Sorry @dfbdfb I’m still not seeing which post of yours i referenced in post 1288. Shoot me the post number and I can clarify. There’s no quotes in 1288 , just (my) opinion.
Winston has to be more careful. He was seriously wrecked.
The FSU case…evidence was destroyed.
This a felony committed by both Willingham and Winston…
Could get a year in jail…
And…
To be that @@@@@@ up to not know he had sexual intercourse…
Of course to be that @@@@@@ up…how did Winston know if he even used a condom?
Winston is a lucky man…
@momofthreeboys, you didn’t quote me (or anyone else) in #1288. In that post you said—your words—“This is really the heart of why most don’t think colleges should be adjudicating rape cases without police involvement.” I’m questioning whether your use of “most” in that is warranted—and if it’s your opinion, I want to know what you bse that opinion on, because it’s actually a rather strong claim.
You can add me to the list. From a legal perspective, colleges trying to adjudicate sexual assault is an absolute debacle.
So Demosthenes, what’s your alternative? Let people that the college believes to be rapists stay on campus?
Yes, because colleges are amateurs and what they believe is irrelevant. Strong feelings are insufficient. We have a criminal justice system set up, it turns out, for this very issue. I’m all for colleges being mandated reporters, working to reduce the incidence of crime, but adjudication is best left to the professionals. It’s too important for amateurs.
OK, so they throw out the guy who cheated on the math test, but the rapist, no problem, he can stay?
@“Cardinal Fang”: Precisely, because colleges are equipped to figure out when cheating occurred and not when rape occurred. Colleges are never in the position of expelling a rapist because they never know if there was a rape at all. It’s easy for us to call the accused a rapist here, because we can make the necessary assumptions. In real life it’s never so clear. You don’t have amateurs come do your surgery, you don’t have amateurs construct your buildings, you don’t have amateurs fly your planes, why would you think you should have amateurs conduct your criminal investigations?
@Demosthenes49 – our criminal justice system does not handle rape cases any better than the colleges do. To claim otherwise would be disingenuous.
@HarvestMoon1: I completely disagree. Just off the top of my head, the criminal justice system has professional investigators with access to medical evidence (DNA, rape kits, etc.), subpoena power, and the capacity to obtain warrants. Colleges have to hope evidence shows up. The criminal justice system protects the accused through transparency and process. Colleges have neither. The criminal justice system allows everyone access to counsel. Colleges rarely do. The criminal justice system is subject to appeal to a separate body to ensure the findings of the lower tribunal. Colleges often don’t allow appeals, and if they do it’s still just to the college. The criminal justice system has no vested interest in the outcome. Prosecutors want to get guilty verdicts, police want to close cases, defense attorneys want to protect the accused. Colleges have a vested interest in the outcome, either way, often depending on the identities of the accused and the accuser.
You might think the criminal justice system has problems, and it certainly does, but it’s miles ahead of the shoddy jobs colleges do at playing court.
@Demosthenes49, your idea takes away rights from victims.
I think schools are going to professionalize sexual assault departments.
Stanford for example…
https://notalone.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/provost_task_force_report.pdf
The reasonable doubt standard is fine for the criminal courts. The accused could end up in jail…
For schools…the accused may get probation, suspension or expulsion…as bad as expulsion is…we aren’t talking jail.
I hope the criminal justice system does a better job handling sexual assaults. I think the criminal justice system will do better as people working in the criminal justice system are educated.
But let’s not pretend…there were hundreds of thousands of rape kits that were never looked at in the United States until activists started complaining.
Students should not have to wait for the criminal justice system to get its act together.
Do you think Stanford should not have the right to ban the swimmer accused of rape and other criminal acts from campus?
There are very good reasons why on average only about 5% of women report rape to the police. It is a system that has not served them well at all. The arrest and conviction rates are abysmal. I don’t know how much of this thread or other related ones you have read but we have discussed those issues in great detail.
The federal government has created a parallel system to the criminal justice system with the creation of the college tribunals-- not a replacement of the criminal justice system. Women (or men) who have been sexually assaulted on campus can choose either or both. At least there is now a system in place that allows colleges to take some immediate action after being notified of a sexual assault. It could, and would likely take years for a rape case to wind its way through our criminal justice system - with a relatively low chance of ever being prosecuted. How safe does that leave our campuses and where does it leave the alleged victim?
Saying that colleges don’t allow appeals (except within the college) is disingenuous—people appeal colleges’ decisions, well, not all the time, but certainly not infrequently.
@dstark: Which rights are victims losing?
Colleges can’t professionalize their investigators because they are fundamentally limited in scope. They can’t demand the accuser turn over texts, they can’t demand a DNA swab, they can’t compel witnesses to testify. I’m sure these professional college investigators will have the best of intentions, but they’ll still work for the college and share in its conflicts of interest.
Expulsion is a very serious penalty, more than sufficient to ruin someone’s life. That transcript follows them around, conspicuously marked as expelled. Colleges generally want to know why that happened and they’re not going to take on the liability of a student with a past expulsion for sexual assault. That means no more higher education, and in today’s economy that likely means unemployment.
If the accused wants to work under a preponderance of the evidence standard, the courts are open for a civil claim. The accuser can even seek an injunction and the courts can deny the accused access to the campus. It’s just a lot harder to do when the accused has basic legal protections and the system doesn’t presume guilt.
@HarvestMoon1: Saying only 5% of women report presumes you have accurate figures to work with. I don’t think there’s any reason to think we do. But, for sake of argument, let’s say you’re right and it’s 5%. That’s a great argument to improve the criminal justice system but it offers no support for colleges playing amateur detective.
Colleges taking immediate action would be great if they could accurately identify when to act. Unfortunately that’s not the way the world really works. You need competent investigators and cross examination to even get close, and even then there’s plenty of error.
@dfbdfb: Yes, they appeal to the college. That just takes all the same problems and moves it one step higher. Sometimes they appeal by filing a suit, but starting there is rather my point.
Having to share a classroom with your rapist is also a serious penalty. I cannot imagine why you think a rapist’s “right” to stay in college unless they are criminally convicted trumps a victim’s right not to go to class with her rapist.
Apparently, Demosthenes, you think that rapists get to rape, and even if a college is convinced by clear and convincing evidence that the rapist raped, the rapist gets to stick around and rape again.
I would rather be expelled from college than be raped.
How quick is that, Demosthenes? How much does the victim of a rapist I have to pay a lawyer to get her rapist off campus? Why is it up to the victim to get rid of her attacker?
@Demosthenes49, really?
You want to take away an avenue that exists for victims by eliminating the right of victims to file complaints with schools? You want to raise the standard from a preponderance of evidence standard to reasonable doubt?
And filing a civil claim? How much does that cost? How many people have the money to pay for civil court costs?
And how long does a civil court case take?
A friend is involved in a civil court case. He is spending 6 figures in legal fees. I believe the case has been in court about two years already. I think his next court date is in several months. The case is moving slowly and there are complications.
I was part of a lawsuit. I settled after approximately 4 years. Others did not settle. The case has gone on 5 years now. This case can go on for many more years.
You did not answer my question.
Do you want to take away the rights of schools too?
Actually, not always. There’s a serious national discussion going on right now amongst registrars and deans of students on how to transcript things like expulsions, and what sort of information needs to be and should be released on permanent records.
Of course, you’re right in many cases—just not all, and the situation is actually more fluid than one might expect right now.
On this, though, you’re simply wrong on a whole bunch of assumptions—once a student exhausts appeals within a college, there are always other appeals avenues available, including but not limited to the state or federal court systems. However, the court systems are backlogged enough right now that, I would expect given discussions I’ve had with legal types, they don’t want everything dropped on them.
@“Cardinal Fang”: You’re starting from the assumption that the accused is a rapist. It’s quite easy to justify punishment in that case. I recall you not being thrilled when you thought a person was unjustly accused, which is the other side of presuming guilt. In this country, we presume innocence and demand guilt be proven. The system is not perfect and there are absolutely times when that means guilty people walk. That’s still no basis for enacting an even more poorly equipped team of amateurs to try to do the same job.
As for a TRO, you can get one inside a week. In California you can also get emergency protective orders from either family or civil court extremely quickly. I expect most other states have something similar, but I’d have to look into a given state to be sure. Of course, you actually have to show a court something substantive, where colleges might just bar someone by default.
@dstark: I notice how you too default to the “rapist”/“victim” distinction. That presumes knowledge you do not have. All you know is that there is an accuser and an accused. Accusers are welcome to file complaints with the school. I encourage it. I just think that schools should then forward those complaints on to police. If schools want to be there to lend a hand, that’s just fine by me. What I object is to schools playing amateur court (not to mention amateur prosecutor too).
Filing a claim in CA costs variable amounts that you can look at [url=<a href=“http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/filingfees.pdf%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/filingfees.pdf]here[/url]. Most of the applicable cases charge no fees. The CA courts have self-help websites that help you fill in some fairly basic forms, which is all you need for an emergency order. I can’t speak to other states as I’ve only filed protective orders in CA. Of course, if the university wants to step in here too, that’s fine by me. I’m sure there are plenty of advocacy groups that would also be happy to help for no cost.
As for the “rights of schools,” I didn’t answer because it’s quite complicated. A school’s ability to act depends on a lot of different things, such as whether or not it is a state school, takes government funding under various parts, the nature of its contract with students, and the state its in. Now, schools often ignore those things and act anyways, but that’s why they lose lawsuits.
@dfbdfb: I didn’t know that about transcripts. Thanks for letting me know. As it stands, however, an expulsion is a scarlet letter. If in some possible future that changes, I would be willing to revisit the issue.
My point about appeals is that you either appeal it to the university, in which case you maintain all the problems I pointed out originally, or you file suit and seek government review, which you could have avoided if things just started there.