<p>As long as alumni like this remain a part of rape culture, this problem will continue. I much prefer the university systems where the alumni are getting together and saying no more rape. Go to the police. Get a rape kit.</p>
<p>The best thing to come out of the recent media attention and DOJ attention to the prodigious risk of rape on college campuses is the willingness of the women themselves to come forward and their refusal to be silenced and shamed, Oh, excuse me, “shielded.”</p>
<p>Until the male alumni begin to state the unacceptability of this behavior, until the administrations stop protecting the rapists, recent research indicates that 90% of all “nonconsensual” sex :rolleyes: is perpetrated by 4-6% of perpetrators. In other words, it is a small number of repeat offenders, not a wide array of “mistakes” which lead to acquaintance rapes being common on campus.</p>
<p>In other words, it is the administrators protecting the rapists that lead to more rapes.</p>
<p>I’m with poetgrl but raising boys. Frankly the behavior of many young women benefits the boys who have very little inclination to put in much effort and I just don’t understand why some girls engage in that type of behavior. These young women “think” they have the power but the reality is the boys have all the power. Good for you poetgrl, if I WAS raising girls I’d adopt your line of thought</p>
<p>Ditto!</p>
<p>It saddens me that some girls cheapen themselves by being “too available”, “too needy”, and “too easy”. Men are wired to treasure what takes some effort.</p>
<p>While we’re only getting the lawsuit plaintiff’s account, if what he alleges is true, the lack of due process procedures and disparities in power dynamics* involved are troubling. </p>
<ul>
<li>Lack of due process for the accused vis a vis faculty judicial board whose decisions are final and the fact his accuser is a child of a longtime faculty member.</li>
</ul>
<p>*I’m with poetgrl but raising boys. Frankly the behavior of many young women benefits the boys who have very little inclination to put in much effort and I just don’t understand why some girls engage in that type of behavior. These young women “think” they have the power but the reality is the boys have all the power. Good for you poetgrl, if I WAS raising girls I’d adopt your line of thought *</p>
<p>I’m confused. What does this have to do with rape?</p>
<p>poetgirl, I can’t tell you how much I resent being cavalierly called “part of the rape culture.” That is completely unjustified. My observation, which I believe is accurate, and was offered against a chorus of people saying that women who have been raped should go immediately to the police, not college administrators, is that women who have been raped in these particular circumstances are not more likely to get vindication from the police and prosecutors than from college administrators. College administrators have an interest in doing something about date-rape (which is what some, but not necessarily all, of these cases may have been). The police, not so much, and prosecutors not at all. (I have talked to people – intelligent, feminist, female people – who have been on rape juries. I suspect it would be next to impossible to obtain a rape conviction in a date-rape scenario under our current justice system. I am not aware of anyone trying to bring such cases.)</p>
<p>The Yale report, cryptic as it is, shows that different cases were being treated differently, even if you couldn’t tell what the differences were. Some of the students accused were merely reprimanded and told to get counseling. Others were suspended, or placed on formal probation. Some were ordered not to have further contact with the accuser, others not, and people who violated such orders were being punished. For better or worse, someone was making judgments about an appropriate response based on the facts of each case. It is a bad idea to leap to the conclusion that those judgments were systematically wrong and corrupt.</p>
<p>By the way, the report indicates only one case where the committee decided that the accusation was not supported by the evidence. What was happening here was not that the women were not being believed. And there is no indication anywhere whether the 20 or 30 women whose cases were dealt with in the report period felt that they had not gotten appropriate support and relief.</p>
<p>One other point. If you are right that a small group of men are responsible for most of the date rape, a procedure like Yale’s should identify them very quickly, since the process funnels cases to a single committee. I think I remember the report including only one recidivist, who was suspended. In general, however, if what you really want to do is to identify serial abusers and to isolate them, a system like Yale’s (or like most colleges’) where it is relatively easy to come forward in part because the consequences (good or bad) of coming forward are modest may well be more effective than a police-based system, where coming forward means you are entering a drawn-out, awful process where either your life gets destroyed or your attacker’s life does, or sometimes both. You best identify the problem group by maximizing reports, and I suspect a low-impact system maximizes reports.</p>
<p>I agree that prosecutors and police are usually quite uninterested in cases of campus sexual assault. I don’t think that’s relevant to the question of whether a university disciplined a student properly. </p>
<p>It’s really hard for me to imagine a nonconsensual sexual act so minor that the appropriate punishment would be a written reprimand. What would that be – a kiss? I wonder if these are compromise judgments where some on the committee thought that the evidence was insufficient, but agreed to vote to “convict” if the punishment was slight.</p>
<p>The big question the report leaves open is whether any respondents turned up in more than one complaint. I’d really like to know that.</p>
<p>It may well be that the police and the local DA will not pursue a case in the event of date rape. But it’s a crime. And should be treated as such by real police. Who keep records.</p>
<p>Separate is the issue of the perpetrator’s suitability to remain on campus.</p>
<p>Crimes get reported to police. Period. They may or may not take further action. Prosecutors may or may not prosecute. But if they see a pattern of behavior (which is what the Yale criminals, and similar everywhere else are engaged in), sooner or later they may take action. In the meantime, it also makes civil actions that much more possible, against both the university criminals, and their criminal protectors.</p>
<p>13% of married women are victims of rape by a current husband. </p>
<p>I’d hate to be on the college disciplinary committee investigating a charge when the two students had been going out over time before the event alleged to be “non-consensual.”</p>
<p>Since this represents the adult experience, I think that determining what is “non-consensual” must be a nightmare where partying college students are involved.</p>
<p>This seems like a company store situation at Yale. Campus security IS the police at Yale, or it seems so from reading the comments under the Jezebel article. New Haven police do not have jurisdiction over Yale campus areas. Is it possible to bypass Yale when seeking justice for on-campus sex crimes?</p>
<p>The police keep records . . . to which no one has access, and which are not admissible for any purpose in the absence of a prosecution and conviction. So it doesn’t do a whole lot of good to rely on the police keeping records to deal with serial date-rapists.</p>
<p>Essentially, what you are hoping is that enough women report date-rapes by a single individual to the police so that some feminist police officers who have not done so in the past decide to investigate him, and some prosecutor decides to take an absurd career risk in prosecuting, in a situation where some of the prior victims may no longer be around and willing to testify. Oh, and by this time the offender himself is a couple months away from leaving town forever. Making something meaningful happen in that context is a complete pipe dream.</p>
<p>University administrators may not be able to send anyone to jail, but they do have a real incentive to clean up their campuses. Why not give them as much information as possible and let them work?</p>
<p>Hanna, I agree with you that it’s hard to imagine the nonconsensual sex act so minor that it merits only a reprimand, but I think it may depend on the context of the consensual sexual activity that was going on. Obviously, if a couple is kissing, and then one of them is forced to have sex, that’s rape, plain and simple. However, if a couple is having consensual oral sex, and one of them fails to withdraw before ejaculating, notwithstanding a prior agreement to do so, that’s both very rude and a nonconsensual
sex act, but I am not so comfortable calling it rape or throwing the offender in prison.</p>
<p>And for what it’s worth, I think the report identified prior offenders (of which there were not many).</p>
<p>*University administrators may not be able to send anyone to jail, but they do have a real incentive to clean up their campuses. Why not give them as much information as possible and let them work? * </p>
<p>Because thus far, when given the chance, campus administrators have failed miserably. Time and time again. One would think they’d have a “real incentive” to clean up their campuses, but they continually choose covering their collective asses and the rep of their university over the safety of their students and the prosecution of rapists.</p>
<p>" So it doesn’t do a whole lot of good to rely on the police keeping records to deal with serial date-rapists."</p>
<p>First of all, they aren’t “date” rapists. They are rapists. Secondly, good investigators see patterns. </p>
<p>Williams managed to expel six criminals. I find it very, very difficult to believe that Yale (or any larger school with a similar population) doesn’t have more than that. And, no, the incentive is clearly NOT to clean up the campus - 'cause first you have to admit you’ve admitted a bunch of criminals to begin with.</p>
<p>*13% of married women are victims of rape by a current husband. *</p>
<p>Although this seems shocking, I know this sort of thing happens…maybe not often “violently” but non-consensual in the true sense (feeling pressured, etc).</p>
<p>A friend of mine shocked me once when she said that she once woke up to find her H having sex with her. (Stupid me couldn’t figure that out at first). Certainly, that was rape, since it wasn’t consensual. However, he (and maybe some other men) might not think that is rape since they aren’t “being a bully” or using a weapon or something. They probably think it’s along the lines of kissing a spouse on the forehead while they’re sleeping.</p>
<p>Aren’t we all wired this way, regardless of gender? This discussion seems to be taking a misogynistic turn against men. </p>
<p>This article is about choices women have made. As far as the men are concerned, isn’t it possible that they understand that the same women who may not want a relationship now may be “worthy” of one and may want one in a different context or at a different time, not that they are intrinsically “easy”?</p>
<p>I also have to laugh at one poster’s suggestion that it’s fine to casually date younger men when in your 30’s or 40’s because that’s a “lifestyle choice”, but hooking up as a college student is a sign of low esteem.</p>
<p>Poetgrl owes the member she slandered in post #241 an apology.</p>
<p>Since the alleged perpetrator and victim were often both drunk, reducing binge drinking will reduce the incidence of alleged and actual sexual assault. Dartmouth seems to have had some success recently.</p>
<p>You’re “not comfortable” because it would be utterly unjust. Since when did men attain such fine control over such things? If you don’t want Y to happen, don’t engage in activity X which always precedes Y.</p>