<p>At first when I started reading this thread, I advocated the “preponderance of the evidence” standard for expulsion of rapists (which is currently the law). I’ve been convinced by other posters’ arguments that the “clear and convincing” standard is preferable. But I have no qualms about not using “beyond a reasonable doubt.” None at all. </p>
<p>Let’s not forget that the damage to other students that occurs when rapists are kept on campus. It’s not just the victim, but also future victims, that are harmed.</p>
<p>If your employer finds clear and convincing evidence that you have committed a fireable offense, you’re fired. It should be the same for college expulsion.</p>
<p>This means, unfortunately, that some people who appear to be guilty, but are innocent, will be punished. That’s sad, but it’s not so sad as to convince me the proposed policy is wrong. No system is perfect. No one has a legal right to an education at a certain college.</p>
<p>Lesser offenses of a sexual nature should be punished in a lesser way. But rapists-- they should get the boot.</p>
<p>I believe UVA switched just this year away from a single sanction policy. There is a thread right now here on the UVA page about a student who saw another student cheating and is torn about what to do. </p>
<p>The whole “clear and convincing” vs. “preponderance” is a little bit of angels dancing on the head of a pin. As a theoretical matter, it should make a difference in a tiny percentage of cases at best. Most of the time, the evidence will be basically clear, and the truth will be clear. Sometimes, that’s not the case, and it comes down to credibility, but credibility can be clear and convincing, too. As a practical matter, if you think the evidence shows A rather than B, you are going to be able to say that it’s clear and convincing. And if it’s not clear and convincing, I question whether you have a preponderance of the evidence. Evidence doesn’t come in finely calibrated droplets; it tends to come in big fat chunks. And complete equipoise of evidence is an imaginary condition.</p>
<p>So I think it’s a red herring . . . dancing on the head of a pin. If college adjudications are messed up – as it looks like a small number of them are – it’s not the fault of the evidentiary standard, it’s the fault of clumsy, ideologically driven decisionmakers. And it won’t be an improvement on things if the decisions get made by clumsy, ideogically driven decisionmakers with clever legal advisors to help them draft the decisions.</p>
<p>CF, This is what I am saying. Boys and girls are not responsible for thinking what the other party would regret the <em>next</em> day. They are not supposed to be Nostradamus. They are supposed to be – gasp! – drunk and horny teens. Both boys and girls, when they have sex, think about the present. This is even more so relevant with the hookup culture because often the core premise is to walk away the next day. Sex is supposed to be fun, not life-altering. Sex is supposed to be transient and temporary pleasure, not an alignment of the galaxies that tickle the Illuminati and provide some great insight into the meaning of life.</p>
<p>I want to repeat on the emphasis of both here. There seems to be assumption here that it is boys who should be the responsible adult when both the boy and the girl are drunk and having sex, and it is the boy’s responsibility to try to divine whether the girl would regret it the next day. NO. I repeat, NO. That’s BS. The boy has NO SUCH RESPONSIBILITY. The boy has an absolute responsibility to not force himself on the girl. The boy has an absolute responsibility to stop if the girl says No. But that’s it. That’s all the responsibility the boy has. He doesn’t have to be the judge of whether this has the potential to turn into toxic sex <em>the next day</em> for the girl on afterthought. And, since I am gender neutral, I would emphasize that the girl has no such responsibility either towards the boy.</p>
<p>It is <em>quite common</em> for a girl to have a crush on a boy, take a few shots and gather the courage to seduce him, have sex, and then regret it in the following days when the boy says that it is a one-time affair only (or worse, that the sex was bad). At that point the girl may think that this was an example of toxic sex. I say, too bad! First of all, the boy is not a rapist, but some flaky girls including examples given in the Slate article do file rape charges when a boy does this. This is especially problematic when the girl is a virgin. I have not exactly BTDT, but I have watched friends do that, and it seems to me that virgins have an expectation that the stars will sing and angels will descend from the sky when they lose their virginity. Yet, reality is that it happens in a dirty dorm room, on sheets that have not been changed for days, no one serenades, the sky doesn’t open and the earth doesn’t shake, and the boy leaves soon after. Next day, he says he just wants to be friends. This invariably leads to a LOT OF DRAMA. My core principle was to avoid virgins, period. They come with a lot of baggage. And guess what? It was a virgin who filed a rape case against a boy in the Slate article, because she felt bad after 1) getting drunk, 2) seducing the boy, and 3) losing her virginity.</p>
<p>These girls have had a super poor upbringing in my view. The current victim culture is doing nothing to teach them some strength of character. They probably also don’t understand what rape is (the FBI definition will help here.). Don’t encourage it by holding the position that the boys have to be the adults in the case of mutually consensual drunken sex and look out for the girls’ best interests. I seriously wonder how many parents here teach their girls that if they get drunk and have sex that was in no way forced, but in hindsight was regretful, that’s simply not rape. That’s a personal eff up that they should learn from. Perhaps they shouldn’t make decisions to have sex when drunk (good luck!). Perhaps they shouldn’t have sex (even better luck!). Perhaps they shouldn’t drink (hahaha!). Or, perhaps, they should chalk it up to bad experience when it happens instead of crying rape, just because they want the boy to suffer as much as they are suffering because she thought it was love, the boy thought it was sex, and now she feels like an idiot and with an unrequited love to boot, while the boy is going around telling everyone that he peeled the melons of that leggy brunette from Chem II, and she thinks everyone is snickering at her. (And no, she shouldn’t spread a rumor that he has herpes either, though, if it is factually true, a PSA that he is a three-pump-chump is perfectly alright.)</p>
<p>I must hasten to say though that in my experience most girls are not like that. Most will get drunk, have sex, and not have a thought about that the next day. Sex is just sex to them. And these women pursue boys just as much as a boy would pursue girls. They are not sluts. They are my friends with a very healthy sexual attitude and a hearty sexual appetite. And they also understand what rape is, AND what rape isn’t (toxic sex isn’t rape, and drunken sex is not necessarily toxic either, though it can be bad sex). They also don’t need boys to look after their best interest; they believe they can do a fine job of that on their own.</p>
<p>Bottom line, boys have NO RESPONSIBILITY to ensure all avoidance of a future regret of toxic sex on part of the girl, and vice versa. Also, please don’t conflate this with rape. We all know what rape is, and anyone who lives in a half tone world also knows the difference between toxic sex and rape. Let’s keep the discussion to toxic sex for the purpose of this specific discussion, and let’s also acknowledge the findings of the CDC study that 80% of cases identified as college rape are actually cases of toxic sex. To set a ridiculously stupid standard on the boys (as described above) and then call them rapists, sexual assaulters, or even just slimy when they don’t meet this standard is just plain BS.</p>
<p>CF, It’s a moot point. If you use the clear and convincing standard, no one will be found guilty. There is extensive case law to prove this. That’s the standard colleges used, and no one was ever found guilty (well, almost no one), and that’s PRECISELY why the girls started filing Tile IX cases. Why did clear and convincing standard not work? Well, as has been repeated many times on this thread, rape is largely a case of he said she said. There is no clear and convincing evidence. So, debating what the appropriate punishment should be under a clear and convincing standard is pointless. There will hardly ever be any convictions in the first place. That’s what the rape victim advocates want to change. They want more convictions. And that’s why the OCR pushed for preponderance of evidence.</p>
<p>Go ahead, ask any rape victim advocate if (s)he would like a roll back to clear and convincing. They would call you a misogynist rape apologist. The standard they would really like – that all advocates like for their causes – is not even preponderance of evidence, it is guilty until proven innocent which is why the advocates pushed so hard for Yes is Yes. I have to say one thing here, I am impressed with the work, and I learned a LOT from this. See the cases on this thread where people blindly believed the Jackie story? That’s any advocate’s dream, that the public-at-large suspends fact finding and logic and just emotionally and instinctively latches on to the “story”. Of course, the fallout from the RS story will move the clock back, but overall this was very well done indeed. Even Biden and Obama bought the 1-in-5 stats which even the writers of the paper claim to be false (real incidence is ~0.27% if you read the meta-analysis in the Slate story, and in fact it is ~0.16% if you believe the underreporting numbers in the BoJ stats that just came out today). The whole rape culture thing is such nonsense if you go by the hard numbers instead of emotions. That’s why the work by the rape victim advocates is so impressive, that they could convince the public of a completely non-existent problem so thoroughly. They will get good jobs are marketers or political aides (not the policy wonky kind, those are for nerds), as well they deserve to.</p>
<p>Anyway, to summarize, if we go back to clear and convincing, the guilty findings will drop to near zero just as it used to be. No advocate will want that. The goal is to find some boys guilty. Hence the Kangaroo Courts, or rather apologies for kangaroo courts as no representation, no fact finding, no cross-examination is allowed. Just to up the numbers of the guilty findings, of course.</p>
<p>If my wife or HS daughter get raped today, their only recourse is the cops and courts.</p>
<p>If my other daughter (who is in college) gets raped she has access to this whole other sorta kinda criminal justice system mandated by the Feds because they send student loan dollars to her school. But she’ll lose that protection once she graduates next year.</p>
<p>Why does college daughter get extra protection even though statistically she has the lowest risk? But wife and HS daughter get nothing but regular local law enforcement. Why don’t the Feds care about my wife and HS daughter? </p>
<p>I just spit my wine on my keyboard - 3 pump chump OMG - I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes. Anyway, I’m guessing that entire portrayal is more accurate than not just from talking about this topic with my college and just out of college ‘boys.’ But then even in high school they tried to stay far from the drama. And I’ve had enough girls crying on my kids’ shoulders over the years - oh yes the drama. I sadly miss not having a shot at the pink aisle, but there are times when I’m grateful to not have had the drama. Rape is real and I’m really bothered by how diluted it becomes when we call everything rape. </p>
<p>I just spit my wine on my keyboard - 3 pump chump OMG - I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes. Anyway, I’m guessing that entire portrayal is more accurate than not just from talking about this topic with my college and just out of college ‘boys.’ But then even in high school they tried to stay far from the drama. And I’ve had enough girls crying on my kids’ shoulders over the years - oh yes the drama. I sadly miss not having a shot at the pink aisle, but there are times when I’m grateful to not have had the drama. Rape is real and I’m really bothered by how diluted it becomes when we call everything rape. </p>
<p>It’s simple. Colleges – as learning and (often) residential communities – want to maintain a safe academic and social environment for our daughters (and sons). They want to remove students who clearly impede this, independent of the criminal system. They suspend students who cheat, copy and paste from the internet into their papers, and who assault others, sexually or not. It’s not extra protection apart from the cops and the courts; it’s independent of them so that schools can enforce their own codes of conduct. They certainly wouldn’t call the cops to investigate plagiarism, and similarly turn a blind eye toward underage drinking and marijuana use.</p>
<p>I personally have no problem with the overall intent. My worries boil down to the following (1) are they capable of administering a fair system with appropriate protections for victims and the accused (2) have they created rules of sexual conduct that no person could ever NOT violate (I can’t believe that the California legislators who passed the recent law would actually ask permission before each new contact with their sexual partner) and that an innocent accused could ever defend themselves against (3) are they setting up truly independent adjudicators who can resist pressures from all groups and not be inclined to protect the institution by sweeping things under the rug.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the new regime that the Federal government has forced them to create is 3 steps forward and 6 steps back. I think many colleges also agree and in fact anticipated the problems that are occurring. Harvard, for example, only created their new procedure (which was condemned by many of their own law school professors) after being added to the infamous 55 colleges under Title IX investigation. At that point, they had no choice.</p>
<p>CF - You are right. I’d relied on an inaccurate characterization of the new law that I’d previously read. I just read the actual text of the law and it doesn’t mention asking permission. Sorry.</p>
<p>In my opinion it is not the path of honor nor of intelligence to absolve oneself of the responsibility of own well being and happiness, and instead complain about the lack of honor of others when they don’t put the best interest of the one absolving above everything else. But then I guess some people are just raised to have an entitlement attitude, like a woman I knew who would double drop Ecstacy and join group sex sessions, and on the next day blame others for not stopping her. </p>
<p>And then she would do it again another time. It never occured to her to moderate her drug abuse. It was always someone else’s fault.</p>
<p>I get the impression some aren’t actually reading posts. Or they’d have absorbed some of the clarifications. And some have written bafflingly contradictory posts.</p>
<p>Apologies to PG for using her example. But would posters want to see the Sunday school teacher left in place while awaiting a court decision? We understand she didn’t have proofs. But think about your real life response, not just a thread stand. </p>
<p>Didn’t we similarly expect churches to dig into allegations against some priests? Not just say, oh well? Etc.</p>
<p>Title IX doesn’t ask colleges to operate as criminal courts. It asks them to take certain actions on behalf of their communities. Yes, some schools F it up. Are you also considering the colleges that handle this as well as they can? Some here are leaping to conclusions about expulsion. As written, T9 does include protections for both accuser and accused. It does not specify the punishments. And many schools recognize how drunkenness contributes and do not leap to conclusions of rape.</p>
<p>Some need to take a look before they leap. Just sayin’.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in this idea any kind of consensual sex is immoral. I do believe how we treat others can be immoral. The golden rule, though old-fashioned, still seems a pretty good guide to me.</p>
<p>I read through a dozen articles on Yes means Yes to get both pro and con perspectives. My understanding did change about Yes means Yes after that. Thankfully, I am no longer in college, nor am I in CA (though some other states are now joining the bandwagon). But if I were, this is how I would interpret it: </p>
<p><em>There is a snowball’s chance in hell that I am ever going to have sex with another collge kid, period.</em></p>
<p>The risk is simply too high. Here’s Ezra Kein:</p>
<p>THE RISK IS SIMPLY TOO HIGH. The goal is simply to scare kids into not having sex. And yes, it is scary. I was wrong when I said that it is not possible to stop college kids from having sex. It absolutely is possible. Kick out a few innocents in ambiguous cases with the stigma of rapist attached to their official transcripts, and you have eff’ed them up pretty well for good. Who in their right mind would try to have sex after such a consequence?</p>
<p>Now, what about stopping drunk sex? Again, here’s Klein:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oops.</p>
<p>That drunk girl flashing her breasts to you, she’s jail bait. Especially if she is drunk. The message is clear. Leave all drunk and high girls alone. Leave all strangers alone. Leave anyone alone who you can’t completely trust.</p>
<p>But what if you are in a loving steady relationship? Shouldn’t you be safe here? Well, not quite. After all, relationships end. When they end, especially in college, they typically turn into bitter cases of drama (this is from my experience). What’s to prevent someone from changing their mind then? This is a huge weapon in the hands of women! The only way a man can make a woman happy under this set of conditions is to either be celibate, or do as the woman says, or else. Since I know that college girls are not exactly the most caring, thinking, mature lot (neither are college boys), this is radioactive.</p>
<p>So, steady, loving relationships are gone, too. As Klein said, this is a great way to make college campuses sex free, especially if a few high profile cases of innocents roll through the meat grinder.</p>
<p>What a country! I am going to drink to that tonight, and to the fact that I am now no longer in college, and subject to usual criminal laws of the USA. Whew!</p>
<p>And I said it was, where? Oh, that’s right, nowhere. So if you want to argue against strawmen, find somewhere else to do it. </p>
<p>It’s not illegal to be selfish, and not care about anyone else. It’s not illegal to leave a friend in a possibly dangerous situation. It’s not illegal to take advantage of someone whose judgement is impaired. Those things are not illegal. Nor are they admirable.</p>
<p>You are right, you never said it. So, what do you think girls can do to prevent cases where they wake up 3 months later and regret having sex, and then accuse the boys of rape? (As in the Slate story.) Any thoughts on that?</p>