<p>Don’t quite know what to make of it. There have been recent publicized “racial” incidents at Williams, Princeton, and Tufts. On the other hand, the Middlebury powers-that-be must have known the impact this was going to have on their public image (and their ability to recruit minority students) and still felt the evidence was strong enough for them to proceed. So I don’t want to condemn them out of hand. </p>
<p>It is a horrendous situation. I think that in a case where the outcome is so serious, there should be a venue to take the case to a real courtroom, since breaking and entering is an offense. It is hard to say from the article what evidence Middlebury has, since it is clearly written on the side of the young man. I hope it gets straightened out. I have a bad feeling that the school wanted to send a strong message as how seriously they consider the trespassing and was less concerned as to whether they got the wrong person or not. If that is the case, they deserve to be sued and get assessed enormous damages, in my opinion. But for them to take this stance also seems to me that there is much evidence that they are not discussing.</p>
<p>I would never condemn an institution based on a single incident that was reported in a very biased publication. I would definitely want to hear both sides of the story before passing judgement.</p>
<p>That story sounds very troubling. It appeared to be a case with way too thin evidence and even framing, though we can’t hear what came up in hearings. It is troubling when it is not in a court of law. The kid had no prior disciplinary problems. The case did not sound compelling at all to warrant being kicked out of the college. It is very hard to say without hearing the parts the college is saying aren’t being made public. Unless this kid did something terribly aggregious, it seems like such a shame that this action was taken. The program under which he was enrolled in the first place and apparently doing well and going to graduate, now has turned into a terrible ordeal for what appears to be a promising kid who was given a chance at a very bright future. I hope he finds a way to move on. The way this story is presented, appears that the student making the claim did not have reliable evidence and was even drunk at the time and originally fingered other students. Based on the little being told in the article, I can’t see why HE was believeable. The whole situation sounds awful. I live in Vermont and never heard this story, believe it or not. </p>
There has to be more to this story than meets the eye, and the college is foolish if they don’t make the details public. Schools like Middlebury work too hard to attract qualified black applicants who are willing to live in the great, white, frozen North for them to jettison one for other than a serious infraction. Seriously…are we to believe that Middlebury, which touts itself as having produced the first African-American college graduate, is railroading this kid because he’s black? Something’s fishy, but The Middlebury “Incident”–as in “Ox-bow”–it is likely not. It’s very sad, though.</p>
<p>I think you are right, Driver. Without hearing the details from the college’s end of this ordeal (enough to throw a kid out of college with no prior incidents on record), the story as written makes the college not look so good and appear that the kid was fingered without clear and compelling evidence. The way it is written might make another African American student wary of attending if some white kid, while drunk, fingers several different Black kids in a face book, then oops, not the right one, sees another Black kid on campus so He must be the one…kind of reasoning …This might make an African Amercian student pause and wonder. But then again, we only are reading this one sided version but it does sound like many students on campus were supporting this Black student and the part in the article really does appear unjust. And without a college explaining further, than this slant to the story really does not look good for them. </p>
<p>Just hearing he crashed in the wrong room and that the room had belonged to another student up until that point adds other elements that make it not cut and dried. Same with the accuser not being able to finger point the right kid from the get go. The part we are hearing makes the action taken against the Black student look overly harsh and there is nothing on the other side being said to counter that which leaves, therefore, this bad “taste” of possible injustice or harshness given the circumstances. If I were Middlebury, I would not be too thrilled to have articles with this slant out there without having the other side counter it. The public is only reading this side and it does not look pretty. I’d like to think Middlebury’s “side” is compelling (one would THINK it would be) but we just have no way of telling.
Susan</p>
<p>Barrons, despite the source, how do you account for the many supporters of this minority student on campus? And parents of other students going to bat for him? If his case was cut and dried and aggregious and compelling, I’m not so sure such support would have been so prevailing. That is why it is hard to get a true understanding of this because it is not like this African American boy is complaining on his own but others on campus are also up in arms over it. Without hearing the counter version, the facts shared so far don’t look pretty. That would be true no matter the journal it was written in. Ideally, both sides should be presented. But the side they presented so far in the story included some FACTS and those facts sound troubling (but of course we don’t have ALL the facts, that is the problem).
Susan</p>
Well-meaning ignorance. Think Mumia supporters. In fact, it belies that one student’s comment about apathetic, rich white kids (who presumably don’t care a fig about their black fellow-students).</p>
<p>Do a google search on the author. I would tend to agree with Barrons. </p>
<p>It appears that the author ( an extremely liberal biased African American woman) appears to make a living on publishing controversial and sensational pieces on controversial and sensational issues, often without complete “documentation”. Favorite subjects appear to be racial issues, prostitution, and gender issues.</p>
<p>Maybe Middlebury does not feel the need to respond because they are familiar with the author’s history and background, and are not in any way threatened by the article.</p>
<p>It’s just hard to know - I can imagine scenarios whereby Middlebury looks either better or worse than appears in the story. Better, as in there is corroborating evidence (though for what, exactly? see below). Worse, as in the white student is the son of a rich lawyer who threatened to sue (or have his rich uncle cut the college off.)</p>
<p>Expelled because one (potentially drunken) guy crashed on the floor in another drunken guy’s room? I mean, that’s the only charge, according to Middlebury.</p>
Agreed, which is why it doesn’t pass the smell test. Something else happened too, and there may be many reasons for not releasing all the details, including some redounding to the benefit of the expelled student(i.e.there may well be things he wouldn’t want revealed). I wouldn’t make an Oliver Stone movie out of it though (not that I think you’re doing that, Mini). As bad as this is for the alleged perp, it’s terrible PR for Middlebury, and this has to be agonizing for the administration as well.</p>
<p>It seems to me that Middlebury is concerned about the string of incidents. They cannot grab everyone involved in those “break in/trespassing” incidents, but they were watching to catch someone. Usually these things are not in isolation, at least in my experience.</p>
<p>My son was punished severely for some dumb, minor transgression that made no sense to me. I went to the school and demanded an explanaton. There was none, and the punishment was rescinded, but I had a bad feeling that something was not right. Years later I found out that he had been involved in a series of incidents with a number of kids, and they could not catch any of them. So when this minor flag (which should not even have been an issue) came up, they threw the book at him. That I became involved quelched that, and to this day, I dont think the school handled this properly; they were wrong and were made to look foolish. But there was another agenda there. I think that is the case in this Middlebury incident. If the student is indeed innocent of the charges for the specific incident charged, I hope the school has to answer for this, because I feel strongly that even private schools should follow some tenets of the law and burden of proof. But I know that traditionally, many of them have operated outside of the law, in fact, that his more the case than the exception. Sometimes it is to the advantage of the student; sometimes not.</p>
<p>I am enough of a historian to think that there are probably FEWER incidents like this than there have been in the past, or at least I would like to believe so. I guess I am more attuned to them with a d. in college, and another not too far away.</p>
<p>But perspective is necessary. Yesterday, D. went to the war crimes museum in Phnom Penh, and then out to one of the “killing fields”. It makes these things look awfully small.</p>
<p>Driver, I don’t understand your question. Many colleges and private highschools operate independently from the courts. Many will have their own judiciary processes as Middlebury has done in this case, regarding incidents. Sometimes it involves drug cases that could well be dismissed in a court of law or be a serious issue. Many times the kids and the families would prefer to take their chances with the school since involving the court of law can be an expensive and long, drawn out process. But sometimes, the schools’ justice process can be harsher addressing issues that a real court would not touch. </p>
<p>Many times when you go to a private school, you are signing off on their judicial system which is somewhat explained in the school handbook that generally has a fail safe clause that says they can do nearly anything they want to do unless the outside authorities insist on getting involved (usually at the felony level). In my opinion, these very liberal schools that so often advocate victim rights and other policies are stingy with these same rights when it comes to their own judical processes. Kids are expelled or questioned about things that fall under the protection of the law in many cases. There is often no due process. It is often a kangaroo court of sorts. The whole purpose of their system is to protect the school as a whole and is not particularly strong on individual rights or process. Sometimes the outcome is much less severe for the student, when it suits the school; sometimes it is a legal travesty. Sometimes the outside courts intervene. We have seen some of this in rape cases involving athletes. Sometimes the drug deals get out of hand and the local authorities need to get involved. But having dealt with these private instituiton for most of my live, I am not impressed with the their judicial system. They rely strongly on their fail safe language to do what they danged well please in many cases.</p>
<p>Mini, the world has always been nasty, but I don’t think we should read too much into isolated incidents on college campuses. The Princeton guy, if what is alleged is true, is a psychotic pervert who has a sick sexual hangup about Asian girls. The other two incidents, we don’t even know who the perps were. They may not even have been students. We don’t know. I think we should be careful when making sweeping judgments about white college students, just as we should when historically oppressed minorities are accused of wrongdoing.</p>
<p>Jamimom
I understand your point now. The phrase you used implied illegality to me, but I now see that wasn’t what you meant.</p>
<p>It skirts illegality at times. There have been times when the “real life” courts and system have stepped into the picture and shaken their collective fingers or worse to these private institutions operating under their own rules. But most of the time they let it go. They really do not want to be dragging every intoxicated under-21 year old in front of the courts, so they let the university or schools take care of what happens in and around their premises. Just look at the campus crime sheets and you will see that most of the time, the campus police and judiciary systems take care of the transgressions. Usually they are more generous and cheaper than going to the outside courts, so no one says anything. But sometimes the kangaroo court gets too outrageous or the crime is of enough interest to the outside community that the courts need to get involved.</p>