punishment was harsh.

In my anger at the author's attempt to manipulate my sympathies into wretched pity for the poor criminal who had been caught committing her crime and therefore punished, I scrawled out "THEIFS [sic] GO TO JAIL" in the pages of the book.

Commit a crime? Reap what you sow. Cops who look the other way for someone who breaks the law aren't doing many favors.

Crimes should be punished. Is the legal system perhaps much more accustomed to determining guilt and meting out consequences/punishment than universities are? Well, the courts certainly provide a formalized system and process that is (generally, kind of) available to all, mostly clear (if you are or have a lawyer) and provides recourse if anyone feels justice has gone awry. Do universities have such systems? Does Mock Trial count? Admittedly, there are sorts-of justice processes you can follow at universities but to me, it seems a University sees itself as a parent: just, all-knowing, concerned with what's best for you, and ultimately, determined on what your punishment will be without too much concern how you feel about it. Didactic. Authoritarian. If you don't like the University's ruling, you don't appeal: you leave. After all, they're private schools, private property. Your rights aren't quite the same living on someone else's turf. Like living at home: you have to follow your parents' rules, or - there's the door.

Is it possible that colleges are out of their league in terms of "prosecuting" rape and harassment crimes? YUP.

Is it possible that law enforcement isn't an ideal solution either considering that many women report being dissuaded from filing charges or formal reports after an assault or rape? Also yes.

However, if I were accused of a crime, I'd angle for the established legal/court system to process me any day over a university that feels like its reputation, and therefore its income, will be threatened and/or diminish if it does not properly, and aggressively, act not only to preserve or buoy its current reputation, but to try to drag its shoddy past reputation out of the mud. Universities have something to prove: that they are safe places and you can send your daughters there and they take rape seriously and so on. Universities with histories to the contrary doubly so.

It's a show. It's a justice show for your money. They are scrambling to cover their asses and of course going overboard in the wrong direction because of it, because they are going to sell you on their campus safety by showcasing these ridiculous, low-burden-of-proof, hard-to-dispute-if-accused, unequal, aggressive policies.

By the way? Despite all this see-sawing either way, I still first-hand know people who have been raped on college campuses in the past year and aren't reporting it. So yeah, guys are getting falsely accused. There are also guys out there who aren't. I'm not trying to say "it evens out" or "that's fair" - false accusations, not just of rape but rape is a hot-button, ruin lives. With or without aggressive harassment/rape policies, some rapes will go unreported. With or without, probably, there will be some false reports.

Rape is bad. Being falsely accused of rape is also bad. In both instances it behooves all parties to have approximately equal access to an established system which require a reasonable burden of proof, investigate potential crimes by doing more than just taking statements (and especially only statements of purported victims - c'mon, Rolling Stone just got slammed for that), and allow for recourse if either party does not feel justice was served.

Problems all over the place.

Sorry this is so huge I keep trying to edit for clarity/length and then instead I add more.





kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm gonna regret having an opinion on this, and I'm going to regret it deeply. But I'm going to do it anyway.

There are more than two sides to any issue, "college rape" in particular. Todd Akin swallowed a sneaker over dividing "rape" into "legitimate rape" and... everything else, I guess. It's a lot like saying "actual pregnancy." But it's also a ham-fisted acknowledgement that the public's appetite and understanding of sexual assault is a moving target and that we are now prosecuting and calling inexcusable things that used to just be "boys being boys."

Blade Runner was the most expensive movie made in 1982. Harrison Ford was hot off of Indiana Jones and Empire Strikes Back. Sean Young was a rising star. Watch this clip and see if shit at 3:00 doesn't start making you distinctly uncomfortable:

It made Sean Young uncomfortable. She's said publicly she felt like she was being raped. The result? She stopped working. This is a fully unsubstantiated guess on my part but I reckon we're hearing about Bill Cosby's past now rather than then because then the most common reaction would have been "Bill Cosby slipped these girls his Jello Pudding pop?" (instantrimshot) (laugh track).

Women should feel safe. Women should be protected from retaliatory harassment when they charge that their safety has been violated. That's rape activism. But women should not feel safe to groundlessly annihilate the future of any man they encounter. And that's the pendulum swinging the other way - it's more of a likelihood now than it was 20 years ago.

Here's the thing: a man can destroy a woman's life with rape. He will face consequences. A woman can destroy a man's life with accusations of rape. By and large, she won't. Li'l story:

I made a deal with myself back in the golden era of Match.com: I wouldn't give them money but I'd go out on at least one date with anyone who approached me. As men outnumbered women about 20 to 1 on Match.com it was a deal that didn't involve much work on my part. Think I went on three dates. One of them was with a girl who was very coy about her identity, refusing to give me a last name. Problem was she called from her dad's house. Star 69, firstname lastname, "Montana State University" and I knew, within 20 minutes, that she was on academic probation for one year for making a false rape accusation.

Doesn't sound like much, but this is a girl who cut at her own jugular with an X-acto knife, tore her own sweater and told the cops she'd been dragged behind the bushes by a boy who, as it turns out, hadn't wanted to give her his number. She cracked under questioning by the district attorney as she was working up the rape and assault case against the boy... six months after this poor kid had been thrown to the ground in his dorm room by Bozeman police, guns drawn, and thrown into jail over the weekend. Six months after he'd been kicked off campus and expelled.

One year. Academic probation. The charge?

Perjury.

In 2002.

I guess it's progress that both genders now have life-ruining power but it's also fucking sad that right about the time we finally get kids free of their overbearing, overprotective helicopter parents we're also telling them that any consensual sexual encounter they may have is grounds for a life-ending disciplinary hearing at any point in the future. You think that isn't gonna fuck up both genders and thereby society?

Here's the thing. Rape is a crime. Falsely accusing someone of rape is also a crime. We didn't used to prosecute the former nearly enough. Now we've swung the other way where we aren't willing to do anything about the latter.

I want women to feel safe. I want women to be safe. But I can't endorse a society where men can have their futures deep-sixed when your freshman fling's mother finds her diary.

_refugee_  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I can't endorse a society where men can have their futures deep-sixed when your freshman fling's mother finds her diary.

Absolutely. And that's wrong. I want to say, "I don't think that un-involved third parties should be allowed to press charges against one half of a couple who committed an act," but hey, we prosecute some charges for the state regardless of what the victim wants. Parents shouldn't be able to criminalize kids because they don't like what their offspring are doing with said kids in the bedroom (or the back of the car).

Telling everyone of all genders that they must ask for verbal, affirmative consent every time they proceed further physically in an interaction ("may I kiss you?" "OK now may I touch your stomach?" etc) isn't the answer. Everyone being afraid they'll be accused of rape, yup, that's wrong. Yes, we are teaching our kids not to trust each other and or to have reasonable romantic relationships or expectations when those kids/pubescent adults/almost-adults are surrounded by the media frenzy of "RAPE!" and "FALSE ACCUSATION!"

We're teaching our kids that sex is dangerous but not because of the cooties. The hotter this is in the presses, the more hyped this becomes, the bigger a fuss made in headlines and at colleges and awareness seminars, the more people learn one thing: "Don't trust your intimate partners."

"Being intimate is dangerous."

Hell, a person can be accused of rape without even having sex.

You'd like to think if you were close enough to a person to have sex with them you would know that you could trust them not to turn around and lie later. But, especially in college, kids learn by doing idiotic, awful things. Most of the time it's not false rape accusations or even slashing your ex's tires - most of the time, I hope, it's "mild Facebook stalking" and "disagreements escalating to shouting matches" and so on. So no, you can't trust someone just because you've known them a minute and they want your dick in them (or vice versa). You can't even trust people you think you've known for a while, because - especially in college - sometimes people go off the deep end. It's that age bracket, you know.

Colleges are shit-scared and they aren't going to prosecute students for making false rape allegations for a long time. They're going to kick the problem off of their turf, which theoretically "protects" the other students, and wash their hands. It's awful that accusations can be made and the policy at some places is not to even tell those accused the nature of the complaint. I agree.

I think colleges are backed in a corner with Title IX and I think we should shove it all onto law enforcement and take it away from colleges.

It's funny, if you commit a felony on school grounds and school catches you, you're out. But if you commit a felony off school grounds they don't give a shit. It's literally all about them protecting their asses. This isn't a moral decision they're making to protect students or about what kind of students (and with what moral caliber) they want on campus.

I would run from someone who'd made a false rape accusation as well. I would run hard, and fast, and never look back.

Some women, yes, I grant, some women may feel this way:

    women should not feel safe to groundlessly annihilate the future of any man they encounter

And quite likely it is more now than it was then because as you said: rape is now no longer tolerated. Accusations have real bite behind them.

Until those making false accusations are punished soundly and thoroughly, by law enforcement and not by colleges, for those lies - defamation, libel, slander, fraud, you can fit it under a few different counts I reckon - people are going to feel free to make those accusations. They should face criminal charges and a permanent record. An academic slap on the wrist for lying is not sufficient.

So I say prosecute 'em.

I can't think of a solution where we go back to happy-happy time and don't worry about whether we can trust those we have sex with, but I do think it's fucked up that kids are trusting someone with participating in what can be among the most intimate acts with you while worrying that they cannot trust these partners not to lie about it later.

I can't do anything about Harvard and Yale's policies except disagree with them. Due process. Proof and evidence. Investigation. Criminal charges. Not the irritated flick of a wrist to get rid of after-dinner crumbs that itch and look bad on your shirt-cuff, so that the crumbs go on the carpet and become someone else's problem.

At the end of the day some victims won't report the crimes committed against them.

At the end of the day some insane shit-fucks will catfish and lie for "revenge."

We should work as hard as possible to discourage both behaviors. I don't think the solution is lessening the social stigma of rape (which, btw, is probably why it's so effective an accusation - it's so fucking loaded) so that means to me aggressively pursuing those who ruin others' lives by lying about it.

I'm even more stumped what we can do about the people who won't report criminals.

Problems on both sides of the fence and unfortunately the hotter of an issue this gets, the more I fear we will see false rape allegations for a while. And that pisses me off, too, because then we get all "[group] who cried wolf."

"Oh, a member of this group lied about this crime. Oh, another one did. Oh, you just can't trust any of them. They're all lying."

The people who lie make everything harder for the people who don't.

kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The people who lie make everything harder for the people who don't.

The Rolling Stone UVA problem in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen.

The problem - the mechanical problem, not the moral problem - is that we have a civil issue with private implications. It's the exact same bullshit problem as Hobby Lobby and birth control: it's "policy" not "crime." So the schools can argue (correctly) that nothing they say or do does any civil damage to the unjustly accused and that, as private entities, they are free to enact whatever policies they feel are necessary. And then the unjustly accused can argue (correctly) that scuttling any chances of college anywhere due to that policy is, in fact, a civil violation. And then the school can (correctly) argue that Title IX requires them to protect women. And then we can all (correctly) argue that Title IX goes too far. And now all of a sudden we're arguing about Title IX instead of rape.

At some point we need fairness and due process to be determined by something other than market forces. 'cuz what's going to happen is some enterprising kid is going to argue that he's been secretly recording his trysts on a hidden GoPro to protect himself against rape accusations and then the whole thing is going to go in ugly directions nobody wants to see.

I went on the date, by the way. And had I not been left waiting for 45 minutes by the ugliest girl in Spaghetti Factory (her choice) only to be invited to take her to Renfair the next day, I would have stuck my dick in crazy. What can I say? Her high school yearbook picture, which she was using on Match.com, was hawt. Her reality was not. But fuck. I was 25 and still that rash. We're asking 18 year olds to navigate this quagmire?

b_b  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's all relative though. To regular Spaghetti Factory patrons (should such people actually exist), perhaps she was quite the prize. I can only imagine the type of person who would suggest going to the SF ever, let alone on a date, let alone on a first date.

kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I wrote it up for Reddit at one point. It was singular. But yes - I actually found myself looking around and thinking "I am across the table from the ugliest girl at the Spaghetti Factory."

It was literally her favorite restaurant in the world.

b_b  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was once hitting on a relatively cute girl on a flight to NYC. She lived fairly close to me in Detroit, so I figured it was a win/win, with options to keep it a weekend fling or call her up once we were back at home. Anyway, through the course of our conversation I found out that she hated French food, which she had discovered during a study abroad program in college. This piqued my interest, because, well, who hates Parisian food in Paris? So, I inquired, what was her ideal food. Her reply, no joke, was, "Ummmm, have you ever heard of Applebee's?" It was simultaneously horrifying and yet also endearing in its folksy innocence. I tried at once to cut the conversation off, but I had to hear a dreadfully boring story about how her favorite thing in the world is something called "Mexiranch" (I hope to never, ever have the misfortune of finding out firsthand what Mexiranch tastes like), and that her mother had bought her a gallon of the shit straight from the Applebee's kitchen for her for Christmas the previous year. That day was one of only two times in my life that I turned down as easy score from an attractive girl (the other involving a girl who turned out to be extremely racist, almost to the point of something you would see in one of those bad comedies where the hopeless main character goes through a montage of bad dates before he finds the nice librarian who changes his life). It's amazing how off putting terrible taste can be.

_refugee_  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Eh, you can't proactively record someone else without their consent (in two-party consent states) just in case they might accuse you of a crime. If, however, the video came to light in the context of a false rape accusation, well, that would be kind of hilarious.

"You're being accused of rape!"

"Wait, I have this! It's evidence!"

"You're being charged with production and distribution of pornography!"

"I'm charging her for libel!"

Most of the dick I let around me between the ages of 19 to 23 was extremely regrettable. Poor decision-making and too much trust. But hey, here I am and I've learned, right?

kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

...like 2-party consent rules would matter to the blogosphere.

Dunno. I've seen ample evidence that what we know as "college" is going to collapse in the next 10 years. So long as this shit is settled in the next 16 I'm good, selfishly-speaking.

_refugee_  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Klein, if we count tumblr, logic can hang itself at the door.

b_b  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I mistakenly read that line as "Poor decision-making and too much thrust." Anyway, now I feel bad about laughing at something that wasn't supposed to be a joke. I feel shame :(

thundara  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    And then the unjustly accused can argue (correctly) that scuttling any chances of college anywhere due to that policy is, in fact, a civil violation.

Legally speaking, wouldn't this be on similar grounds to an employer firing an employee for sexual harassment? Colleges can't charge a student with a crime, they can only bar them from their property. Under similar circumstances, shared housing may remove the accused on the grounds of "clear and present danger".

One would hope that an accusation of rape would eventually be settled in a court with a jury, but in the meantime, the best any private institution can do is remove a person suspected of an immediate threat.

kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Here's the big issue: "Legally speaking" isn't the problem. Legally, we have three strikes laws that send people to live without parole for shoplifting... but only if you're black. Legally, we have a crusade against a kid who had consensual sex because a counselor spends 6 hours convincing someone she was raped. Legally, a university can kick someone out of school for sexual assault with no evidence whatsoever thereby blackballing him from all other universities. All that shit will get sussed out in the courts eventually, but "the courts" are heavily tilted towards large institutional players. Money talks. Unless the ACLU feels like taking on Podunk University, Johnny College is fucked because the prevailing climate is "fuck Johnny College he's a rapist until proven otherwise."

thundara  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I feel like my point was missed... let me try rephrasing:

A company can fire an employer for an accusation of rape without a court order. In California at least, a landlord can issue an unconditional termination to a tenant similarly without a court order. And now it's the case that a university can (will? more often?) also suspend a student without a court order.

As you said, in each of these cases, it's on the courts to sort it out eventually if the accused person sues or if the offender has also violated civil law.

I'm not defending this structure, just asking if it's fair to equate these situations. It seems the same vein of logic pervades through all three: let private institutions and individuals sort it out in the intermediate before it is brought to court.

kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You didn't miss your point, I didn't explain myself properly. Let me try again.

The existing case law doesn't account for a changing social or political landscape. In this case, University X could sever their agreement with you, send you packing, and say "we're not going to let you enroll again until your poor victim signs up for her classes you filthy rapist." Existing case law says they're just fine doing that (let's suppose - because I'm in no position to argue what is or isn't, only what I see the problem being) because fuckin' A, go to college somewhere else.

But what if Universities A through Z won't take your transfer credits from University X because you're a filthy rapist? Well, sucks to be you, but surely Private College One will take your credits. They're very rape-friendly.

Except Private College One costs nine times as much as University X and you were barely scraping by on your financial aid. Oh, and by the way, have fun applying for scholarships now. What happened at University X, by the way?

So legally, you don't get to go to college. Sure - you still have options, but those options have been severely curtailed - legally. And I think you'll find that city and municipal courts generally provide stopgaps to cover the issues that state and federal levels don't - in California at least, rent control and tenant's rights allow a buddy of mine to sublet a condo on the beach in Santa Monica for the same price he paid for it when he first moved in back in '92. Not saying that's a good thing - just pointing out that your landlord/tenant thing doesn't tell the whole story.

And the whole story here indicates that well-meaning laws and policies enacted by well-meaning people are grinding a growing number of unfortunate college-aged males into grist.

thundara  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Some elements of what you said could also apply if the situation happened at a company, but I get that the context is significantly different among college-aged people. I think in general, this is a hairy discussion to have, since it seems like rape and sexual harassment are generally things not taken to court, whatever the context (Domestic, academic, military, or at a company).

kleinbl00  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Companies are also severely limited as far as disparaging things they can say about former employees. Colleges? Not so much.

_refugee_  ·  3396 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Basically, they can confirm you worked there from certain dates to certain dates, and that's it, from what I understand.

ButterflyEffect  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Authoritarian. If you don't like the University's ruling, you don't appeal: you leave.

I'm not throwing my hat into the rest of this argument, but I wanted to mention that this isn't always the case. My university does have an appeals process, and students are afforded the right to have somebody at their student conduct hearings to represent them during the first hearing and/or during an appeals hearing.

_refugee_  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

To be fair, I'm not completely intimate with the details of how university justice/punishment works, and I'm also sure it varies from college to college. For instance, after thinking about it, I'm willing to bet religious schools may actually care about students' amoral behavior off campus, depending on how severe it was.

user-inactivated  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Commit a crime? Reap what you sow.

Thank god that is settled. Michael Brown and Eric Gardner were allegedly doing something illegal.

Does your philosophy still hold up?

_refugee_  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Later in the same post, my own words:

    Is it possible that law enforcement isn't an ideal solution either...Yes

I at no point try to claim that law enforcement is perfect, I merely posit it is better than university judicial systems in this context.

I do not believe that the use of deadly force to stop citizens from committing alleged crimes. Our justice system was not executed properly in those events. If a crime is alleged, it should be prosecuted properly following the due course of justice, which is at a trial, not in the streets, and with a judge or jury, not a gun or chokehold. Crimes must be proven before they can be prosecuted. No crimes were proven against Brown and Gardner. Moreover, I believe the use of force by the police in those cases was utterly unwarranted.

Thank you for taking one sentence from my page of text, removing it from all context including my own caveats, and trying to insinuate that I believe either of those men, or anyone for that matter, "deserves" to die at the hands of cops, on the streets, before being served charges, before being given a lawyer and their day in court. I KNOW that even then the justice system is skewed. But it is better than no justice system and it is better than a system that accepts accusations as evidence of guilt.

If you read anything I post on Hubski you know I'm quite heated and quite "liberal" when it comes to the rights of any oppressed class. It doesn't feel liberal to me but it does to some douchebags.

What you tried to do with your comment is not only stupid, but completely contrary to the person I regularly demonstrate myself to be, quite vociferously, with passion and with disregard for those who disagree, on this website.

So thanks, and fuck you. You ain't payin' attention, you just shootin your shotgun.