I think nearly all have some Code of Conduct. Just google the college name and Code of Conduct. This is what S says about penalties https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/communitystandards/policy/penalty
"Expulsion from the University is the permanent termination of an individual’s status as a student, with the loss of all rights and privileges appurtenant thereto.
If a Judicial Panel recommends expulsion from the University, the case will be automatically reviewed by the Provost. The Provost has the option of supporting the recommendation of expulsion or imposing lesser sanctions."
So, seems they sanity-check, at least in principle.
I think what makes Dart’s move welcome is the recent context about allowing underage drinking for various reasons. Things like the Amethyst Initiative and some public statements that banning alcohol only drives it in other directions.
I re-read your post and understand, and I take back my statement. You said colleges should not ignore, not me. But, even there, I do not see colleges ignoring these cases. I just see them being much more cautious in how they approach the difficult places.
Great observation. The cynical answer is it ups the perceived conviction rate stats, even if another female(s) gets assaulted down the road. Although, it is not really a criminal conviction, but reportable as such and most people do not know the difference.
I’m sorry to say that I think the unique thing about the Vanderbilt rapes and the Stanford rape we just heard about is that these guys were caught, not that they were atypically horrible.
Notice, in both cases, the offenders were caught just by chance. In the Vanderbilt case, the college was looking at surveillance tapes for a completely different reason, and happened to see the rapists carrying their unconscious victim. In the Stanford case, the bicyclists happened to be going along a dark, deserted path in the middle of the night, but usually people wouldn’t be there at that time of night.
The Vanderbilt rapists and the Stanford guy had very high probabilities of not being caught. They were unlucky. That leads me to believe that there are a lot of other guys gang raping unconscious women, and raping unconscious women after frat parties, and not getting caught.
The Vanderbilt case is unfortunately one in a million - from the way the university discovered it to the existence of actual video documenting the assault. There was no way these boys were going to walk away from this one. Which begs the question of why their attorney did not aggressively pursue a plea deal.
Re: what was it like back in the day—when I was at Brown in the early 90s, there was a huge national story about the fact that women were writing the names of men (alleged rapists) on the bathroom walls at the library. The women claimed it was the only way they could get attention. This is from a post I made on the Brown forum here back in May:
The women said they had to do it because the administration would not listen to them, or gave slaps on the wrist. As for the accused men, who can say if they were all guilty? Once the names were out there, the cloud was over them. It was not a good time. Students were angry with the administration, women and men were mad at each other…
“PG: You think the first assaults by these young men are when they arrive at college?”
Possibly. There’s more freedom at college and more access to young women in a way there isn’t a high school.
There’s a first time for every bad person to do his first bad thing.
There’s only one odd thing with the Stanford rapist incident: how did the two cyclists know the woman was unconscious? If I was bicycling through the Stanford campus in the middle of the night, and I noticed what appeared to be two people having sex in the bushes, I would assume that the sex was consensual, and I’d move along. The cyclists had to have stopped and investigated. Or else maybe the guy ran away when they came by, and it was then obvious that the woman was unconscious.
I was walking along the Tiburon bike path in Nor Cal on a rainy day. There was this large bush that was carved just off the path and inside was a man and woman doing it. This was a very public place on most days. I guess because it was raining the couple thought they were safe. I like to walk in the rain.
Anyway…I kept walking and about 5 minutes later, it occured to me, what if what I saw was a rape? I walked back and the couple was gone.
I really don’t think there was a rape. I am 99 percent sure.
Answer: Teenagers who, from age 12, grew up with internet porn, which shows exactly that.
Freedom is great (and the Internet is probably the most expansive of its uses), but without corrective guidance, some things become the norm if not told they are wrong.
In my day, Playboy and Penthouse were nothing compared to this stuff now. Those magazines made young males curious in an almost blushing sort of way. Porn, in contrast, makes both males and females want to role play what they actually see - that is very different and has potentially greater negative effects.
And in the case of rape, there are entire genres of porn dictated to just that - so I can see where the issue becomes not just psychopathic behavior, but learned behavior that reinforces and promotes the psychopathic tendencies.
I forgot exactly who said it, pretty sure it was @hunt, “This is a complex problem.” No doubt.
