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<p>Al2simon, Sounds like you may be in the option business with that quote. :)</p>
<p>I wish we could see these cases. Do both sides get to present their sides in a fair way? The newspaper stories don’t look good. Is it rare to have both sides partially satisfied? I mean satisfied enough?</p>
<p>When you hear those cases, are you usually pretty sure that one person is right-- that the offense did or did not occur? Or do you usually have no idea? How much evidence is usually presented?</p>
<p>And how would letters from parents help the decision? </p>
<p>And of the cases that are brought to the college by the accusers, what percent wouldn’t be gravely serious if the accusations were true, and what percentage are serious allegations of crimes?</p>
<p>@TV4caster claims that this quote below by me represents that I place the rights of the accuser as secondary to the rights of the accused.</p>
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<p>Let’s see how well the charge fits the actual post above:</p>
<p>The quote above is delicious actually. More specifically, it is a non-sequitor of highest intellectual proportions. Does this quote have anything to do with rights of the accuser or the accused? Nothing at all. So why it is posted as proof I place the rights of the accuser as secondary to the rights of the accused? I have not a clue, but I like the quote anyway for what it does not show. </p>
<p>Note how the sentence is cut off at the end and stops at “cases,” so something was after that word. I have no idea where @TVcaster got the sentence from (would have been nice if he actually gave post numbers), but he clearly did not print the entire sentence or paragraph for the context.</p>
<p>But, I know what I have been saying on this front - in essence, I have been saying, “Just because there are advocates who say the conviction rate is not high enough does not mean that the actual conviction rate does not accurately represent cases” that warrant criminal conviction and the other cases do not.</p>
<p>My position is the logical one when looking at a judicial system where BOTH the accuser and the accused are represented with enforced due process and civil rights. The judicial system has no clue and should have no clue if the charge of rape would lead to a conviction of rape. The justice system should be dumb in that regard.</p>
<p>It is the accuser who makes the accusations, and it up to the accuser, and the accuser alone, to prove her case via corroborating evidence, timeline etc., which she puts forth. The accused does not have to help the accuser in any way, as he did not bring the case upon himself. </p>
<p>Therefore, a low conviction rate may simply represent that rape accusers may not be good at making their cases, and those cases do not warrant a conviction. That is a logical deduction that is part of the mix in looking at the actual conviction rate. </p>
<p>The quote does illustrate that I do not practice an outcome-based judicial philosophy where I assume the number of convictions somehow misrepresents accuracy and strength of cases. The low number of convictions may simply represent that there are a lot of weak rape cases. </p>
<p>In this case, the quote shows nothing that remotely supports the claim that I place the rights of the accuser secondary to the rights of the accused. (But this is weird one though, as it has nothing to do with rights at all, but hey @TV4caster posted it, as proof I favor the accused over the accuser.)</p>
<p>I would not hear these cases. Privacy laws restrict the information to a group of administrators. I have gotten reporting as part of legal oversight that details some statistics, but only at a very aggregated level (again, privacy). As part of oversight, we would get general feedback.</p>
<p>We would get more detail if the case was especially notorious or if the parents make a direct appeal over the heads of the administration. In that case you would hear from the parents, and being responsible you would ask questions of the administration (the appeals I’m familiar with never worked, and we’d never go outside proper procedures anyway) and probe the allegations made by the parents.Most had some grain of truth but the complete story was almost always missing. Again privacy laws restricted the conversation, but I did learn a few generalities: 1) when the institution looks like it’s doing something stupid, there’s almost always a reason why that they can’t talk about 2) if you only hear one side, they can convince you of anything. It’s the old saw that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich since the defense isn’t in the room The obvious corollary applies to press reports. 3) no one is ever fully satisfied at the result, no matter how it turns out. A wise lawyer friend of mine once told me that neither side being happy is often the sign of a good decision, and to my regret I’ve learned he was right 
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<p>Most cases are drunken sex or a bad breakup. Fortunately, the incidence of reporting was low enough that I couldn’t give you accurate statistics about the truly serious cases.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m uncomfortable posing as some sort of expert, but I try to give my perspective. I’m on my mandatory two week vacation 
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<p>It’s in the college’s interest to attempt to find the truth of the accusations. The truth is less likely to emerge if on one side we have an 18-year-old college freshman woman, and on the other hand we have the accused student and his high-priced lawyer. If it’s to be an adversarial proceeding, then there should be lawyers on no side or on both sides. </p>
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<p>If I bought into the college tribunal system, which I do not, I would fully agree with this - that the college should attempt and do have vested interest to find the truth. (As you are aware, I do not think administrators have the training or the resources to ascertain the complexities in such cases.)</p>
<p>However, for the sake of argument, I will accept the premise you state in the quote above. However, even then, the college cannot make a case based on facts it does not have or facts, which do not exist. A nonexistent fact does not mean a female is intentionally lying or is in error in that part of her account, it means what the female alleges does not connect with everything else. And if that nonexistent fact is central to her case, then the truth is harder, if not impossible, to discern. Get enough of those, and there is a problem with reaching truth with even 51% certainty.</p>
<p>And this is where colleges are falling short in my view - by not giving the proper representation and due process rights to the accused, they are missing key bits of information and deciding cases not on truth, but on half the story. Half the story is not the truth upon which such major decisions should be made. Well, at least not in my view. </p>
<p>Colleges will never survive this if they continue because what they are practicing is just the opposite of what people learn are their civil rights. And to a student charged with a serious crime in college for him to have less rights than if charged with the same crime just outside the college gates, really makes no sense to the standard person. It is like you enter the college walls and you lose fundamental rights. Why the heck attend a place that gives you fewer civil rights than the hot dog stand across the street?</p>
<p>But, I go one step further, as @momrath posted in #2745, what many colleges are doing means that an actual already convicted rapist, who may have been convicted of multiple rapes, has more rights that an accused male college student who had sex with a female, while both were drunk out of their minds. That is something that I cannot wrap my brain around, and once parents catch onto that (and many have) the tribunals and colleges are not going to survive doing that for long, as it will become mucho expensive. For example, they better leave @northwesty kids alone.</p>
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<p>posted in error</p>
<p>@TV4caster claims that this quote below by me represents that I place the rights of the accuser as secondary to the rights of the accused.</p>
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<p>Let’s see how well the charge fits the actual post above:</p>
<p>Anyone who reads my post quote above should note that I am discussing two rape cases in the last three weeks, where not just minor errors have been found, but where NOTHING is adding up. ZILCH!!!</p>
<p>But note @TV4caster’s illogical, disingenuous response that FALSLY redefines of the cases different than what they actually are. And then after the false definition he generalizes that what I mean in ALL cases. I call BS on the entire set-up. </p>
<ol>
<li>He accuses me “that if one bit of an accusation is misremembered or false that it is just a woman making the incident up,” and “Yet you find one thing wrong with a woman’s story and she must have made the entire incident up.”</li>
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<p>Note this is an out-and-out fabrication on his part. </p>
<p>The cases I was referring to here are not minor details not adding up, but NOTHING ADDING UP in both of these rape accusations. In both cases (Jackie and Dunham), no guy, no house, no this, no that, etc., i.e, NOTHING has been found to substantiate the claim of any assault, much less rape. NOTHING not panning out is not a case of faulty memory or just one bit of information in error - it is EVERYTHING is nonexistent in terms of a concrete story that people can follow. </p>
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<li>Then TV4 says this shows and means I have favor for the accused - he wrote, “You would give the accused every benefit of the doubt…”<br></li>
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<p>Hum… did I mention what I thought of the accused in the quote he cited? No. Did I mention anywhere in the post that I give the accused the benefit of the doubt? No. Better yet, in the entire quote that he posted is the term “the accused” even written, mentioned or alluded to? No. And to wrap up, is the word “accused” used at all? No.</p>
<p>Therefore, TV4 must be a mind reader then. OK, might be it. Or he just flat out makes stuff up about people - I will go with that one. Which is more believable? You make the call, as the posts are here for all to read.</p>
<p>I do believe all accused of any crime are innocent until proven guilty. Not sure how that translates in give benefit of doubt. I could think a person guilty, but still see him as innocent until proved guilty. Anyway, my ideology puts me in good stead, since I venture all members of the Supreme Court adhere to the standard I follow as well. I rather hang out with their brain trust than @TV4caster’s. </p>
<p>I should address the partial truth aspect statements in the quote, as I stand by that as well. </p>
<p>I do think it is dangerous that advocacy groups say flat out that, “If you say you have been raped, we will believe you all the time regardless.” Huh? We now believe people REGARDLESS and hold them up as victims of crime even of it clear that they are either dead wrong, in error, or lying about the crime? That is ludicrous. </p>
<p>Sorry, proved liars should not be believed and obviously wrong people should not believed. And more importantly, they should not be held up as examples of real victims by anyone or any group.</p>
<p>And young females should be taught that nothing less than the truth would helpful in filing a successful accusation and claim. Errors occur in all accounts of crimes by all parties. However, in serious crime cases, throwing out accusations publicly with partial information, some which turn out to be only partially true for whatever reasons, is not wise. </p>
<p>In this case, the quote shows nothing that remotely supports the claim that I place the rights of the accuser secondary to the rights of the accused.</p>
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That’s a Title IX stipulation: “If a school chooses to allow the parties to have their lawyers participate in the proceedings, it must do so for both parties.” I don’t know what happens when one side can afford a fancy lawyer and the other can’t.</p>
<p>In the Joshua Strange case at Auburn, both sides had lawyers, but they were not allowed to speak on behalf of their clients. The accuser’s attorney was the DA who was simultaneously prosecuting Strange in court. Just his presence at the college proceedings prejudiced the case against Strange.Because his criminal court case was ongoing, Strange chose not to present evidence at the college committee. Thus, since his lawyer was gagged no evidence was presented in his behalf. </p>
<p>According to the WSJ reporter who obtained a recording of the proceedings:
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<p>The accuser had filed criminal charges against Strange, a misdemeanor for allegedly striking her and a felony for alleged rape. Both charges were thrown out: the rape charge on insufficient evidence and the assault charge because the accuser didn’t show up in court. </p>
<p>Yet, the college, as mandated in Title IX, went forward with their own proceedings and found Strange guilty and expelled him. </p>
<p>One witness called by the accuser was a campus victim’s rights advocate. She "disavowed knowledge even of the accuser’s version of events. “As a safe-harbor advocate, I really don’t need to know a lot of details, and so I didn’t ask her to go into great detail,” Ms. McCallister said. “I don’t really want survivors to have to tell their story over and over again.” </p>
<p>The accuser’s other witness was the college’s sexual discrimination enforcer who basically said the accuser was credible because she cried a lot.</p>
<p>Strange’s case was tossed before it went to trial, but this kind of witness testimony would have been laughed out of court.</p>
<p>So there you are: I’ll leave the legalese up to the lawyers, but from my laypersons perspective Strange was denied the right of counsel, he was denied the right to remain silent, he was denied the right not to self-incriminate, he was tried twice for the same crime, the committee was grossly unqualified to try the case and the witnesses were biased and illogical. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303615304579157900127017212”>http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303615304579157900127017212</a>
Read the whole thing.</p>
<p>The Joshua Strange case may be untypical (but it’s certainly not unique). The point is that college tribunals are being pressured by Title IX to convict on flimsy or non-existent evidence and and in doing so contravene the accused’s Constitutional rights. I think we’re going to see a whole lot of law suits as the Title IX proceeding go forward. Good news for the trial lawyers. Bad news for everyone else – the accused and the accusers.</p>
<h1>2769</h1>
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<p>a2simon: Thank you very much for the posts and insider’s perspective. Do you think the sorts of cases brought at your private college will be the same as at some public schools. If the campus culture supports a strong greek and athletic presence, will there be more of the truly serious sorts of cases? Is there self-selection of applicants to the school that would make the horrific cases less likely on your campus? Are you talking about the sort of college that may be screening out, through the admissions process, the serial rapists we are all concerned about?</p>
<p>Do you think the cases you are aware of are representative of what is happening on most campuses?</p>
<p>Much2learn what is your suggestion for how to deal with these issues? Is your position that an accusation is enough? What level of evidence do you think is sufficient to get a man expelled as a sex offender? Raising concern about the process colleges are using does not mean that the women should just get over it</p>
<p>Early In this thread and in others some posters appeared to say that since expulsion is not jail, there should be a very low bar. The articles posted here show that this type of expulsion is a really big deal, essentially denying a man the opportunity to get a degree at any selective college. That is life altering in a big way. Thinking that a higher level of certainty should be used for this punishment doesn’t mean that the rights of the accused trump those of the victim, but only that an individual man that is accused may not be guilty and has the fundamental right to defend himself. </p>
<p>Every accusation should be taken seriously and investigated. A record should be kept in case other accusations are made against the same guy. if there is evidence that the woman was incapacitated through eye witness testimony, video or garbled texts, then both expulsion and legal action are warranted </p>
<p>If evidence is not as good or the facts murky, then the level of consequence should be lower as well. This may well be what colleges are doing now with varying levels of success and failure. </p>
<p>Our legal system is designed to require a high level of proof to convict someone. Many times, not just in rape cases, the victim is not satisfied. The police and victims are often frustrated in other types of crimes believing the accused is guilty but unable to prove it. There are also times when the reasonable doubt standard still results in innocent people going to jail. Not sure there is a system that will always get it right. </p>
<p>I would tell my daughter that even if the accused is not found guilty or is not punished, that doesn’t mean this event didn’t happen or that the outcome was fair and support her in every way possible. Although I would not advocate getting revenge by anomalously reporting him to grad schools or others or by posting his name as a rapist. </p>
<p>In post #2757 Cardinal Fang said.
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<p>That’s quite a few unattributed accusations. Since my DH was an emergency department physician and I personally know dozens of health care workers who work in ED’s around the country, I vehemantly disagree with your characterizations of ED health care staff. I don’t agree with your characterization of police officers either but I can’t personally vouch that you are wrong. But you are absolutely wrong about the men and women who staff ED’s. They have no such bias and instead spend many sleepless nights worrying about the horrible things they see, including young rape victims. They try to do the best for each and every patient that walks through their doors. </p>
<p>Why would you assume that medical personnel would be contemptuous of rape victims? What proof do you have of that? </p>
<p>“Fortunately, young people are often more resilient than we think.”</p>
<p>In general I agree with this but not in the case of sexual assault. I think the women in the Cosby case really help to hit home how this can stay with you for a very long time. They still seek accountability and closure.</p>
<p>And people are saying Cosby’s being railroaded, that he’s oh-so-funny and was on tv, and it’s long ago, so it’s made up. </p>
<p>I guess people will argue anything and it’s only made worse when the get a public place to do so- a radio call-in show, letters to the editor or comments after a web article, or on a public anonymous forum.</p>
<p>“Look at how this college bungled it” is not enough for me. The colleges don’t replace the legal system, this is about their own conduct policies (yes, some of that is mandated.) Don’t play with fire. Don;t venture into the gray and expect it to then protect you.</p>
<p>" Raising concern about the process colleges are using does not mean that the women should just get over it"</p>
<p>I agree with that. There are legitimate questions being raised about the process. </p>
<p>That does not trouble me, in and of itself. What bothers me is that many of the people who oppose this do not seem to have nearly the level of concern for raped women that they have for accused men.</p>
<p>I am not suggesting that a woman’s word should be sufficient. However, it should not be higher than in other cases. </p>
<p>For example, if a woman living in a dorm shoots a man living in the same dorm and kills him. Her defense is that she did kill him, but she acted in self-defense. She says that he said he was going to rape her, and as he moved toward her, she shot him in self defense. By the standard on this board, she should be acquitted. Is that the standard? I am fine if it is consistent. When two people go into a room alone, it will be almost impossible to prosecute any crime that happens. We should just tell everyone that. What I hear people saying is that if she kills him, she should go to jail, if he rapes her he should be acquitted. To me, this sounds very sexist.</p>
<p>Yes well colleges need to get it right for accusers and for accused. And I’ve said it over and over, ironically it is in a civil court where the “rules of engagement” for colleges and universities will be tested and are being tested. As one advocate says: </p>
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<p>I don’t “sit” on the side of females nor do I sit on the side of males. I sit on the side of colleges and universities working on the side of accuracy rather than rewarding them for the number of times they find someone guilty. And it’s really silly not to understand that every time a college settles or loses a lawsuit with damages it’s tuition and fees and scholarships that get hurt. </p>
<p>Forgive me for resurrecting a very old post in this thread, but this one has really resonated in my head;</p>
<p>I had asked: put another way, what’s the appeal of having sex with someone whom you aren’t particularly interested in and / or who isn’t particularly interested in you?</p>
<p>Awcntdb had responded (bolding is mine):</p>
<p>*That is easy to answer why humans do - it feels good and has positive physical effects by releasing certain hormones and raising the concentration of particular ions, which stimulate the muscle growth and heightens the immune system and a whole host of other things.</p>
<p>Medically, this pleasure and the physical effects are part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), i.e., it is beyond our conscious control, and our bodies crave it and seeks it out, regardless of what we do to naturally suppress it. The only things, which can suppress it really are drugs (which are unnatural), which reduces sex hormone production in adults or reduces the development of secondary sex characteristics in adolescents.</p>
<p>The part which you allude to, the conscious appeal of having sex with a particular person, has nothing to do with the ANS and the really is irrelevant to what the body is doing and wants to do.** And frankly, shutting down the drive is one of the hardest things for humans to do.** *</p>
<p>What is being described here is the difference between being a man, and being an animal.
You’re describing my (male) dog - he sees a female dog, he wants to go mate with her, he can’t really “shut it down” unless someone physically intervenes and prevents him from mating with the dog.</p>
<p>Is that what you think men are, awcntdb? Just animals who “just can’t shut it down” once they get going or get aroused? So too bad, so sad, you’re physically aroused and there’s a female in the vicinity and well, you “just couldn’t help it” any more than you “just can’t help” your system metabolize the food you just ate?</p>
<p>Is this what you are? </p>
<p>“And people are saying Cosby’s being railroaded, that he’s oh-so-funny and was on tv, and it’s long ago, so it’s made up.”</p>
<p>Who is saying this? I haven’t heard anyone but Bill Cosby’s lawyer defending Bill Cosby. </p>
<p>Btw, the colleges, when under T9 investigation, are also subject to preponderance. I hate the stories where the schools screwed this up. And I place the blame squarely on them. I don’t like that our kids are into risky behaviors- even though I think many of us look back and see our own, at their ages. But it’s also not right for some to make statements that seem to say more than the writer (poster) really knows. And then, despite the fact we all see the holes in the RS story, just taking some new media piece at it’s own face value. How many of us really understand what this is about?</p>
<p>Marie, I have. And you’ve heard tales of young men whose lives were ruined. Or someone who says this or claims that about the process or the rush to expel. We can all dig further.</p>