Also, I should say that people around here surmise that the young woman in #233 thought the attacker was a friend of her older brother’s. I don’t know why we think that, actually, since there is no way of knowing. Perhaps that is what her brother thought. The attacker might have represented himself as a maintenance man, or something else.
@QuantMech re: #232 , if she was experiencing flashbacks, I would question her ability to consent. One of my daughters suffers from delusions, and flashbacks of those delusions. If this victim was in the midst of a flashback, the person to whom she had previously consented should have known to stop, because it that kind of mental state, she would no longer be in a position to affirmatively consent. Yes, the possibility does muddy the waters, but it doesn’t muddy them that much for me. The case of the young woman who carried the mattress around campus - she seemed to firmly believe her accusations, yet I feel there would have been at least a few other students who rallied around her if there had been a preponderance of evidence. It makes me wonder if she might have been delusional, but due to FERPA the school can’t disclose anything to justify their ruling. If that is the case, I would greatly respect the young man who wasn’t constrained by FERPA, but who kept his mouth shut (though the school could have made it clear that they would sanction him if he did so).
@northwesty I support teaching people self preservation, especially in a culture that has historically placed the blame on victims. This culture can not be changed overnight and tools to keep yourself safe are in one’s best interest. Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment doesn’t happen because the victim failed to keep them self safe. It happens because the perpetrator decided to assault the victim. Period.
The goalposts have been moved. What was once “acceptable” behavior (and is sadly still acceptable by some) is now rightfully seen as criminal, or at the least, punishable by various institutions. We need to keep pushing to change the behaviors of the potential assaulters.
@QuantMech-I just don’t see the connection between saying there needs to be some evidence outside of misconduct to mean that every man gets one free rape. If you believe that is what I said/meant then I can’t stop you from believing it. I do not see where requiring evidence means every man gets a freebie. For any accusation of misconduct there needs to be some evidence of that misconduct. I can point a finger at anyone and say anything about them. That does not make my statement true.
The Brock Turner case is not a good one to use as an example because there was other evidence besides the accuser’s statement. He would have been convicted or found liable under any of the evidentiary standards being discussed here. For me the biggest issue in that case is the stunning disconnect between the sentence and the crime.
For those of you standing in the ever shortening line supporting this system, hopefully this will give you some pause.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/laura-kipniss-endless-trial-by-title-ix
“It would be nice if I could rely on Hanna’s statement about its serving as evidence, but I am inclined to be skeptical”
You know, I’m the only person in the conversation who’s been posting here using my real name and real picture for over ten years. I have always extended the benefit of the doubt to personal observations asserted by anonymous posters who may be Russian bots for all I know. If I don’t get the same respect in return, I think it’s time that we end our conversation, QM.
“We need to keep pushing to change the behaviors of the potential assaulters.”
Sure. But there’s only so much resources and only so many hours in the day. I’d like my daughter’s school to do stuff that actually keeps her safer in reality. Evidence seems to show that training bystanders and potential victims does the most good. So I want them to do that.
Fine with me if they find the money for those programs, if needed, by dialing back the size of their bloated faux court system run by the title ix office. Which is going to fail to convict most of the time anyway.
I am sorry, Hanna! I did not mean that I did not trust you, or that you were not stating things as you saw them. The reason that I don’t think we can rely on your statement that an emotional state can be convincing evidence is that momofthreeboys, among others, is not convinced by it. This has nothing to do with my level of respect for you. To rely on it, I would have to be assured of it, not just in the set of cases you have seen with the set of adjudicators about whom you have information. If you had brought that argument to a panel with momofthreeboys on it (or others who think as she does), then it would have gone nowhere.
I think you posted recently that you rejected a certain fraction of those who appealed to you for help. In any event, my respect for you or a different person who posted that has increased.
When it comes to the flashback scenario that you suggested on a previous thread, I think it is great thinking on the part of a person representing the accused. However, at the same time, I think that it is disrespectful of the accuser, who may be 100% accurate in recollection of who did what.
Here is the situation, for those who did not read the earlier thread:
Actual situation:
Woman is assaulted.
Woman subsequently develops PTSD.
Hanna’s scenario to get the attacker off (If you did not post this on the other thread, Hanna, I apologize sincerely. But may recollection is that this is what you suggested). The actual attacker is person #2 in this scenario:
What might have happened according to the hypothetical scenario is:
Woman was assaulted by an unknown person, #1.
Woman had consensual sex with person #2.
Woman subsequently believes that person #2 assaulted her.
I can’t actually remember whether it was suggested that the woman had a flashback in the midst of consensual intercourse. Perhaps?
The fact that the woman developed PTSD in the aftermath of intercourse with person #2 does not prove that person #2 assaulted her.
It could happen as Hanna had suggested. It is enough to raise reasonable doubt, I think. So for me at least, it would work effectively as a defense of person #2. But if developing PTSD in the aftermath of an assault is not enough to be convincing, how could a simpler (depressed) emotional state carry much weight?
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/166252
http://signsjournal.org/unwanted-advances/
Reactions to Laura Kipnes
My own emotional state is rather raw right now, due to the emotions stirred up by posting about the rape/murder of a young woman who was a fellow church member (even though this happened about a decade ago now), the more recent experience of the student who was accused of defamation, and a number of other situations that I have learned about over time. So if my writing lacks humor entirely and lacks a few of the logical steps I would usually put in, that is because I am distraught about this particular topic and not because I am a Russian bot! Also, I am worried about the changes that Betsy DeVos may suggest and in fact implement, at the same time that I am utterly committed to fairness for all–and that creates a lot of emotional dissonance.
One more comment with regard to ProudPatriot’s post–obviously, I did not mean to suggest that a person who rapes someone would always get away with it, in your view, ProudPatriot. I am sorry to have given that mistaken impression, and apologize about that.
I compressed things in the interests of brevity. I meant that if a single accuser is never enough, a person could get away with rape the first time, in the absence of compelling evidence–which is often hard to come by. Filling in the details, what I meant was:
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A large number of rapes occur in private, with no witnesses and no video recording.
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Evidence based on later reactions of the people may be sketchy: For example, a woman who thinks she was raped is probably going to avoid the rapist to the full extent possible. I do not know of anyone who sent an accusatory text to a rapist, or made an angry telephone call, or sent a blistering email, or posted on Facebook about it. That would not really prove anything, in any event. If the woman can help it, she will never see the man later on, so there will be no evidence about how they subsequently interacted. It’s unlikely that the man is going to approach the woman (though that might happen, I suppose). If the woman is upset, even to the point of developing PTSD, that is not 100% convincing that any particular man was her assailant (according to the post that I believe was Hanna’s about PTSD on another thread on CC).
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So in this situation, all there will be is one person’s accusation. That’s not enough, according to you. The man will get away with it.
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I have to say, it is probably not going to be enough in my view, either. I think you would have to look pretty hard to find a case where someone was convicted of rape based on a single person’s testimony with no hard evidence. It is very unlikely that such a case would even come to trial. I would have found subsequent PTSD convincing as evidence, but Hanna (I think it was she) found a way to argue around that on a different thread. This is where the standard of proof would matter a lot, in my opinion.
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To add to that, I think that if a man only attacks women in private, without witnesses, and does not take anything belonging to the women, he might get away with multiple attacks. It could be suggested that the women know each other, and there is some kind of vengeful collusion, because the man has jilted several women. There are a lot of possibilities that could be advanced. Real proof is hard to come by.
This is why I would like to have some fair mechanism to stop serial rapists on campus–to have them expelled. This is also why I don’t exactly know how to accomplish that. Multiple accusers with non-compiling evidence in each individual case probably would not suffice. It is possible that the accusers are in collusion. How would one know, or prove that they are not?
My point about Brock Turner’s case was that he did not get away with it, because there were two witnesses, and they restrained him. If he had acted in private, I think he would quite probably have gotten away with it.
Well, reading about Laura Kipnis’s book did nothing to calm me down, alh! :). Thank you for posting that link, though.
Post #249, I meant “non-compelling,” not “non-compiling.” Sorry, that typo does affect the meaning.
“My point about Brock Turner’s case was that he did not get away with it, because there were two witnesses, and they restrained him. If he had acted in private, I think he would quite probably have gotten away with it.”
Yup. Turner testified he had no memory of the events due to intoxication. Victim was blacked out and unconscious (BAC 0.24). That’s not impossible to prosecute, but pretty close.
Turner likely only got caught because he was so massively drunk (0.17) that he was acting (in terms of being a perp) idiotically. At a lower BAC, he either doesn’t do it or does it in a way so that he is not detected. Being stupid drunk isn’t (and shouldn’t be) an excuse. But it sure is an explanation and a causal factor.
She is also on record as stating in her colleges days “hooking up with professors was part of the curriculum.” Peter Ludlows’ problems stem from that very habit. How about this quote from her to make your temperature rise?
Also, if you really need a visual, Hanna, I look like a less attractive version of Emmy Noether, shown here: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emmy-Noether
The student-faculty commentary by Kipnis is . . . um . . . I can’t find the right word.
But I recollected: I have my great aunt’s diary from time that she spent at Columbia Teacher’s College, early in the 20th century. She was doing very well in multiple classes, but she was having trouble with one language class. She went to see the professor in his office. Nothing at all happened, except that he told her that how well she was doing in her other classes had no bearing on how she was doing in his class, and she needed to study harder. Later, her mother berated her in a letter for the “risky behavior” of going to see a faculty member in his office. Really, her mother was outraged about it.
Also, I recollected: A neighbor’s daughter was taking a moderately difficult class, and went to see the professor for help during office hours. The professor commented to her that he had several women students in the past who had received A’s in the class, without taking a single exam. The neighbor’s daughter thought she that understood the implications pretty well, but she said, “Well, I don’t see how that is possible,” and made a few similar, apparently clueless remarks. I don’t think the faculty member actually said explicitly what he had in mind. She reported this to her mother, who called the President’s Office at the university, and said, “I didn’t know whether to call you or to call the police.” This tends to be a very attention-grabbing opening line. I don’t know everything that transpired subsequently–just that the young woman passed the class, and probably did not get an A.
Which is why it is of the utmost importance to change law through appropriate channels. And why the use of executive orders to implement change is risky business for a president because once that administration is gone, those orders can be voided. I have limited belief that unis and colleges will succeed or will even want to potentially limit their appeal to a broad base of students by re-characterizing non criminal behaviors into behaviors egregious enough to command expulsion - maybe but I doubt it. Colleges with restrictive policies around sex and alcohol have limited appeal and they are currently available coast to coast for students who want that degree of intervention and oversight by their institutions. Whether they adhere to the restrictive, narrowly define behaviors without the fear of federal withdrawal of financial aid is another question. But I don’t recall specifics in the Dear College letter that even attempted to categorize one behavior vs another outside of what is generally known as criminal. I think the universities did that all by themselves.
As far as changing behavior there is evidence that it works - in this case thought the evidence needs to be on “risky behavior” as opposed to attempting to focus on one segment of the college population… a good example are the anti-smoking campaigns and the drunk driving campaigns…while clearly the “idea” was to prevent a population of people from smoking or to prevent a population from driving drunk, the idea was to drive change throughout the entire population targeting the messaging to everyone - to increase peer pressure not to drink and drive or to smoke, to build awareness, to stigmatize bad behavior. I truly think people are missing the boat if they think educating only women about risky behavior or only educating men about risky behavior will have limited success…some but not to the potential a more generally targeted effort around risky behaviors, peer pressures, bystander intervention would yield.
momofthreeboys, I can agree with a lot of what you have said in post #255. However, I think it needs to be said also that forcing a woman to have intercourse without her consent is not just “risky,” it is actually wrong.
A couple of links about the defamation case:
And about Professor Ludlow:
I’ve been trying to follow all this for a while. There is so much going on.
Clearly “how” kids express “consent” is not working - all could use alittle education. The entire concept of that is legally ambiguous and even to most aged adults the concept is ambiguous - is it verbal, it it continued affection, is it pulling off the others clothing…all of this is fine and dandy to discuss on an intellectual level, but rules and laws and such need to work in reality, not theory. I could totally, absolutely conceptually believe a guy if he said he thought he had consent…especially if it was a woman he had an on-going sexual relationship with and she never said “not now honey I have a headache” or anything to express “no not now.” I can’t imagine most people wouldn’t take the lack of no to mean an OK go ahead.
You believe that many students bring rape or sexual assault accusations because “OMG I was wearing beer goggles and may very well wish they never would see their bed partner again?”
Anyone who thinks that is a logical conclusion seems to me to have an entrenched, predetermined POV on this issue. The obvious contradiction of “I wish I never would see you again, so I’m going to open up a rape/sexual assault case” beggars logic.
I’m going to step out of this discussion as it is clear there are some archaic and perverse attitudes at work here.
I certainly hope (but have 0 confidence) that DeVos and her administration are sincere that they are going to find a better system to deal with rape and sexual assault on campus. But simply rolling things back to the “old days” of Baylor and Kansas and the dozens, if not hundreds, of verified or credible claims of rape that were swept under the rug, not investigated fully or otherwise compromised or dismissed by schools is not doing anyone any good either.
It will be fantastic if they can find a system that provides adequate due process for the accussed and adequate justice for the accuser, but statistics on the number of “rape kits” that sit molding across the United States, and the attitudes exhibited by DeVos’ adminstration and others, does not fill me with optimism.