@dstark: I brought up Elonis (the case that article discusses) earlier in the thread. It’s not really helpful here. All it says is that to convict someone of a crime, you have to prove a mens rea (mental element), and that mens rea must be greater than simple negligence (at minimum criminal negligence, which is a bit tougher a standard). Since the trial didn’t concern state of mind at all, the Court remanded for a new trial.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view of constitutional avoidance) the Court didn’t touch the constitutional issue at all. Even if it had, this case doesn’t present us with the true threat doctrine, so it probably wouldn’t help us anyways.
@Demosthenese --the hearing was not “based on the alleged violation of the no contact order.”
The Student Conduct Hearing where he was expelled was a result of the investigation that was launched by KU’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access (IOA) on August 8, 2013 when complainant alleged that the accused sexually harassed her. OIA met with accused on August13, 2013 and advised him of his rights in the investigation. They issued the no contact letter at that same time. The results of that investigation which commenced in August after she accused him of the harassment, are what determined if there would be an actual hearing.
On October 7, 2013 IOA issued a report to the Vice Provost providing details on the results of the investigation. They concluded that he had violated the Sexual Harassment Policy and and also violated the “no contact.” IOA then issued a formal hearing notification and informed him of the basis for the proposed disciplinary action which included his physically restraining the complainant in the car, calling her demeaning names …and violating the “no contact.” See top of page 16 of appellate brief.
The full text of the findings from the hearing make it very clear the basis upon which he is being expelled. The tweets and the violation of the no contact were 2 of many. There were also findings of him physically following her and having his friends harass her on campus.
@dstark: No problem at all. If I can be of any further help explaining please let me know.
@HarvestMoon1: I must be getting a bit confused. There was a series of criminal acts that resulted in a court-ordered restraining order. KU saw that and enacted its own no contact order. Then the accused tweeted a few things, and KU warned him not to tweet. He tweeted again, and KU expelled him. That last bit is the enforcement.
I read the fact statement in KU’s appellate brief. The investigation they’re talking about is the violation of the no contact order. That’s why if you continue reading, page 17 about the hearing is all about the tweets. Page 19 is about IOA telling the accused that he had a no contact order and that his conduct was in violation. IOA also explained (page 21) that the tweets constituted sexual harassment (which is why he was held in violation of both sexual harassment and the no contact order).
Now, the lawyers were smart enough to put in a bit about the prior criminal conduct (pg 24-25), but you’ll notice the quotes from the record suddenly dry up. You’ll also notice that there’s a several month unexplained gap and enforcement only started with the tweets.
I’m not a Twitter user, but I looked up the rules for blocking tweets from people. As I understand it, in order to be able to block someone, a Twitter feed must be private, and the Twitter user must approve all followers. Since Navid’s feed allegedly blocked his ex, then, we have to conclude his feed was not public.
However, how private was it? If he had hundreds of followers, many of them at KU and many known to his ex, it wasn’t very private at all.
@“Cardinal Fang”: Thanks for looking it up. I don’t use twitter either so I am unfamiliar with its rules. The degree to which his twitter is private doesn’t really make that much difference here, however. Other people still have to affirmatively go look at his tweets, and there is still no indication he induced anyone to relay the information.
I don’t think “other people have to affirmatively go look at his tweets” is the right way to describe it. Suppose you text me. I have to affirmatively look at my phone to see your text, but once I look at the phone, there the text is-- I don’t have to go get it.
Similarly, his followers have to check out their Twitter feeds (which they probably do every ten minutes) but once they do, there his tweet is-- they don’t have to go look for it, ask for it, or search for it. It just comes up.
@“Cardinal Fang”: I am not a twitter user, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t they have to add him to their feeds? If it pushes to them automatically then the contact argument is better, though probably still not a winner.
As I understand it, once they ask to be his follower and he approves them, his tweets go to their feeds. I’m pretty sure there is no extra step.
It’s kind of like if I give you my email address. When you email me something, I don’t have to go to my email and say “Now show me all the new mail from Demosthenes.” I just check my email, and there your message is, with all the other new emails I get.
This should help – There was only one investigation.
No contact order was also issued on that day. Tweeting continued and KU emailed him again about the continued tweets on September 6, 2013. The brief details other incidents on campus that occurred that Fall and after the no contact was issued which she alleged were harassment-- incident in elevator and incident at party (pg. 23.) IOA concluded it’s investigation and issued report on October 7, 2013 to Vice Provost saying
Formal hearing notification letter was then sent to him on October 18th and basis for the disciplinary action was set forth in that letter - See pg. 16 of brief.
Hearing was held on November 4, 2013 and he was expelled. A partial text of the findings and basis for expulsion are on pg. 23 but the full text is embedded in the Judge’s decision and is much more specific. They go well beyond the tweets.
I do think the hearing panels stated reasons for the expulsion should be taken at face value. Not that I do not understand why the accused attorneys would try to argue that the expulsion was based only on the tweets, but KU has the panel findings backing them up.
Not that I am a twitter expert, but I do have teenagers, and I do follow their twitter feeds. Once you follow someone, their tweets show up in your twitter feed. There are various settings that will alert you when certain people tweet, let you ignore tweets from certain followers, let you know when someone “tags” you, etc. But it is like a rolling stock ticker for the people you follow.
As I understand it, you have to make the affirmative decision to follow someone, and then that person can either block you or allow you to follow them. Once you are a follower, then all of that person’s tweets show up automatically in your twitter feed, unless you ignore them in which case you have to go to their own twitter page to see what they are doing.
My daughter I think is in the several hundred range. My son probably in the one hundred range, but he tweets a lot less. Honestly though most of the kids in their circles are already moving away from twitter except as a newsfeed. And I mean newsfeed in the traditional sense. They follow sources for news and weather, humor sites, my son follows his college and his coaches, my daughter follows her school and the band feed, that kind of stuff. Most of the social posting I see is on instagram, vine, snapchat, etc. And no, please don’t ask me what the difference is. The speed with which these kids adapt to new technologies is breath taking.
Well, let’s hope that UofM publishes some depth to this - at first read it sounds like they counted normal behavior as sexual assault - a kiss or a grope might be annoying but certainly cannot and should not be"lumped" into the same statistics as sexual assault. Normal, well adjusted adult college students should be able to deflect a kiss going wrong or an undesired grab without having to include the entire administration, the local police or hire a therapist. Until these colleges start running reasonable surveys with language that makes sense to people the credibility is going to be in question.
The SES survey, and other surveys like it, presumably including this new Michigan survey, ask about experiences that would count as rape or sexual assault, rather than asking the women if they’ve been raped. It’s worthwhile pointing out that the SES survey, which these newer surveys are mimicking, has been validated. Researchers gave women the survey, then followed up with the women who answered yes to the sexual violence questions, asking them to further describe the incidents.
From the abstract of the validation paper, it seems that the survey was accurate for cases of rape (=unwanted sexual penetration), but less accurate for cases of attempted rape. That is, when a woman said she’d been raped, and then the researchers asked her to describe the incident, the researchers typically agreed that, yep, if that happened, it would be rape. But the survey was less accurate for cases of attempted rape.
So when we look at these surveys, IMO the best way to compare is to look at the numbers for forcible and incapacitated rapes.
It’s also worthwhile pointing out that it’s harmful for a woman to believe she was assaulted, even if she wasn’t. That wonderful Canadian study, if it pans out, should reduce both the number of actual assaults (because the woman knows how to escape) and the numbers of ambiguous situations where the woman feels that she ended up in a sexual situation she didn’t want to be in (because the woman has a better understanding of what she wants and how to communicate it).
“It’s also worthwhile pointing out that it’s harmful for a woman to believe she was assaulted, even if she wasn’t.”
Yup. This is something I recommend that my expelled students students address. The distress of the accuser is often clearly real, even when the alleged assault is in dispute. When that’s the case, the accuser should acknowledge it and talk about it.
Exactly so. If Brandon and Emily have a sexual encounter, and Emily comes away from it thinking she was raped, although in fact she wasn’t raped, she’s doing it wrong. But he’s doing it wrong too.
